Neri's Curbside Cravings

We were so excited when we received an invitation to one of my friend's daughter, Natalie's, 5th birthday party today. We were stoked to hear that a food truck was going to cater the food. And my daughter was even more excited to hear that the party will be held at a park with a Tangled theme.

Neri's Curbside Cravings is another Filipino food truck mixing fusion and tradition into their menu. They have a good menu of Filipino favorites such as Tocino, Tapa, and Pork Barbecue, as well as Asian favorites such as Chicken Teriyaki. These meats can be served the traditional way by serving it with rice. The "fusion" part of the menu is that they also serve these meats in a burger style. However you order it, your meal will come with 2 sides: either Lumpia (Filipino egg rolls) or Lobster balls (equivalent to fish balls) and Spaghetti or Pancit (Filipino noodles).

Today's menu was especially prepared for the birthday girl, Natalie. Complete with her very own customized menu.

The owner was suggesting that we order her renowned Toci Burger, which apparently received great reviews on Yelp. So I ordered the Toci Burger with Lobster balls and Spaghetti.

I can see how the Toci burger was quite popular. I love tocino. Its a favorite breakfast dish of mine, with rice and scrambled egg. But the Toci burger puts a twist on the tocino by putting it in between buns (which is a common practice among hard core Filipinos) and topping the meat with a fried egg, bell peppers, carrots, green onions and cilantro. It was quite tasty. The side dishes of spaghetti and lobster balls, I could do without. They were cold and tasted pre-made and not fresh.

We also had a dessert choice of either Ube Mamon cupcake (purple yam sponge cupcake) or Halo Halo. Halo Halo (which literally translates to "mix-mix") is a popular iced dessert. Its a concoction of ingredients such as sweet beans, shredded young coconut, purple yam or flan (to name a few), mixed together with shaved ice and sweetened milk. I was never a huge fan of Halo Halo, so I opted to order the cupcake.

I wasn't all that impressed with the cupcake. It was pretty dry. I thought the frosting, which is my favorite part of the cupcake, would make up for it. But it didn't. I should've just waited to eat dessert from birthday cake.

Even though I liked the Toci burger, I'm not impressed with the service they provided. They were quite slow in serving their food. Many of the guests were complaining about how it took too long to get their food. The owner tried to justify the fact that the burgers usually take longer because they had to be assembled, as opposed to the rice plates where they just threw things on the plate. I haven't experienced too many food trucks, but the ones that I have tried where the lines are super long, like the ever-popular Kogi BBQ truck, usually had their food ready to serve within a few minutes. Maybe because these faster trucks had 2 people cooking and another person taking the orders. Neri was the only one cooking and had just one other person taking the orders.

I gotta hand it to them though, and all the other Filipino fusion trucks out there. They are trying to teach others to learn to love Filipino cuisine without losing the traditional flavors.

First Annual Valley Food Truck Festival @WhollyRollers

Its Friday night. What to do, what to do?

I've been dying to go to a food truck festival that have been popping up all over the Los Angeles County area lately. Unfortunately they are all too far away. Enter the First Annual Valley Food Truck Festival. Finally a food truck festival in my own backyard.

So where do I start??? Hubby, daughter, bro, sis and I had a plan of action. We each had to try out a different truck so that we can try different types of food.

My brother, of course, went for the White Rabbit truck. His favorite. I actually heard about this event from the White Rabbit truck website.

They advertised that they were going to feature their limited Red Velvet Flan. Sounds interesting. So my brother bought us some to try. Its a red velvet cake topped with flan. Its a spin-off to a Filipino dessert called the Custard cake, which I had been planning on making sometime next week. I guess this will get me in the mood to get cracking on making the custard cake.

The Red Velvet Flan was pretty good. Very sweet. I think I was the only one who really liked it. Everyone else could do without it.

My sister decided to try Tapa Boy, another Filipino truck. Unlike White Rabbit, which is a Filipino fusion truck, Tapa Boy serves traditional Filipino breakfast such as Tapsilog, Tosilog, Longsilog.

My sister decided to buy a variety of food from them. Her main meal was Tosilog, which was Tocino with a side of fried rice topped with a fried egg, a side of tomato salad and atsara (a green papaya salad). She also bought Tocino wrap and a Spam wrap, which is a spin-off to a sushi wrap. For dessert, she had different versions of a Turon, which are banana spring rolls.

Though the food was pretty good, I don't think I would pay over $6 for a Tosilog when I can get the same for about half that price at a local Filipino restaurant. I guess the convenience of Filipino food in a lunch truck is what you pay for. But its definitely not the food you pay for.

Hubby and I couldn't really decide on what to eat. Actually, it was I who couldn't decide. Hubby wanted some pastrami, and so I tagged along and went to The Place, which specializes in Pastrami.

Hubby had their Pastrami burger. I had The Place Burrito, which was a burrito with pastrami, hot dog and chili. Very heavy for my taste. So I only ate about a quarter of my burrito. I actually wanted, what I later found out to be, their Pastrami with egg burrito. Oh well. We also had a side of spicy carne asada french fries. The only bad part about our fries was that they didn't give us a fork to eat it with. Otherwise it was pretty good, and spicy.

Hubby wanted something cold and sweet on this chilly evening. So we decided to give Tango Mango Italian Ice a try.

We ordered a combination of Mango and Pineapple ice. My daughter loved it. Even though it was too cold for Italian Ice.

I was a little disappointed that The Border Grill truck didn't open for business, though their truck was there. The advertisement for this event also indicated that Cupcakes a Go Go was going to be at the event, but they weren't. So I was totally bummed about that too. I guess that's why I couldn't decide where to eat because I had my taste buds set for those trucks specifically. Well, I hope to see them at another food truck festival, if I'll even want them again.

The beginning of Filipino Fusion

There have been a lot of buzz on the popularity of food trucks lately here in LA. For me, I think it started with the birth of The Kogi Truck, but I'm sure it began much earlier than that. The economy has been hard on many businesses, including restaurants. Therefore, many establishments are closing and those owners turn to mobile food trucks as a much cheaper alternative to continue to provide their good food. They also appear at local Farmer's Markets, carnivals, and fairs in hopes of gaining customers.

Many of these trucks serve fusion foods. The Kogi Truck serves fusion Korean food by means of tacos and burritos. I recently discovered The White Rabbit Truck. The first to attempt the Filipino Fusion food circuit. We decided to chase this truck for dinner tonight because they were in the neighborhood. And apparently, many other people thought the same. This truck was a big buzz in the Filipino community because it was the first of its kind. So the sidewalk at our local Menchie's was super crowded.

Their main food is Chicken Adobo, Beefsteak, Tocino, and Sisig. For those familiar with Filipino food, these dishes are practically Filipino staples. Aside from Sisig, all filipino families have their own recipes of Adobo, Beefsteak and Tocino. The White Rabbit guys have put a twist on these Filipino staples and made them into tacos, burritos, sandwiches and the customary rice bowl.

We ordered the Adobo tacos which is chicken marinated in soy sauce and vinegar. I found this to be a little too salty for my taste.

Sisig Tacos - cooked pork meat, mixed with spicy peppers, onions, and vinegar. I found this to be the best taste of all the meats they offered.

Tocino tacos - marinated pork meat with its signature red coloring. The flavor of this tocino reminded me of the meats inside a Chinese BBQ pork bun, but a little saltier and messier.

Adobo burrito - similar meat to the tacos, but wrapped with fried rice and a fried egg. This was pretty filling and a perfect Filipino breakfast.

They also had their rice bowls with the meats. We ordered the adobo with rice for my daughter, because she just loves her rice.

To top off our meal, we ordered their White Chocolate Champorado. A warm, sweet rice dish (similar to rice pudding), Champorado is normally served for breakfast and made with cocoa powder. This was a delicious alternative that you can eat as a dessert. This was my favorite.

The overall assessment of my experience with Filipino Fusion food is......I don't think I'm ready for it. Aside from the White Chocolate champorado (which was super delicious), I'm more used to eating my Adobo, Beefesteak, Tocino and sisig with my rice. And not so salty, I might add. I think in order to make this "Fusion Filipino," they need to take the flavors of of these dishes and create a NEW dish out of it. Not just by merely taking the Chicken Adobo and slapping it on some tortillas. The only thing I think I'd be chasing the White Rabbit truck for is their White chocolate champorado. Although if I attempt to try to make it myself, I don't think I'd be chasing the truck much longer.

I commend the White Rabbit truck guys for trying to make Filipino food more mainstream. Filipino food is not as popular as our other Asian counterparts. Aside from a few other people, Filipinos are really the only ones eating Filipino foods. This truck was an attempt to reach out to different people. But I think if they tweeked their menu a little bit more, they'll be able to showcase the wonderful flavors of Filipino foods.

The pursuit is finally over....

The Kogi Korean Taco truck.......

As you may remember from my previous post, Maybe as good as the taco truck?, I was in a hot pursuit for the said truck but hadn't caught up to it. Until now.

Well, hubby is finally out of school for the summer and I wanted to figure out what we could do on his first Saturday back with my daughter and me. Most weekends were spent away from hubby during the school year because he either had to study for a quiz, midterm or final. Or he had a paper or presentation to do. So I wanted us to finally go out as a family this weekend.

We had a few errands to run in the morning and then a visit with my mother-in-law after that, so there wasn't much time left to do anything else. Well, out of the blue, I decided to check out the Kogi truck website to see where they were this week. Score! They'll be in the Silverlake area near mother-in-law's place. We'll have lunch there.

Because I knew it would be a while until we catch up to the truck again next time, I decided to order most of what's on their menu. Which isn't much.

We definitely had to order their korean chicken and short rib taco. Its what they were first known for. Hubby and I had one of each.

Additionally, I decided to have the korean short rib burrito. I couldn't finish the entire burrito, so I gave the other half for hubby to try. Delicious! Hubby really liked this one.

Hubby ordered the Blackjack Quesadilla, which we also shared. Its filled with a mix of cheese, meat and seasonings that resemble the flavors of kimchi. This one was my favorite.

The overall rating for our first experience with the Kogi truck is 4 thumbs up from me and hubby. Hubby said it was so worth the pursuit. I made a believer out of him.