Now This is Pizza! - @SliceTruck – Irvine, CA

One of the age long arguments between foodies has been which pizza is better, Chicago style deep dish or New York style foldable pie with a crispy crust. I have lived in southern California or Hawaii most of my life so I would typically copout and say “it depends”. That was until last night; now my new answer is “who cares, you have obviously not been to the @SliceTruck!”

Slice Truck is a Los Angeles based truck that made it’s way down to the Atomic Ballroom in Irvine this weekend. I have heard a lot of good things about the Slice Truck from people on Twitter but never really thought much about it. However whenever a LA based food truck wonders down to the OC we try to make sure to go out and support them. More gourmet food trucks in the OC is a good thing!

Sausage with Roasted Yellow Peppers and Mushroom! WOW!

Pepperoni and Cheese - Round Two! 

If you have not figured it out yet, my wife and I really liked the Slice Truck. On this visit they offered four different options and we ended up getting at least one of each. Three of the four are a more traditional New York style pizza. Each had a spectacular crust that was crispy on the bottom. The thicker part of the crust was like biting into a fresh French baguette. The sauce used on these was amazing as well. It was tomato based with a small bite of spice. In addition there was cheese and fresh basil on top.  

Grandma - Yum!

As good as those were (and they were incredible), the “Grandma” was the star of this show. The Grandma is a square pan pizza with cheese, crushed roma tomatoes, garlic and basil. This one had a thinker more buttery crust that was crunchy on the bottom while at the same time tender. We had to get two slices. In case you were wondering this was is just as good cold! Now that is a dang good piece of pizza.


We started with a piece of sausage and a grandma and because those were so good we went back and picked up the rest.  I was glad we saved some for breakfast the next morning.

The SliceTruck itself is a nice new Freightliner. Very clean and you cannot miss the glowing “OPEN” signs all the way around it. It feels like a pizzeria counter. The owner had the time to chat and was very nice. They tweet out their location and answer questions on Twitter but do not do a ton of interaction beyond that. The only bad thing about this is I hope that it does not discourage people to try them out.


If you are a pizza lover or a food truck fan you have to check out the @SliceTruck! You will not be disappointed.  

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Yes, I Really Do Like SPAM! - @KogiBBQ

Just got back from our vacation to Scotland and we really missed being able to eat at a gourmet food truck.  Today at lunch I ran over to @kogibbq Naranja in Irvine for a quick fix.  

I picked us up a few of our normal items like there kimchi quesadilla, chicken taco, tres leches, and korean short rib burrito.  I also picked up their special of the week, Daisy Dukes and Flip Flops. These are sliders with double stacked spam, kimchi, cheese, salad, and creamy coconut milk mayo.  Yes you read that correctly, there is SPAM in these sliders!  They were very good.  The ingredients all played very nicely together.  The spam and the kimchi were the big flavors while the cheese and coconut milk mayo rounded them out perfectly.  

Daisy Dukes and Flip Flops

Close up picture of the inside

These should become a regular menu item, but I hear great things about all of their specials so that would get to be huge.  


Great work Kogi team, keep it up!

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Last Stop on First Friday - @LeesPhilly - Venice, CA

This May we had the pleasure of checking out First Friday in Venice. First Friday happens every month on Abbott Kinney in Venice. Starting at the Brig parking lot and all the way down the street you will find people and gourmet food trucks. On this occasion we saw about 24 of them. The street was packed for a couple of blocks.

Our last stop of the night was at Lee's Philly. Lee's is a food truck that does philly cheesesteaks and burritos. However they offer a twist. Korean style Gogi beef and chicken stuffed into a philly or burrito. The combination may sound odd. If you have not had much Korean food then this is a great place to experiment.

Gogi Beef Philly CheeseSteak

We ordered two things, first was their philly cheesesteak with gogi beef. This was AMAZING!! I will get this again and again. It had the gogi style beef with kimchi and cheese on a fresh roll. The gogi and kimchi were perfect. However the cheese and the bread made this something I will remember for a long time.

Chicken Gogi Burrito

Then there was the chicken gogi burrito which also had egg, kimchi, cheese, beans, rice and some cabbage. Easily one the best burritos I have had. Not the best but in the top five! They also make a type of avocado spicy sauce that was the perfect compliment to the flavors in the burrito.


On top of the great food the gentleman we spoke with was super friendly despite the fact he had a large crowd and very busy. Overall if was a very good experience. We will be visiting them again!


Check out our Facebook page for more photos and discussions http://www.facebook.com/satnightfoodies

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More Tastes from LA in the OC - @pattywagonLA

You would think with all of the food trucks we have been visiting that we would start getting sick of them a bit. However that is not the case. After a long day in the sun on Saturday we had to run down to Bootlegger’s Brewery in Fullerton to check out the latest gourmet food truck coming down from LA.

We were very happy to see it was the Patty Wagon. I have heard very good things from a number of people so we had to check them out for ourselves. Their claim to fame is their 100% grass fed meat for their hamburgers. Actually I hear about their fries a lot but I am jumping ahead. They also take pride in the locally grown veggies they use with their burgers.

One thing I want to get out of the way is if you do not eat red meat then there is not a lot available for you. This is the only truck that I have seen so far that does not have any alternatives. The fries are about it. Now that I said that, if you do enjoy red meat then you are really going to like this truck. I was lucky that on this occasion we had Kim’s brother with us. Instead of trying only 2 or 3 of their sliders I was able to sample 5 of them! It was almost like winning the lottery.

"Mood Indigo"

First off was the "Mood Indigo", this one had blue cheese, caramelized onions, sautéed mushrooms, bacon and all on toasted ciabatta. This one turned out to be the perfect start. To be honest I thought it was going to go downhill from here but I was wrong. The burgers in all cases were cooked perfect. Nice and juicy with great flavors.

“I Get a Kick Out of You”

Second was their “I Get a Kick Out of You”, which has roasted jalapenos, provolone, pancetta and a touch of mayo on a toasted roll. To start off these were not your canned sliced jalapenos you get in a jar. These tasted like they were roasted that day. Add to that the crispy pancetta and this was an action packed slider.

“Keep Your Sunny Side Up”

Then it was onto the “Keep Your Sunny Side Up”. This slider was topped with their homemade gremolata (lemon, garlic, parsley butter). Simple yet delicious. The butter was a nice compliment and did not over power the burger.

“You’re My Everything”

Next was the “You’re My Everything”. It was topped with sautéed sweet peppers, onions and garlic with Swiss cheese on a toasted roll. Once again bit on flavor. One thing that was very nice was the burgers did not all taste the same. Each one had a flavor profile all it’s own.

“La Vie En Rose”

Finally it was onto their special of the day, “La Vie En Rose” which had melted gruyere cheese and onions caramelized with thyme and vermouth. Unreal! I was glad I had this last. This slider had a ton of complex flavors. The onions with the creaminess of the cheese were amazing! I wonder if they have this often. If they don't then they should!

Hand Cut Rosemary Garlic Fries

I do not want to forget the hand cut Rosemary Garlic fries, which were very good as well. These were not overly seasoned and very crispy. The sliders are the stars of the show but the fries rocked it!


If you like red meat and have a chance to try them out, do it! You will not be disappointed.

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Well Worth the Wait - @dumplingstation

Dumpling Station is another one of the trucks we visited last weekend. They serve, can you guess? Dumplings! Little pockets of love. They have a good number of items on their menu, we chose three to get good coverage.

Everything we got was very good. They cook everything to order so if they are busy be prepared to wait. When we visited them they had a pretty good crowd and we waited about 25 to 30 minutes after we ordered! However it was worth the wait. One other thing that surprised me was they were all cooked perfect. We got the impression they take pride in what they do. On top of that they were very friendly!


 Their dumplings can be ordered two ways either steamed or pan-fried (potstickers).  Here is what we ate on this visit:

Pan-Fried Chicken and Green Onion Potstickers (Cooked Perfect!)

Steamed Kimchi Pork Dumplings

Cream Cheese and Jalapeno Wontons

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I Need to Get More CRACK! – @theSweetsTruck

We were able to visit The Sweets Truck last Saturday night while in South Pasadena. Actually you caught me, we drove out to South Pasadena to visit a couple of trucks. This was our second visit to the Sweets Truck.

From the Grilled Cheese Invitational (Our first visit)

They are a little different than your normal gourmet food truck or taco truck. They are a dessert and coffee shop on wheels. They offer a number of goodies, from cookies, to cupcakes, brownie bites and other creations. You can also get coffee from them as well. I am not sure what kind of coffee they offer but it tastes like good stuff.


This night we got four treats and a coffee to satisfy our cravings. I must admit we did not eat everything that night. We visited three trucks during this occasion but that is another story. The first sweet was a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting. Yum. The cupcake itself was not too sweet and it reminded me of a ding dong because it had some of the cream cheese frosting inside of it in addition to on top. That was a nice touch. The frosting was a little sweet if eaten by itself but it complimented the cake part nicely.

Red Velvet Cupcake

Second was their little bag of brownie bites. These were much better than I expected. They were not cut up pieces but seemed like little complete square brownies. Each one had a almost gooey center, which was a very nice touch. They had a dust of powdered sugar and are very addicting. We will get these again.

Brownie Bites

Then it is on to their CRACK bar! Cookie Casa makes these. I love these!! They had two types, regular crack and mint crack. Basically they are fudge cookie bar with caramel and chocolate chips. The mint one has a mint filling vs. caramel. Both are very addicting. Be careful, you will have to go back to get more! If nothing else you have to try these.

Regular CRACK!

Left: Mint Crack - Right: Regular Crack

On our first visit last month we also tried their Red Velvet “cookie”. This one threw us off a bit to be honest. They come in two sizes regular and mini. We got the regular and it is huge! It is a red velvet sandwich of two “cookies” with frosting on the inside. The “cookie” part is what threw us off. It is more like a cake in the shape of a cookie. It had a nice flavor but it was a little hard to eat running around. I will have to try this one again now that I know what to expect.

Red Velvet "Cookie"

On this last visit we got the pleasure of meeting Molly who I believe owns the truck. Like everyone else we have met she was very nice and super friendly. Their customer service gets a big thumbs up! They are very active on Twitter and do a lot to promote themselves and other trucks in the LA area. It seems like social media is really starting to work for them and you can tell they take it seriously. It was fun tweeting back and forth with them as we made our way through the event. We are looking forward to visiting them again in the future.


BTW don’t forget to try the Crack!

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Pub Crawl or is it a Gourmet Truck Crawl? - @ComfortTruck, @FrySmith, @bootleggersbrew & @TheBruery

Last Saturday was a good food adventure day. We started out by going to Charlie’s Chili in Newport Beach for breakfast. Then it was watching all of our Twitter & Facebook peeps talking about visiting the 15 gourmet food trucks that were at the California Democratic Convention at LA Live. Unfortunately we were not able to make it to that event. To be honest we thought it would be a nightmare. Turns out we were wrong. We enjoyed all of the tweets about the great food.

As you would expect we were a bit jealous. I spent some time combing through Twitter and the Mobile Cravings website to find if there was be chance any nearby trucks that we could go check out. Turns out that there were two “LA” trucks making their way down to the OC.

First was the Comfort Truck, which was being hosted by Bootleggers Brew. The Comfort Truck is a truck that is based in LA and one of the many trucks that are on my list to check out. This is an older truck that looks to have been refurbished and it has what looks to be a very expensive paint job. You cannot miss it going down the street. The have a small menu as most trucks do but the focus here is on good comfort food. I have to say they nailed that!

They offer a variety of sliders, mostly chicken that I thought was very cool. They also had a corn salsa with seasoned flour tortilla chips they call “Crack”. That was a good name for them! We tasted three different sliders and the “crack”. Their main attraction is the Golden Fried Chicken Slider that was just killer. This one is a boneless breast that is marinated then fried. It is served with a roasted garlic aioli that is the perfect compliment. You have to get this one for sure. We also had the Sautéed Spicy Chicken Slider and the Jerk Beef Slider. These were both spot on as well. We were both super happy with the food.

Golden Fried Chicken Slides

Sautéed Spicy Chicken and Jerk Beef Sliders

Comfort Truck "Crack" with Bootlegger's Hefeweizen and Rustic Rye

The only downside was they were not as friendly as I am used to when visiting a gourmet food truck. Not rude or anything but just a little off. Now on the other hand they have been very friendly on Twitter. So I do not think this was normal for them. When is all said and done you have to check these guys out! I know we will be visiting them again soon.

Bootlegger's Brewery

In addition to great food we were at Bootlegger's Brewery, which we had never heard of before. There were a lot of people hanging out which was nice to see. We tried a couple of their beers and they were very good as well. It was very interesting to see what looks like a growing trend where breweries invite in gourmet food trucks and together leveraging social media bring a crowd together. I think it is a very good idea. One offers good food that can be changed on a weekly basis and the other offers good booze. That is a winning combination. I am hoping to see more of this in the future. After talking to the owner at Bootleggers it seems it was working out well. They have had a number of different trucks from the OC and LA.



The second stop that night was @FrySmith which was at a different brewery call The Bruery. How is that, two breweries in Orange County bringing in inviting gourmet food trucks from LA. This stop we did not try the beer, sorry @TheBruery. We will check them out next time. They had a good crowd as well so I am sure it was good. FrySmith has one of the coolest trucks I have seen. The funny part is when we got there it looked like an old funky truck from a distance. I was so wrong! Big windows so you can see what is going on. There is a lot of cooking area and along with lots of stainless steel. It looks like it is a converted truck of some sort. It was fun to watch them work.

We ordered their Chicken Sweet Potato and their special, which was a Poutine. The Poutine has Ballard Family Farms cheese curds and porcini gravy on fries. This was awesome. The cheese curds had a wonderful texture and flavor. They were generous with the curds, gravy and fries. The porcini gravy had a great mushroom flavor and pulled the whole thing together. We both liked this one a lot.

Poutine - Cheese Curds with Procini Gravy Fries

Neither of us are huge sweet potato fries fans but the Chicken Sweet Potato fries are their most popular item. The chicken is done with a tomatillo- tamarind sauce and topped with shredded cheese and chopped cashews. We were split on the chicken, I really liked it by itself but Kim was not so sure. I think it has to do with the odd combination. When you see the nuts with the shredded chicken you almost think you are going to have a more Thai influenced flavor and that was not the case. The one thing that seemed different to me on this dish was the fact that there was no sauce so the flavors did not seem to blend well together. So the jury is still out on this one. Many people rave about this combination. The sweet potato fries may have been our downfall.

Chicken Sweet Potato Fries

They also have cookies on special. This night they had two different ones. First was the Chili Chocolate with chocolate chunks and pecans. The cookie was soft and chewy with big chocolate chunks. The chili was a very nice touch. It kind of hits you after the fact. Not hot but you know it is there.

Chili Chocolate Cookie

The second cookie was the Cherry Chunk with chocolate chunks. This was perfect as well. It was soft and chewy with lots of cherries. Both cookies were awesome. You have to be sure to get to them early, as they seem to sell out fast!

Cherry Chunk Cookie

Overall the @FrySmith was good. We will go back. However I am a little concerned about how often they will have repeat customers. They have a pretty small menu. The menu has big flavors and I am looking forward to checking out their Kim chi fries. I am sure they will do well but in the long run it would be nice to see a little more. I am only saying this because it was a fun truck; they were very friendly both in person and on Twitter. Besides they do good work. I want to see them around for a long time!

It turned out to be a good night. I am really liking what I hope is a growing trend. Libations and road food, who can ask for more.

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