An Encounter With The Comfort Truck

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One of my absolute fave LA peo­ple, Rissa, called me the other night with the news that she was about the encounter the one and only Com­fort Truck.  See what hap­pened when she met the one and only Chef Brian Hill on her quest for some com­fort food.

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Thanks to Twit­ter, I have devel­oped a mild fas­ci­na­tion with gourmet food trucks in Los Ange­les. On any given day, trucks can be found from the Val­ley to the South Bay sell­ing their tasty wares – dim sum, Korean BBQ, Indian food, burg­ers, sushi. Even pop­u­lar restau­rants and food estab­lish­ments like Sprin­kles cup­cakes, In-n-Out and Bor­der Grill are jump­ing on this mobile band­wagon. I have tracked down the Grilled Cheese Truck, twice; and hap­pened upon the Sweets Truck when I walked out of my office build­ing for a break. My ‘must try’ list has four trucks: Fry­smith (fries as a meal), Cool Haus (gourmet ice cream sand­wiches), But­ter­milk Truck (break­fast favorites) and the Com­fort Truck (slid­ers, wings and wraps). Yes­ter­day, I crossed off the Com­fort Truck from my list.

Fri­day was a par­tic­u­larly tax­ing day at work. By late after­noon, I tweeted my sen­ti­ment: I sure could use some @Com­fort­Truck right about now. Within min­utes, my tweet was re-tweeted with an invi­ta­tion to find them over the week­end. I hoped for a loca­tion close to me in the Val­ley but knew I would drive almost any­where in L.A. to give the truck a try. The event loca­tion and time revealed via Twit­ter, I made my plan to find the Com­fort Truck.

Chef Brian’s Com­fort Truck took to the road in March of this year with Brian Hill at the wheel. Hill is a for­mer Top Chef con­tes­tant and cur­rent fea­tured chef on Pri­vate Chefs of Bev­erly Hills.

Wait­ing to turn at the inter­sec­tion of National and Expo­si­tion, I was greeted by the sight of that iconic red KFC build­ing and a soon-to-be just as iconic red Com­fort Truck. To my sur­prise, and utter delight, there was no line. I parked my car and called Lys – “I am at the Com­fort Truck!” Before I could focus on the menu, I was greeted by a happy voice from within the truck “What’s up, girl?” It was Chef Brian! His smile was wide and warm even through the screen sep­a­rat­ing us. I told him how my need for the Com­fort Truck on Fri­day lead me to seek it out on Sat­ur­day. Nikki, one of his co-workers, joined him at the window.

“Wait, that was on Twit­ter, right? What’s your name?”
“Rissa. Ris­sadee on Twit­ter.”
“Yeah! I’m glad you found us.” Brian slid open the screen and gave me a fist bump. Holla!

Unfa­mil­iar with the menu and not sure what to order, I asked Chef Brian’s opin­ion. He hooked me up with BBQ chicken slid­ers, jerk beef slid­ers and an order of his infa­mous ‘crack’ tor­tilla chips with rel­ish. Before I left, Chef Brian came out from the truck to give me a hug and said “Thank you!” Holla!

I called Lys to tell my Com­fort Truck tale only to lose her in Lau­rel Canyon; but not before she could ask me to write a guest blog about my expe­ri­ence (that’s how I wound up here, in case you were won­der­ing). The food smelled deli­cious, the bag was giv­ing off heat, my mouth water­ing. I could not drive home fast enough. I pulled into my apart­ment park­ing space, grabbed a fist­ful of nap­kins from my glove com­part­ment (a neces­sity for pro­fes­sional in-car eaters) and ripped open the bag. No shame in my game!

First stop: BBQ chicken slid­ers. I’ve said this before: the sec­ond bite is my favorite. The first one, you’re just try­ing it out – the tem­per­a­ture, the tex­ture, check­ing to see if it’s a com­bi­na­tion of fla­vors you can tol­er­ate. But, the sec­ond bite? Ohh, that’s where it’s hap­pen­ing! The soft and unob­tru­sive roll, that tangy and some­what famil­iar bbq sauce, the crispy and ten­der fried chicken topped with melted moz­zarella all came together…mmm. Oh, sorry – I’m salivating.

Next stop: jerk beef slid­ers. Same soft and unob­tru­sive roll with a nicely done (inside and out!) beef patty, I got a dou­ble whammy on my sec­ond bite. That’s when the jerk sea­son­ing hit me and, to my sur­prise, a bite of pineap­ple. Aloha! What a clever and tasty pair, which may not be so sur­pris­ing to some. As a Hawai­ian, I am a firm believer in keep­ing pineap­ple off of pizza and burg­ers. I shall now recant and amend my state­ment to include only pizza.

Third and, sadly, final stop: fried tor­tilla chips and rel­ish. 1) Chef Brian’s rel­ish of corn, white beans, cilantro and sea­son­ings is a meal on its own. 2) ‘Crack’ chips are appro­pri­ately named. WOW! After one bite, I knew one bag of chips was not going to be enough for me. I kept break­ing them into smaller and smaller pieces only to make them last longer. And once they were gone, don’t think it didn’t cross my mind to drive back over there. No shame in my game.

If you’re in LA, go find Chef Brian and get your Com­fort Truck on. Holla!

*Fist bump*

You can find Rissa on Twit­ter or at Reese Rants and Raves.

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