Rating / 2 out of 5 stars

Tam’s Burgers is one of those local curiosities — a chain of restaurants that don’t have any visibility outside a certain vicinity, but saturates a locality. We were actually looking for an In-N-Out burger, but it was early in the morning, so none were open. We ended up at Tam’s Burgers No. 27 in Huntington Park.

(Top to bottom: 1. I don’t know who Tam is, but this is his burger. 2. Crusty onion rings.)

This is what happens when you don’t plan your day properly. You end up in a shifty fast food joint that serves everything from Tex Mex to burgers. I ordered the breakfast burrito — nice and light, right? Case still had burger on her mind, so she went for that. We split some onion rings and a Coke.

(Above: Now that is a really, really big burrito.)

When our order finally arrived, we were dumbfounded. On our tray was a massive burger, a burrito the size of my arm, a bucket of coke, and an entire plate piled with a mountain of onion rings. The volume of food was ridiculous. The taste? Well, the burger and burrito were not bad — greasy — but nothing unexpected from a fast food joint. The onion rings, however, were dry  as cardboard and the breading ripped through the roof of our mouths.

We ended up abandoning half our meal — Tam’s was too much. Our entire meal came to just over $20, which we initially thought was pricey for a fast food restaurant. But, now we know why.

Perfect for: if you’re starving and have no place to go.

The Details

2850 East Slauson Avenue, Huntington Park
323.588.6400

Rating / 4 out of 5 stars

gr/eats is a casual dining spot with a pan Asian American menu that’s about as eclectic as the magazine that birthed it. As if the folks at Giant Robot weren’t busy enough putting out the magazine, opening art galleries, or running retail stores, they decided to add restaurants to their box of tricks.

(Clockwise: 1. Curry Udon 2. Asian Slaw 3. Slivers of pickled ginger.)

As big fans of Giant Robot magazine, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stop by gr/eats and sample their menu. Where else could you serve such a random assortment of dishes as shrimp fried rice, Oyako Don, fish tacos and Calpico — all with both intentional irony and authenticity at the same time?

(Top to bottom: 1. Mixed fries. 2. Teriyaki Burger.)

I started with their burger of the day, Teriyaki: a nice beef patty with greens and a gently seasoned Teriyaki sauce served on a roll. On the side, was a mix of fries: potato, banana and sweet potato in varying shapes and sizes. Case ordered the vegetarian curry udon, a hearty stew of udon noodles in a thick, Japanese curry broth generously topped with green onions.

Our meal wouldn’t be complete without dessert — and their Tempura ice cream was calling out to us. The beautiful tempura crust firmly cradles the ice cream treasure inside, a nice twist on the classic deep fried ice cream dish.

(Clockwise: 1. Tempura ice cream. 2. Wage, the patron-ugly doll of food bloggers presides over this table. 3. What it looks like when you break open Tempura ice cream.)

The decor at gr/eats is fitting of the magazine’s personality: vintage, forest green Eames seating in a bright and whimsically decorated (were those Ai Yamaguchi block painting on the walls?) school cafeteria-like space. Our meal came to just over $20, which makes this not only a tasty outing, but a surprisingly affordable one.

Perfect for: finding out how Giant Robot magazine would taste like… without eating the magazine.

The Details

2050 Sawtelle Boulevard, Los Angeles
310.478.3242
gr-eats.com

Layovers sucks. But, when that layover means spending a day in Los Angeles — well, that’s not too bad at all. We didn’t have a lot of time, and we were staying in West Los Angeles. Luckily for us there were a couple joints we really wanted to check out in that area. Unfortunately due to poor timing, we missed out on the famed Korean BBQ Truck. But our brief stint in LA has left us wanting to come back for more. In the mean time check out Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles.

Rating / 3 out of 5 stars

Nestled in a sleepy corner of the West Broadway neighbourhood, near UBC and opposite a hardware outfit, sits Coco et Olive — a rustic, French cafe serving up a fresh array of grilled sandwiches, coffee, and baked goods. A few outdoor tables and seats allow patrons to bask in the beautiful sun we’ve been blessed with this summer while enjoying an early afternoon picnic lunch.

(Top to bottom: 1. The French Picnic. 2. Cascadia.)

Vancouver has an abundance of sandwich shops, each one seemingly more generic than the next. Enter Coco et Olive, an offbeat cafe furnished, both inside and out, with mismatched garden furniture which appeared to be scavenged from randomly selected yard sales.

Equally eccentric is their selection of whimsically named grilled sandwiches assembled minimally with carefully selected ingredients and grilled on beautiful, flat, Georgian-style French bread. Case ordered the Cascadia: thick slices of Turkey, oozing with a generous portion of brie and fresh greens. I selected the French Picnic: a salami sandwich, with sliced boiled eggs, spread with a tangy, homemade chutney. Each sandwich was appropriately served with a pair of olives.

(Top to bottom: 1. Intelligentsia coffee. 2. A pair of Belgium bomb cookies, which are indeed the bomb.)

To complete our lunch, we sampled their baked goods to accompany the two cups of coffee. Our weapons of a choice were a pair of Belgium bomb cookies — pint sized treats densely packed with more chocolate than dough.

Our meal came to $30 including taxes and tips, which was fairly decent for thoughtfully prepared sandwiches, coffee and dessert.

Perfect for: a picnic on the sidewalk.

The Details

3476 West Broadway, Vancouver
604.736.7080

Rating / 2 out of 5 stars

Ba Le French Sandwiches, in Lahaina Cannery Mall, Maui serves a variety of Vietnamese dishes like Pho and spring rolls. As their name suggests, they also serve the Vietnamese take on a French sandwich, the Banh Mi.

Hold on, didn’t we write this post already? Ba Le in Vancouver appears to have a doppelganger in Maui — Eiffel Tower logo and all. Case and I stumbled upon Ba Le completely by accident while on our quest for bottled water and Macadamia nut Hershey Kisses.

(Above: Banh Mi. In a food court. In Maui. Yeah.)

We were too curious to pass up this opportunity, so we ordered one “special” Banh Mi sandwich and a Thai Iced Coffee (strangely enough, hey didn’t have the Vietnamese version on their menu). Disappointment set in, though, as we sunk our teeth into one of the most dense, chewy, and dry on the inside French breads ever. The ingredients appeared fresh, but the flavours didn’t seem to register — lacking sourness in the pickled vegetables, lacking heat from the peppers — and for some reason, luncheon ham (a la Oscar Mayer) showed up unwelcome.

The Thai Iced Coffee, was not bad, except it was really Vietnamese Iced Coffee posing to be Thai Iced Coffee.

Overall, it was a disappointing find. And $11 for a sandwich and a Thai iced coffee  – which might be decent for resort town prices — was certainly not worth it for anywhere else.

Perfect for: if you ever get hungry stepping into a parallel universe.

The Details

Lahaina Cannery Mall
1221 Honoapiilani Highway, Lahaina
808.661.5566
latourbakehouse.com