Bites off Broadway

Bites off Broadway is a community event over in the Temescal area of Oakland every Friday night (from May 11th to October 12th) with the highlight being foodtruck vendors.

Families picnicking on the lawn in front of Studio One Art Center.

We found out about the event via @NomNomTruckSF which we follow on Twitter. Sean has been wanting some nomnom for a bit, so the fact it would be a nice (1 mile) walk from our home was great! We were surprised when we got there and found they weren't the only food truck.


There were at least five or six food trucks.. and the Big Wheel Cookie Co. (more on them later)

We were tempted away from nomnomtruck at first by Nick's Wheelie Good Breakfast:


Nick's had a "Maple Glazed Pork Belly Sandwich" and pork belly hash.. this was offered together as the "Pig Lovers Combo":




seared pork belly glazed in maple syrup, pickled red onions, mustard aioli, organic arugula and fried egg on rosemary focaccia bread.

Nick's was definitely the winner of our evening.. although nomnom was still good.

@nomnomtruckSF menu

We went with the combo which included one taco & one banh mi and a drink:

Grilled Pork Taco


Grilled Pork Banh Mi

The taco definitely needed some Sriracha and the sandwich, although good wasn't pre-cut (we didn't remember to ask) so I nibbled off one end (again wishing I had some Sriracha) til I got about halfway, then passed it off to Sean.



I was thinking we'd had the 'deli special' (lunch meat banh mi) the last time we'd eaten NomNom (at its original LA truck) and Sean was saying he'd wished he'd gone with his original plan for deli special. Next time I promise! It was still good though.. I think we just ate a lot of pork in one meal.

Sean wanted to hit up one more food truck before dessert.. Go Streatery was tempting Sean with the Oxtail and Grits.. but it was Conklin's Catering truck with their Randang Fries that won out..


Randang Fries: fries with beef randang served on top. I expected them to be super spicy but they weren't. I left Sean to eat them since I wanted to save myself for dessert..

We'd definitely go to this event again.. probably NOT every Friday.. It's a nice walk from our apartment but not a long enough walk to burn off what we ate, despite splitting the various items.

Along with the food, there's kids games and at some point they'll be doing a movie night on the lawn in courtyard there. The community pool is next door to the Studio One Art Center.. While I didn't check out what the requirements are to swim there, I can tell the families that enjoyed the pool and then dinner afterwards could easily make an evening of it.

Bites Off Broadway is on facebook if you want to keep up with the schedule of events and photos they post there.

KOGI BBQ Taco Truck!

Tonight I want to do a double review.. first Kogi BBQ came to Little Tokyo's Japanese American National Museum (JANM)..

Here they are parked at First & Central, and the line as it extended out in front of the Museum.

They showed about 5pm and stayed til around 9pm, hopefully doing a pretty brisk business. Parking in this area is a little difficult before 6pm, so you'll do some walking regardless of whether you walk from home or park and walk.


Tacos come in four flavors and sometimes there are daily specials, but not this evening. That's ok. We have our favorites..

SeanYoda ordered one of each for himself (he likes them all!).. and I had 2 spicy pork tacos and a tofu taco. Here's mine:


The spicy pork tacos were rather zesty as opposed to spicy. Depending on your spice tolerance they may seem a little spicy or you may want to put some hot sauce on them. Be sure and try them without first though, because the taste is quite good alone. the meat is juicy and the sauce works really well. It's my favorite!




close-up of Kogi's tofu taco.. was rather sweet and you taste more of the flavor of the veggie fillings rather than the taco itself (in other words not a lot of flavor to tofu of course!)

We decided that we liked them all, but the tofu taco was perhaps the least of our favorites. SeanYoda likes the Korean beef shortrib taco best & as mentioned, spicy pork tacos are mine.


Big Thanks to the kindness of the folks at the Japanese American National Museum for allowing some of us Kogi fans to dine out of the rain. Here we were serenaded with some upbeat DJing and a movie on a big screen. The Museum Store was still open so we were able to check out the great selection there and as I mentioned on flickr, there was a book I was wanting that I was sure to pick up on our way out. Yay!

Ok..

Dinner total came to $14 (not including tip) and while your appetite might be different, at $2 a taco you can't beat that in these recession-filled days.

The Kogi folks are super nice and if you miss them on a particular night, no worries as they have a blog you can follow that gives updates about specials and planned locations.. They are on twitter as well, that fun mini blogging social networking site that allows you (either way) to inquire or give feedback to them.

KogiBBQ.com or "kogibbq" on Twitter.com. =)

Many of the places they go are Venice, Sunset Junction, UCLA, Little Tokyo and downtown in front of the Golden Gopher (where they recently started going every Wednesday!)

You can see all my KOGI BBQ pix I've taken so far on flickr HERE

After dinner we were pretty full but thought to get a hot cup of coffee at Urth Cafe (and maybe split some pie?) since it was a cool and rainy evening.. I haven't been there since GroundBreaking January last year.. so first time for both SeanYoda & myself.. that's coming up next I guess.. stay tuned!