Cart for a Cause: Eat off a Truck, Feed a Senior

"Meals on Wheels." What do these words mean to Angelenos these days?

Taco trucks, cupcake trucks, banh mi trucks, bustaurants?

But that's not what the term used to mean, is it?

Meals On Wheels Association of America. Provides home-delivered meals services to people in need.

That's what the term "Meals on Wheels" was all about. But now, with Cart for a Cause the two come together.

Cart for a Cause is a food truck-based fundraising where every Tuesday brings gourmet meals from a different famed Los Angeles chef to the LA area.

All the proceeds will go the St. Vincent Meals on Wheels.
In short: you buy lunch from this truck, one homebound senior gets a hot meal delivered.



Sounds good enough? It gets better. This truck isn't playing around food-wise. They've got quite the chef lineup to feed all you hungry, picky folks:
Alex Becker (Nobu West Hollywood), Susan Feniger (STREET), David Myers and Dong Choi (Comme Ça), Vinny Dotolo and Jon Shook (Animal), Josef Centeno (Lazy Ox Canteen), Eric Greenspan (The Foundry), John Cuevas (Montage Beverly Hills) and Sal Marino (Il Grano).

We don't know yet what they'll be offering, but the possibility of eating kaya toast or poutine or pig trotters while knowing you're feeding a homebound senior is high.

So stay tuned for their menu and locations via @CartForACause or their Facebook page.

A Tuesday Night Debauchery. Radio Room at The Edison.

Once a month on a Tuesday, The Edison brings in talented bartenders from around the nation for a one-night mayhem called The Radio Room.
Set in LA's first power plant, the speakeasy feel of The Edison comes naturally. I had been to their Tuesday "speakeasy" nights a long time ago, when it was small and only held in one of the rooms.

Now Radio Room goes big. Last month Radio Room returned to The Edison and featuring their new Director of Spirits Joe Brooke (formerly from Copa D'Oro), Brian Miller from Death & Co in New York, and Erick Castro from Rickhouse bar in San Francisco.

Probably thanks to the Tasting Table coverage of the event that morning, the place got packed as the night goes on, so for the next one either come early or come really late to avoid the lines!
We got there somewhat early and managed to score a side room to ourselves along with fellow bloggers I bumped into there.

Each of the three bartenders featured three special drinks each. I hit up Brian Miller's from Death & Co station first.

The first drink I had that night became my favorite: Hispaniola from Brian Miller featured rum, Summer Royale tea, lime, ginger, and syrup.
Not that I tried every single special drink that night. They did have 3x3=9 drinks to try!

I also enjoyed Sancho's Lady from Erick Castro.
The wait to order a drink did get really long later that night, what with people going up to these guest bartenders and asking for a gin and tonic and all.
Not to worry for next time, though, The Edison promises to bring even more bartenders and also "satellite bars" where their regular employees will man for those of you who want to just order a hi-ball, a beer or whatnot. That will certainly free up more of the time and hands of the renowned guest bartenders to make their own special, complicated drinks.

Joe Brooke from Copa D'Oro, new Director of Spirits at The Edison

They also had live music from The Vagabond Opera. I didn't pay much attention the them until I hear Scott Walker's Amsterdam playing (at which point I immediately rushed close to the stage).
All is great if I can hear some Scott Walker!

Somewhat hidden in the back are gems from the sea. Christophe Happillon was shucking away some Fanny Bay oysters. I tasted one and - wow - amazing oysters. I do hear they will be back for the next Radio Room and I'll definitely be on the lookout for them.
The next Radio Room promises to be crowded too but with more bartenders and satellite bars, the wait should be much less painful. March 4th Marching Band will be there to keep the beat up throughout the night, and perhaps Happillon's amazing oysters will make a show too, so mark Tuesday March 30th on your calendar!

The Nasi Bungkus Roundup: 5 Banana-leaf Wraps, 60 miles.

It all started with a line in Jonathan Gold's LA Weekly article on Indo Cafe. In the last paragraph, he wrote:

But you could probably scour every Indonesian restaurant in California without finding another nasi bungkus, a sort of TV dinner of sautéed green beans, beef rend[a]ng and curried chicken wrapped with rice and a fiery green chile paste inside a banana leaf. (The leaf’s green fragrance works its way into the rice even in the few minutes it will be in front of you in the restaurant but is heaven itself unwrapped for lunch the next day.)

A marvelous description, to be sure, yet that opening line bugged me. I remembered Linda Burum's LA Times article about that same dish - at Java Spice in Rowland Heights. Granted theirs is only available on Saturdays and Sundays. But what about the restaurant just across the street from Indo Cafe, Simpang Asia? I was pretty sure they had nasi bungkus.

In the end, I decided to do a round-up. Yep, a nasi bungkus round-up. Because if you do scour - forget California, let's just focus on LA County - you can find other nasi bungkus.

First thing's first. What in the world is nasi bungkus?
The name itself just translates to "wrapped rice" and the dish is just that. Rice wrapped in banana leaf along with whatever lauk - meat, vegetables, or other accompaniments you'd want to put in. It really refers more to the packaging and a way of getting some food to-go than what is inside and is as ubiquitous in Indonesia as bento boxes are in Japan.
While the idea was that the banana leaf (natural and ubiquitous) will hold the oil, moisutre, and sauces in, it certainly didn't hurt that its fragrances seeps into the warm rice.

These days and in LA in particular though, certain staple items are expected to be found inside. An egg. Some beef rendang. Some sort of chicken, and of course some sort of vegetable medley.

I started my acquisitions with the easiest and closest:

Simpang Asia

10433 National Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90034

I ordered a nasi bungkus to go (because that's what nasi bungkus was meant to be in the first place). They wrapped the rice and further put it in a styrofoam box - a little redundant? - with a side of shrimp chips.
In this nasi bungkus ($6.99) they put white rice, chicken, beef rendang, vegetable curry (lodeh), potatoes with chicken gizzard, Balinese egg.

Their chicken was surprisingly tender, but unfortunately the rendang wasn't as tender as it could've been. My favorite part was the morsels of delicious chicken gizzard chunks. The lodeh was also flavorful without being too spicy. Since lodeh is a coconut-based vegetable curry, it adds a richness to the dish and the part of the rice that has soaked up this curry sauce was incredibly delicious. The rice itself is for the most part fragrant after having been wrapped inside the banana leaf.

Next was the restaurant across the street that J Gold had visited:

Indo Cafe

10430 National Boulevard

Los Angeles, CA 90034-4664

Indo Cafe's nasi bungkus contained white rice, beef rendang, green beans, hard boiled egg, chicken curry, tofu/tempeh curry.

This was served with a dollop of green chile, which is traditionally from the Padang region in Sumatra. The rice did receive some fragrance from the banana leaf, but it wasn't as moist as Simpang Asia's. The beef rendang was more tender, however, and more than makes up for it. Surprisingly, my favorite part of the dish was the curried tofu and tempeh. The tempeh here was one of the better ones in the city, chewier and not as dry as others.

Java Spice

1743 Fullerton Road

Rowland Heights, CA 91748-2614

At one point I managed to enlist Wandering Chopsticks and Sinosoul and dragged them all the way to Rowland Heights for the LA Times-mentioned nasi bungkus at Java Spice.

Since it received such a great write-up and is only available on the weekends, Java Spice was packed on a Saturday night and service was painfully slow.

All that aside, let's focus on the dish we came for.
Inside: rice, marinated fried chicken (ayam kalasan), tofu, tempeh, telur kecap (egg boiled in soy sauce), and of course, beef rendang, jackfruit curry.

The rice was particularly fragrant and brought this dish to a whole new level. It was much more fragrant and rich I was suspecting that it might've been coconut rice, but it might've just been the results of the curry and sauces seeping through. The ayam kalasan was disappointing as it was too sweet, a little tough and didn't really go with the rest of the dish (so I thought - chicken curry in my nasi bungkus please). Putting the chicken aside, everything else was great. The rendang was very tender and so was the jackfruit curry - usually a rare sight unless you're eating nasi gudeg.

They also serve this with a side of green chili, which was also particularly good. Sinosoul had to ask for more chili even if he had to face the possibility of them spitting in it (we've been giving them a hard time for their service ...)

I thought I was almost done but just to check I called other Indonesian places that I knew and found yet another one that serves nasi bungkus!

Sate House

812 Nogales Avenue

Walnut, CA 91789-4170


Like Java Spice, the nasi bungkus at Sate House is also only available on Saturdays and Sundays. I had to make this trek twice because the first Saturday I went they had already run out. I was on a mission, however, and thus made the 23 mile drive again the next weekend.

A little different this time. The beef rendang was there, with fried chicken and egg, but the green beans with tofu and tempeh were not curried but just boiled, and the whole thing was topped with some stir fried vermicelli.

I'm sure you all understand why everything is piled on top of the rice right? So that their sauces and juices will trickle down and douse the rice moist with spicy, flavorful sauce ...
Probably the least spicy of the five, I enjoyed this one quite a bit with the fork-tender beef and moist and tender chicken. The vermicelli was quite a nice touch as well, adding another dimension of texture.

I saved the furthest restaurant for last but finally made my way down to the 562 area, Bellflower.

Toko Rame

17155 Bellflower Blvd

Bellflower, CA 90706

The nasi bungkus from Toko Rame had gotten a write-up a few years ago from Elmo Monster, a fellow foodblogger from Indonesia whom I unfortunately have not met.

Upon picking up my order I immediately thought "Wow, this is the heaviest one yet!" and upon opening it and seeing the red pile of rice, thought "Uh oh, this is gonna be the spiciest one .."
White rice topped with egg balado, beef rendang, fried chicken drumstick, lodeh (vegetable curry)

I sat a big bottle of water next to me and I was ready. Some people complain that the beef rendang found in this part of the world is just not as spicy as back home. Well, Toko Rame's is still not as spicy but it sure does pack a heat. The beef was earthy and tender, the chicken a little dry but had a nice turmeric flavor. The boiled cabbage on top was contrastingly unspiced which helped me tone down the spiciness but on the other hand could be detracting.

Toko Rame already mixed the rice with the chili paste for you, you see, instead of putting a dollop in a corner. The end result is an amazingly spicy and flavorful rice that you won't be able to stop eating even after you've finished all the meat and vegetables. If you can't, don't worry, just rewrap the rice for the next day... back in the banana leaf, of course.