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Although there have been crazy rumors that the gourmet food truck phenomenon is ready to bust. We here in the San Gabriel Valley are just starting to get a taste, especially since it's rare that one of those big-name trucks make regular appearances in our neck of the woods.

Luckily, there have been enough outcries and great supporters that have rallied to bring food trucks to the area, most recently the Irwindale Speedway held a food truck festival and now it's Santa Anita racetrack's turn.

This Saturday, Jan. 29, get your grub on at the tracks' first Food Truck Festival being held from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., coinciding with one of the tracks big season races - Sunshine Millions.

The festival will feature about 20 of some of the hottest gourmet food trucks in Southern California as well as a wine tent and gastropub, and a special performance by the Spazmatics - all taking place in the infield, literally in the center of all the racing action.

The Grilled Cheese Truck, Border Grill, Ragin' Cajun and Lobsta Truck are just a few trucks to feast at during the festival. Unlike other food truck festivals, there is no need to buy tickets separately before ordering food at the trucks. Each truck will take orders and payments individually on the spot. Wine and drinks will work the same.

Tickets are $12 in advance which includes parking, entrance, race program and everyone in attendance will get an 18-pack cooler bag. Tickets at the door are $12 but do not include parking ($4). If you pay for the park entrance only, there will be a separate $5 fee to enter the festival area.

For racing fans, gates open at 10 a.m. and first post time is 11:30 a.m. For more information on the race, visit www.santaanita.com or call (800) 574-6401.

**DISCOUNT** - As a special incentive for San Gabriel Valley residents, Santa Anita is offering a $2 discount with special code SG News when purchasing tickets at www.santaanitaevents.com. The code is only valid until Friday, Jan. 28, so go get your $10 tickets now!

For more information about the festival, visit www.santaanita.com/specialevent/2011/2011-food-truck-festival.

By Evelyn Barge

There's an erudite Greek term for people like me: turophile, or one who fancies cheese.

No strange epicurean trend has thrilled me more than the growing prevalence of cheese cake - that's not the dessert cheesecake, mind you - towers as an alternative to a traditional wedding cake. If I ever tie the knot, you can bet I'll say "I do" to that option.

So, knowing that about me, it's no wonder that my first dining experience at Valerie's Crepes in Arcadia was such a disappointment.

I stepped up to the free-standing crepe kiosk in the food court of Westfield Santa Anita Shopping Center tempted by the promise of great things. The staff was busy preparing several orders ahead of mine, and the crepe batter was being skillfully poured and thinly spread on the griddle.

Jars of Nutella stacked high behind the glass counter gave me a visual cue to go for a sweet selection, the apple brie crepe ($6.29), which is billed to include apple slices, brie, walnuts and raspberry preserves.

The crepe that I was handed, and for which my receipt shows I was clearly billed, did contain a bunch of fresh apple slices - but that's about it.     

In lieu of the handful of unaccounted-for elements, the preparer had sprinkled on some cinnamon. A healthy dollop of ice cream plopped on top of the folded crepe did very little to combat the overwhelming affect of a dry, powdery mixture.

When planning to eat dinner at any mall, there are few things I expect less than a peaceful mealtime. Obviously, the folks at Valerie's can do little to alter their surroundings - mine involved being sandwiched by a giggling clique of teenage girls and a family with clunky stroller in tow.

But Valerie's staff could at least make an effort to counteract the enveloping chaos by living up to their promise of a "gourmet menu" with "mouthwatering ingredients." (Hint: Ingredients can't cause your mouth to water if they don't exist.)

After slogging through five bites of my apple "brie" crepe, a brilliant solution came to mind. I plucked up and asked for a to-go container and made my escape from the shopping complex.

From there, I proceeded to drive home to my apartment, open up the refrigerator and retrieve the sole thing that could rescue this remainder of crepe from further humiliation: brie, obviously.

Hey, Valerie's, ever heard of it?

Valerie's Crepes is located in the Westfield Santa Anita Shopping Center, 400 S. Baldwin Ave., in Arcadia. Hours are Mon.-Fri., 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

For more information, call (626) 821-6504 or visit www.valeriescrepes.com.

By Evelyn Barge

I've been known to develop strange food obsessions.

Jellied cranberry sauce, at any time of year. Cheetos-brand bacon-cheddar crackers, which are less about cheese and more about a cheddar-flavored paste substance. Cottage cheese and sliced black olives - together.

But I recently had a food re-awakening and started forming some dietary habits that are actually good for me. And guess what? Healthy food is addicting, too.

Now I feel deprived if I don't start my day with a banana, or if I forget to add avocado to my sandwich at lunch.

My desire for a healthy menu that, most importantly, tastes good brought me to Bean Sprouts Vegetarian Restaurant in Arcadia. It's one of a limited number of veggie-friendly eateries in the San Gabriel Valley, and a popular one no less.

I've had great success with West Covina's One World Vegetarian Cuisine, from which I frequently order take-out, but it was time to expand my horizons.

The offerings at Bean Sprouts trend toward a variety of Asian dishes, all vegetarian, with lots of noodle and rice plates to choose from.

Sitting down in the dining area, which is immaculate and modern, a menu on the table was placed with the lunch specials facing up. After that, there was almost no reason to turn the page, save for curiosity.

The lunch-hour specials are all $5.99, for a generous helping that comes with soup and a cold appetizer. For $1.99, you can add a side dish; For another 99 cents, a glass of the winter melon tea, for which people would willingly pay three times as much at Coffee Bean.

As my main dish, I ordered the noodles with fermented bean sauce. It was an oversized portion of an average entree, anchored by (thankfully) above-average sauce. I wanted to eat the sauce and bean curd off the top, and leave behind the rather bland-tasting noodles.

The servings of fresh-steamed veggies like cabbage, carrots and celery along with the small side of rainbow rolls - all come included with lunch specials - played a bigger role in filling my contented belly.

In the past, tasteless and dry vegan sushi has scared me off from the genre as a whole, but since the rainbow rolls came as a package deal, it was a good chance to jump back on the horse.

Now I know what I'll order next time. With carrot, lettuce and peanut powder wrapped in seaweed and rice paper topped with vegan mayonnaise, the rolls were crunchy clusters packed with plenty of flavor. I might have ordered another round, if I wasn't already stuffed to the brim.

The side dish of pan-fried radish patties - made of shredded radish, rice flour and oatmeal - was also a stellar addition with a really unique, mild flavor. The patties held a similar consistency to scallion pancakes, but with much less sodium and much less guilt.

Bean Sprouts has its storefront on Huntington Drive in an extremely walkable part of downtown Arcadia. Next time, I'll take advantage of its close proximity to the Arboretum and create a custom picnic bento box to bring along.

Bean Sprouts is located at 103 E. Huntington Drive in Arcadia. For more information, call (626) 254-8708 or visit www.beansproutsrestaurant.com. 

By Stacey Wang, Correspondent

If Little Miss Muffet tried Moffett's, I suspect she'd throw out her curds and whey.

Moffett's Family Restaurant and Chicken Pie Shoppe in Arcadia is the type of place locals seem to know about, but most who haven't been there can't remember seeing it.

Although it has been around since 1975, the almost transparent American diner hides in the corner of a plaza with big names like CVS Pharmacy and Radio Shack.

The diner is nothing grand. It's decent in size and has the homely feel a diner should have.

But what's so spectacular about this place that attracts a constant flow of customers?

It's chicken pies.

Ordering the popular chicken pie, I was initially disappointed by its appearance. A bland-looking meat pie covered in a hefty serving of gravy. No vegetables, no color. Just gray.

Reflecting on the hype, it was hard to think that this hamburger-sized plainness would be as good as many raved.

Taking a bite, I realized how wrong I was to prejudge it. Tasting the savory simplicity, its violations in visual pleasantness were forgiven.

It had a flavorful gravy-soaked crust, that didn't taste soggy - and even if it was, it still would have been delicious.  

The pie was stuffed with chicken and more gravy. Although I would have prefered some vegetables in it, the pie was quite satisfying. It was filling, despite its size, and it wasn't too salty.

Moffett's chicken pie dinner includes soup or salad, whipped potatoes, vegetables, bread and a dessert for $9.65 plus tax. For big appetites, a chicken pie dinner combo comes with two pies and its extras for $12.05 plus tax. For the less ambitious, they offer the chicken pie ala cart for $4.50 plus tax.

Other than their meat pies, the establishment has options for a variety of diners, from a slim line section for dieters to a hearty selection of hamburgers and sandwiches.

Moffett's has a mushroom melt hamburger that includes a 1/3 pound patty, topped with swiss cheese and mushroom on rye. It comes with soup or salad for $7.45 plus tax.

If there's room, bread pudding or a slice of fruit pie can be added for about $3.

Moffett's is at 1409 S. Baldwin Ave. in Arcadia. To contact Moffett's, call (626) 447-4670.

By Evelyn Barge, Staff Writer

Once I was a chronically picky eater, but now my taste buds have taken a turn for the adventurous.

I call it the San Gabriel Valley Effect. There's so much delicious food - particularly ethnic cuisine - packed into our Valley that I just had to branch out from my boring meat-and-potatoes-eating ways.

The evolution has led to some of the best meals of my life, and I recently added Hop Li Seafood Restaurant in Arcadia to my list of favorites.

Hop Li is actually a chain of eateries with additional locations in Chinatown, Westwood and West Los Angeles, but the Arcadia restaurant is the only one with late-night hours. Open from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. every day, it's perfect for sating my frequent nighttime hunger.

The menu at Hop Li is expansive, so on a recent visit, my companion and I decided to sample a couple different specialties.

Our first choice was the deep-fried squab ($11.75) - something I'd tried to order at other Chinese restaurants in the past, but it had sadly always been out of stock.

It was an exciting find, but probably my least favorite part of the entire meal. The squab, which is a young domestic pigeon, was prepared simply with little added flavors or garnish. As you might expect with a pigeon, there's not a whole lot of meat to be had. But where there was meat, it was gamy and fairly tender.

I also found the whole squab difficult to carve up and eat, which is more a mark of my inexperience than anything else. Next time, I think I'll order the minced squab with bamboo shoots and lettuce to save myself the trouble.

The highlight of the meal was a plate of squid with garlic and black bean sauce ($5.99). It figures that a seafood restaurant would excel at serving up creatures of the deep, and Hop Li was right on the money. The sauce was a perfect, savory match to the firm texture of the squid.

An order of sliced chicken with straw mushrooms ($4.50) rounded out our more exotic selections, and the flavor combination on this dish was perhaps the best of all three.

 

Overall, we barely scratched the surface of what's available on the Hop Li menu. I also had my eye on a variety of hot pots (they take about 30 minutes to prepare) and the more unusual seafood items - frog, jellyfish and abalone - that were tempting the curious side of my palate.

While some of these rarer dishes will send your bill into triple figures, most items on the menu fall squarely within the $7.95 to $12.99 range. Lunchtime and late-night diners get even sweeter deals with a special menu that features plates as low as $4.50.

Hop Li Seafood is a world away from the food I was raised on - Italian on one side with a heavy dose of Southern cooking on the other - and that's just another reason why I know I'll be going back for seconds.

Hop Li Seafood Restaurant, 855 S. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia; (626) 445-3188

www.hoplirestaurant.com

By Kevin Felt

Orchid Thai Cuisine in Arcadia wouldn't be out of place in the trendy malls dotting the landscape of modern Bangkok.

As we thumbed through the long menu, filled with traditional Thai foods and a limited selection of Chinese-influenced dishes, we gazed at the comfortable modern decor and baby blue ceiling, augmented with wispy clouds and twinkling star lights, which would be right at home in the trendier parts of Bangkok.

The annotated menu includes more than 100 items with helpful descriptions, ranging from Satay Chicken, Papaya Salad and Jungle Curry to Panang, Pad Thai and Nam Khao Tod.

For most of the a la carte curries and main dishes on the menu, you can chose between beef, chicken, pork or tofu for $7.95, shrimp or squid for $9.95, or fish or scallops for $12.95. Most lunch specials, served from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays, cost $5.95.

The generously sized $7.95 a la carte plate of Spicy Orchid Crispy Chicken was especially tantalizing. Small chunks of chicken were stir-fried to the perfect crispness in a tasty garlic glaze with slivers of carrot, green onion and cashews.

Though the menu labels the dish as spicy, the friendly waiter's warnings convinced me to try a medium version. Although it did little to sizzle my admittedly high-tolerance palate, the dish, atop 50-cent sticky white rice, was delicious.
 
Next was the $7.95 Pad-See-Ewe with tofu.

Thin, inch-wide rice noodles were pan-fried in a sweet soy sauce with egg, firm tofu and Chinese broccoli to create the slightly sweet, slightly salty dish, served on a large platter. It was good, but slightly bland for my tastes.
 
As an added surprise, as we boxed up our leftovers, the waiter delivered small cups of dessert.

Every day, the restaurant provides patrons with a different Thai dessert, he explained. Today's specialty was a surprisingly tasty soup of chewy green tapioca balls, corn kernels, coconut shavings and iced sweetened milk.

It will definitely be worth another visit to try the Eggplant with Basil Leaves or the Green Curry.

Orchid Thai is at 1311 S. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia.

Dining on a budget:
I've come to the realization that dining on a budget and local Chinese cuisine are often at odds with each other.
Take Din Tai Fung Dumpling House in Arcadia, which recently opened a second location on the same block of Baldwin Avenue because its popularity among its mostly Chinese patrons had created long lunchtime lines.
In the two years I spent teaching English to college students in Northeast China, it didn't take long for it to become apparent that dumplings were the budget food of choice for anyone wanting to celebrate.
Several varieties of dumplings are staples served during most holidays, but particularly at Chinese New Year, Lantern Festival and Dragon Boat Festival.
Students explained that dumplings are the food of choice because they're considered lucky, in part, because they resemble coins used in ancient China.
It didn't hurt, either, that the price was right in China: One could buy a plateful of about two dozen dumplings for less than 50 cents.
So, when I made my first trip to the popular Din Tai Fung restaurant, I was a bit dismayed at the hit my wallet would take.