The Grilled Cheese Truck
All over Southern California

We visited The Grilled Cheese Truck on Friday night @ 8:30pm
Dish we will try to cook – Cheesy Mac $5.50 & Harvest Melt $5

Restaurant Visit
We love that our readers have as diverse a palette as we do, The Foundry one week and The Grilled Cheese Truck the next! We’re not quite sure when The Grilled Cheese Truck officially opened for business, but we first heard about it several months back and knew we would have to make it an option on our G restaurant poll.

Our adventure started with a little drive to Eagle Rock on a Friday night. Sure, you can wait til the truck rolls into your neighborhood but we were on a deadline and since we work downtown, the drive wasn’t too bad. Had it not been for the GPS on our phones, we likely never would have found the truck. It was parked down a side street that lead to the parking lot behind the Eagle Rock Brewery. And as luck would have it, we didn’t have to wait in a long line to taste the cheesiness. There was a good crowd of about 20 people waiting for their food but the line to order was pretty short. The menu is posted on the side of the truck with about 7 sandwich options plus a daily special. We decided to go with one a bit more traditional and one a little more on the gourmet side- the Cheesy Mac with sharp cheddar on French bread and the Harvest Melt with roasted butternut squash, sautéed leeks, and balsamic and agave syrups on a 6-grain bread. A sign taped on the window informed us there were no tater tots that night (their fryer was broken) so we went for two cups of tomato soup as our sides, $2.50 each.

We had to wait about 15 minutes for our order, but were nicely entertained by the diverse crowd. But hey, what do you expect for a Friday night at a food truck in Eagle Rock! One group even brought blankets to sit on and enjoy a picnic in the middle of the alley parking spaces. The website listed the truck as being at the location til 10pm but they ended up closing at 9pm due to mechanical issues. Several people were disappointed to find out they wouldn’t be going home with grilled cheese sandwiches and we tried not to grin too big at our good fortune of placing our order before they called it quits.

Since it was a little cold outside and the truck was closing down, we happily walked back to our car to enjoy our meal. Those of you who know us well will probably be able to guess who ordered the Cheesy Mac and who had the Harvest Melt. We both loved the sandwiches we had chosen to order but did not care as much for the other person’s, which is why we decided to go ahead and make them both for our blog this week. The Cheesy Mac is exactly what you’d expect, given the name. The two pieces of thinly sliced French bread held homemade macaroni and cheese that was nicely cooked and deliciously cheesy. We were a little worried that the macaroni would be mushy but the noodles were left al dente so you knew you were eating macaroni and cheese, but you had the fun of enjoying it in sandwich form. For people who are traditionalist when it comes to your grilled cheese sandwich, this is the one to go with. The Cheesy Mac can also be ordered with bbq pork and caramelized onions for $7.50

For those who are a bit more adventurous and do not mind if your grilled cheese sandwich has a little less cheese on it, the Harvest Melt was a nice flavor combination. The squash was thinly sliced and still a little crunchy so as to give texture to the sandwich. There was also a flavorful use of spices that you would not expect from a traveling food truck. Our only comment on this sandwich was that it could have used a bit more cheese to take it from a grilled sandwich, to a grilled cheese sandwich.

We were also pleasantly happy with our tomato soup. You could definitely taste that this was not from a can, but had been prepared by someone who knows how to cook. The use of basil was apparent but not overwhelming. While we would have liked to have tasted the tater tots, the tomato soup made a nice combination meal with our grilled cheese sandwiches.

Our overall experience of the food truck proved to be a fun evening of a “that’s so LA” dinner. While you probably wouldn’t search it out and wait in line on any casual evening, it’s a fun thing to do if you really like grilled cheese or you have friends visiting from out of town. We recommend both sandwiches, but feel they were a little pricey for what you got.

Shopping
(prices reflect the cost of the package, not the portion we used.) The rest of the ingredients we already had in the kitchen.

Whole Foods-
Cheesy Mac
French bread, sliced $2.69
Sharp Cheddar, 8 oz. $2.99
Gruyere, 8 oz. $11.48
Nonfat Milk $1.69
Elbow Pasta, 1 lb. $4.39
Harvest Melt
6 Grain Bread, sliced $4.29
Gruyere, 4oz. $2.80
Agave Syrup $3.69
Butternut Squash $7.40
Leeks, .66 lb. $2.30

Recipe
Below is our recipe for the two grilled cheese sandwiches. Both are simple to make and can easily be customized with flavors you enjoy.

Cheesy Mac-
Recipe makes about 6 sandwiches.

Kosher salt
1 pound elbow macaroni
2 cups milk
3 TBSP unsalted butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups Gruyere, grated
1 cup extra-sharp Cheddar, grated
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 thin slices of French bread per sandwich

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Macaroni and Cheese
Add macaroni to a pot of boiling, salted water and cook according to the directions on the package. Be sure not to overcook. Drain.

In a separate saucepan, heat the milk. Be careful not to boil it. Melt butter in a large pot and add the flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk. While whisking, add the hot milk and cook for a few more minutes, until thickened and smooth. Remove pan from stove and add the Gruyere, Cheddar, 1 tablespoon salt and pepper. Add the cooked macaroni and stir well. Pour into a 3-quart baking dish.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the macaroni is browned on top.

To cook sandwich
Liberally apply butter to one side of each piece of bread. Place one piece of bread, butter side down, in a warm pan on the stove. Leave in pan until browned and remove. Place second piece of bread, butter side down, in the warm pan. Scoop macaroni and cheese onto bread slice and then cover with first piece of toasted bread, toasted side up. Once second piece of bread is toasted and sandwich seems cohesive, remove from pan and place on plate. Cut sandwich in half and serve.

Harvest Melt-
Recipe makes about 2 sandwiches.

1 cup Butternut squash (sliced 1mm thick with a mandoline)
4 slices gruyere
2 TBSP unsalted butter (plus more to spread on bread and to grease
a baking dish)
1 TBSP unsalted butter, melted
1 leek (whites and tender greens only)
1 tsp fresh thyme, roughly chopped
1/2 tsp agave syrup
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
4 slices 6 grain bread

Hardware:
Mandoline slicer
Vegetable peeler

Butternut Squash
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut butternut squash in half horizontally so the stem separates from the bulb. Next, cut 1/4” off the top of the stem. Using a vegetable peeler, peel the skin from the squash. Stand squash upright on a cutting board (if wobbly, cut bottom to level squash). Make a long cut down middle of squash from top to bottom, halving squash. Have your mandoline set to 1mm thick and slice squash upright until you have 1 cup (note: if you don’t have a mandoline, slice squash with a knife as thin as you can). Grease a baking dish with some butter. Lay the slices of squash down on dish. Add melted butter to dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put dish in oven and roast for 20-25 minutes.

Leeks
Wash leeks, removing any dirt. Cut the dark green part of the leeks, leaving only the white and tender green parts. Slice leeks in half lengthwise and rinse again to remove any remaining dirt inside leeks. Chop leeks. Heat a skillet on medium. Add butter to melt. Add leeks, toss around. Then add thyme, salt and pepper, and turn on medium high. Cook for 8-10 minutes, or until tender crisp.

Balsamic reduction
Heat skillet on high. Add balsamic vinegar, agave syrup and butter until mixture reaches boiling point. Turn heat down to medium and cook until liquid reduces by 1/2.

To cook sandwich
Heat a skillet on medium-high. Butter 1 side of each slice of bread. Put a slice of bread on skillet, butter-side down. Place a slice of gruyere cheese on top of the slice, then a liberal amount of butternut squash, followed by sautéed leeks, then a drizzle of balsamic reduction, and finally a second slice of cheese. Press down with a spatula and cook until bread becomes toasted. Place the second slice of bread on top of the rest of ingredients, butter-side up. Carefully flip the sandwich over, press and cook until the 2nd slice of bread is toasted and cheese is melted through. Slice in half diagonally to serve. Repeat steps to make 2nd sandwich.

Rating- We give our dish 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Our thoughts- We are happy to say that we know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich! Both our recipes seem to be very close to The Grilled Cheese Truck’s. For the Cheesy Mac, we think they used only sharp cheddar instead of our mixture of gruyere and sharp cheddar. So we encourage you to play around with the amounts of each that you use. All sharp cheddar will make the macaroni and cheese a deeper yellow hue and have a bit more bite to it. However, if you prefer a creamier macaroni and cheese, you will probably love the addition of gruyere. Our Harvest Melt was pretty spot on in the flavor category. We added more gruyere to the sandwich because we like our grilled cheese sandwiches to be extra cheesy.

For both melts, we feel the main differences were the lack of a sandwich press and the way we applied butter to the bread. Their’s seemed to be brushed with probably a melted butter before being placed in a sandwich press. You can see from the pictures that their toasting was uniform across the slice of bread and the melts were pressed thin.

How would you rate our recipe? We look forward to hearing feedback from you guys on what you think of these two recipes. If you have a recipe for your favorite grilled cheese sandwich, please leave it in the comment section for us all to enjoy. Feel free to email us if you have any questions on the cooking instructions and don’t forget to vote for next week’s restaurant!