So while all you all were out at Spago’s eating Chicken Marsala or drinking champagne and eating chocolate truffles in Griffiths Park for Valentine’s day, Mary Milan and I rocked it old school:

We chased a burrito truck all over Koreatown.

Appropriate background: early in our courtship, we would go get takeout and eat it on the roof of my old building in Koreatown. It’s very romantic up there because you can see the skyline all around. One of our favorite places to order from was the Catalinas Burrito Truck that is usually on the corner of 8th and Hobart. Their chicken burrito “suprim” loaded with cheese, sour cream, fresh avocado, and chicken that has been stewed in crack makes it, in our opinion, the best burrito north of Mexico.  Suffice to say that while losanjealous recommends El Pecas #2 Taco Truck, we remain unconvinced and wish to settle the score with a project we like to call the Taco Truck smackdown.

In any event, it’s been 7 months since we had the Catalinas Chicken Burrito Suprim, so my plan was that we get burritos, a bottle of wine and sneak into my old apartment buildin and eat on thee roof.

The problem is that since the Catalinas Catering Burrito Truck is a truck, it’s mobile and consequently hard to guarantee its location on a given night; it’s not like you can make reservations. But romantic fools that we are, we had to try -

So on Valentine’s evening, we looped around all the streets and side streets in the old haunt but the truck was no where to be found. Just as we’re about to pitch the paint and go to Plan B - Pollo a la Brasa on Western - a burrito truck parked on 8th.

Now, for burrito and grocery trucks, 8th is sort of like the Yellow or Green properties on a Monopoly board - they’re pretty valuable, but not the Blue properties. I’m quite sure how the many trucks that conduct business on that street share time. All this to say, we couldn’t be sure if the truck was the one we wanted; it could have been any number of crappy imitators. But we had to find out.

I made a crazy U-Turn and just as we’re able to see whether it’s the Catalinas Truck, it starts moving.

“FOLLOW THAT TRUCK!” Mary Milan said.

I hit the gas and weaved in and out of rush hour traffic to get us along side of the truck to 1) see if it had the magical Catalinas menu on the right side and 2) possibly yell out of the window, “Dos burritos de pollo suprims, por favor…”

And yes. It was the Catalinas truck. Life was near perfect. Now all it had to do was stop (we couldn’t execute part 2 of the plan because all of their windows were up).

So we ended up tailing the burrito truck into the heart of Koreatown until it pulled to a stop. Seeing the owner/cook/truck driver and his wife was like seeing an old friend. His eyes lit up when he saw us.

We got our burritos and Vitamin waters and since we were hungry from the chase, we ended up eating truckside, on these mini-stools that they had set out for us, with paper plates, pickled carrots, and Tapatio. It couldn’t have been any more perfect.

Go: The Catalina’s Catering Truck. Usually on 8th, one block east or west of Hobart. Sometimes on the corner of Westmoreland and San Marino.

• BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
• « Scott McCellan doesn’t care about white people!
• » Battle I: Netflix War

• BROWSE / IN food mary milan recommendations
• « weekend recap
• » Battle I: Netflix War