Tag Archives: food

The Best Burrito in LA

By Matthew Kim

As an LA native, I’ve been blessed with an array of diverse, delicious food my whole life. I consider this to be one of the best things about Los Angeles–you can always count on countless fast food or mom-and-pop restaurants to be nearby. Quick-bite food options are rapidly growing to accommodate everyone’s busy schedules. Today, I want to share my favorite burrito spot in all of Los Angeles: Tacos El Venado. To be specific, the Al Pastor Burrito is my favorite burrito in Los Angeles. This Mexican food stand is on the corner of Vermont Ave and 6th Street, only about three miles away from USC!

It’s important to mention that the location and hours for this food stand on Google Maps is incorrect. The stand is usually only open at night and is in front of the Walgreens on Vermont Ave and 6th Street. They also have an instagram: @tacoselvenado. One possible way to reach the burrito stand from campus is to walk to Vermont Ave and take the 204 Metro bus northward. There should be a stop on 6th street, across the burrito stand. The same bus can be taken to come back to USC. 

The Al Pastor burrito ready to be eaten!

The other weekend I went to Tacos El Venado with some of my friends. All of us get the same thing every time: an Al Pastor Burrito for eight dollars (one more for cheese). As of October 2022, Tacos El Venado only accepts cash, so make sure you have some with you before going. The Al Pastor burrito is special in my opinion because they give a very generous portion of Al Pastor, straight off the shawarma machine. It’s always hot and delicious so be cautious and don’t burn yourself. Also, the burrito comes with your choice of rice and beans (which I always get). Then, you get your personal choice of onions, cilantro, lime, and sauces before the grillers wrap your burrito. I put so much of everything in my burrito that it ended up exploding upon my first couple bites! It was so good that I grabbed a fork and finished all of it. The Al Pastor Burrito is the only menu option that I’ve tried besides their nachos (which in my opinion weren’t anything special). 

Another thing to note: since this is a street food stand, there aren’t any tables to sit at. My friends and I ate the food on the hood of my car but a majority of people take the food to-go. If you have leftovers you can always ask them to rewrap it for you and take it home. Unfortunately, they don’t have any vegan options, but otherwise they offer a variety of options. The Al Pastor Burrito at Tacos El Venado is the perfect late night, mid-study session snack that’ll satisfy your cravings and is very affordable.

Featured Image by Frank Zhang on Unsplash

Matthew is a current freshman studying Business Administration at the Marshall School of Business. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California so he is very familiar with the area. In his free time, he works as a Community Facilitator, goes swimming, and watches Netflix or sports. Matthew has teaching experience tutoring middle school students privately and as a teacher assistant in a summer enrichment program for elementary students. He loves to eat good food and try new activities throughout the city.  

My Last Day in New York

By Matthew Kim

“Wake Up Matthew, it’s time to go!” I slowly begin to open my eyes, still holding tight onto my blanket, as my friend Ryan tries to wake me up. The time is 8 am and it’s my last day in the state of New York. I was visiting for the very first time in my life and was having a great time. This past July, my friends and I stayed in Manhattan for four nights and spent the last night in Port Jefferson. We spent the majority of our last day trekking all the way to Newark International Airport, where we had a return flight to Los Angles to catch at 2:35 pm. Surely, we had enough time for one last eventful day in New York.

Photo by Robert Gareth on Unsplash

We all rushed out of our hotel as soon as possible to grab bagels at a local spot, Fratelli’s Bagels, before heading to the train station back to the city. We all grabbed a generous extra amount of bagels to eat throughout the day and to take back to Los Angeles. The train ride took a while but it was fun being around good company, eating delicious bagels in a completely new environment. We only had one goal to accomplish in the city before hitting the airport, which was to get a very essential meal of Korean Barbeque.

When we arrived at Let’s Meat, the KBBQ restaurant we had been looking forward to eating at, they allowed us to leave our luggage in an open space near the front and told us they would look over it. Throughout the meal, the service kept getting better as our table always had meat and appetizers filling our plates as quickly as we could eat. The food tasted great, and it wasn’t served frozen as some KBBQ places serve it, which was a big plus. After only eating bagels up to this point in the day, we made sure to get our money’s worth before hopping back on the metro for Newark International. After eating, we checked the navigation to the airport and we were scheduled to arrive roughly 20-25 minutes before our flight. We weren’t too concerned but we knew that we had to move with urgency.

Photo by The Creativv on Unsplash
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The Best Food Spots Only a Walk Away from USC

By Luke Reshwan

Edited by Natalie Grace Sipula

Being located in Los Angeles, USC has many local food spots to choose from. In this article, I want to focus on just a few (my favorite few), that are all within walking distance from campus. All of these locations are also within the Free Lyft zone, so if you do not want to walk, you can get to them using the Lyft app and the USC pass that allows free Lyfts near campus. The three locations I will be talking about today are Spud Nuts, Cava, and Tacos Listo (better known as Taco Zone) . Each of these eateries is quite different: Spud Nuts is a smaller breakfast place that is open all hours of the day, Cava is a large chain restaurant serving Mediterranean food that consistently draws a long line in the village, and Tacos Listo is a food truck that doesn’t open until 5 PM (perfect for dinner and the infamous midnight snack).

I’ll begin with Spud Nuts, the best comfort food around USC hands down. Nothing makes a person feel more at home than breakfast sandwiches, doughnuts, smoothies, and some of the best iced coffee I have ever tried. My go-to order is the bacon, egg, and cheese on toast with a cronut and a mint chip milkshake. If you are wondering what the cronut is, it is a croissant glazed like a donut. It is a Spud Nuts delicacy that tastes phenomenal. Nothing starts the day off better than a breakfast sandwich that tastes just like it was cooked in my mother’s kitchen, a sugary croissant, and a nice milkshake to truly create that feeling of being stuffed to the brim with good food. If those things do not suit you, I highly recommend trying the HUGE cinnamon rolls (yes, huge had to be capitalized, they are massive) or one of the croissant sandwiches. Regardless of what you order, Spud Nuts is sure to remind you of a nice home-cooked breakfast that starts the morning off correctly.

Photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash

When it comes time for lunch and you are hungry again, I highly recommend Cava in the USC Village as your next stop. Cava is like a Mediterranean Chipotle–you go along the line and choose a base like rice or pita or lettuce, then you choose dips and spreads you would like to add, followed by a protein, toppings, and dressings. I normally go with rice for my base, red pepper hummus, tzatziki, and harissa for my dips, lamb as my protein with assorted toppings depending on what I am feeling for the day, and then hot vinaigrette as the dressing. However, if this does not sound appealing, there are options for everyone to try. I have not met a single individual who does not like Cava, and I think they do a great job of making Mediterranean food more popular in the United States. I myself am Mediterranean, and very rarely do I find flavors of my grandma’s cooking in restaurants, let alone chain restaurants. Also, the portion sizes are quite large which allows for one to feel full after eating their lunch as opposed to many other restaurants that I have tried in which I am still looking for more after I finish eating.

Photo by Kao Rodriguez on Unsplash

Lastly, for dinner or a midnight snack, Tacos Listo is the place to go. It is known by many as Taco Zone because it used to be a taco truck in the AutoZone parking lot. However, they have now relocated onto Vermont Street. Everything on their menu is phenomenal, whether it is a burrito, taco, or quesadilla. I highly recommend getting al pastor as the choice of protein; however, I know many people who get many different proteins and they all seem to be more than satisfied. Of all the different taco trucks or taco places around the USC area, Tacos Listo is my top choice. It has numerous different sauces and salsas to choose from that only add to the experience. It is also open until 2 AM, allowing for that midnight snack that we all crave from time to time.

Photo by Frank Zhang on Unsplash

These locations are my top picks for a day of eating around USC. I highly recommend giving these places a try if you have not yet as they are some of the most consistent restaurants that I have tried in my two years down living in the area. Each of them is special and phenomenal in a different way and I truly think my experience at USC would be worse without them here.

Featured Image by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Luke is a junior studying Computer Science/Business Administration in Dornsife. He was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and has lived there his whole life before coming to USC. Having a father who immigrated from Lebanon, Luke knows a little Arabic, and he is proficient in Spanish after taking Spanish classes in school for seven years. He loves learning about all kinds of cultures and has met close friends from many cultures during his time at USC. He also enjoys sharing his Lebanese culture, whether it be food recipes, his grandparents’ and father’s teachings, or even just the social and conversational norms in Lebanese culture. He likes following fashion trends, especially in relation to shoes (of which he has over 20 pairs). He likes to keep up with basketball, soccer, football, and even F1. Outside of sports, however, he is constantly learning more about the tech world and the different things an individual can do with technology.