Friday, August 19, 2011

The Local Grind

(UPDATE 3/19/12: The Local Grind has temporarily moved to SW Park and Montgomery until the weather warms up.)

The Local Grind is a food cart located in Ira Keller Fountain Park, near the corner of SW 4th Ave. and Clay St. This cart serves up several Hawaiian chicken plate lunch staples.



The Local Grind offers three types of chicken: teriyaki chicken (marinated overnight in homemade teriyaki sauce), Da Shred (tasty morsels of chicken simmered in fresh ginger and garlic), and garlic honey chicken (a blend of honey, sesame oil, fresh ginger, and fresh garlic). You can also get sides of steamed vegetables or mac salad for $1 each. The Local Grind even offers a brown rice option.

I arrived around noon and saw a pretty sizable line at this cart (a good thing during peak lunch hour). I liked that you could pretty much customize your order, so I got a small combo plate of Da Shred and Garlic Honey chicken on a bed of brown rice ($5).

Garlic Honey chicken (middle) and Da Shred chicken (on the right), with brown rice
Contrary to my previous Hawaiian plate lunch food reviews, I did not get the mac salad this time. However, based on what I saw, the mac salad looked very authentic and delicious. I'll be sure to try it next time.

Da Shred is basically shoyu chicken, and it was absolutely delicious. It was moist and bursting with amazing flavor. The proper blend of ginger, garlic, sugar, and soy sauce. The garlic honey chicken was also good. The sweetness from the honey blended well with the savory sesame oil, ginger, and garlic. However, some of the pieces were a little on the dry side. The brown rice was cooked perfectly.

Perhaps another concern I have: they are only open for a few hours on the weekdays (other food carts are open on the weekend). Given my upcoming busy schedule, I may not be able to visit The Local Grind very often, so I'm glad I squeezed them in while I could.

Overall, I was impressed with The Local Grind's food. I'll attempt to go back in the future to try their teriyaki chicken and mac salad. 7.5/10

1 comment:

  1. This is great food! Eat here often with friends and coworkers.

    ReplyDelete