Asian Soul Kitchen

Had Asian Soul Kitchen food for a second time today. The food was good both times. Beef and potato stew was very tasty. They had a great deal on sliders, 3 for $ 5. The yakisoba is a huge portion, one order by itself should be enough for most appetites, unlike other food trucks. Expect great service, they are very friendly.

Going bye bye on a dusty road
Good trucks — This one just fold
And when you get it you got nothing
So don’t worry cause it’s not coming.
Where’s the soul, man?
Where’s the soul, man?
Where’s the soul, man?
Where’s the soul, man?
I was brought up on food of streets
I learned taco lovin’ before I could eat
I was educated a roach coach life
When I start eatin’ I just can’t stop
Where’s the soul, man?
Where’s the soul, man?
Where’s the soul, man?
Where’s the soul, man?
So Asian Soul Kitchen. what a terrible truck. No wonder they went under.
It wasn’t a fusion truck, so they can’t use that as an excuse as to why their food sucked. It just flat out was not good. They had a shrimp lettuce wrap like taco. just was not good. That’s strange since I love shrimp. I mean, I’d eat endless amounts of that shellfish, but this thing was pretty damn unappealing.
Their sampler pack should have given away the fact that this place was totally lacking anything remotely good. Everything in it was pretty much the opposite of good.
If anything, this truck just influenced my opinion and reinforced the fact that there is no such thing as a soul. Thing never existed in the first place. Much like any flavor that this truck had.

According to their website, they are now kaput:
There is a Foodie God!

I work in the Miracle Mile district, where there are plenty of food trucks to choose from. Yesterday– I decided to try this one because it smelled delicious.
But, I was extremely disappointed with the «Vegetarian Sampler». The tofu lettuce taco was ridiculously salty, the noodles lacked flavor, and the spicy mac n cheese (which I had high hopes for) was a disaster. The only item I actually finished was the white rice (which they substituted for the brown rice).
At least it was only $ 6 down the drain.

Gotta bumped it up to 3 stars, after I tried their tamarind-​sauce chicken. Much better than what I got before. Other than the lollipop chicken (6 for $ 5), I also got chicken sampler and beef sampler which was on special yesterday for $ 6 each. Also, this time my order came out pretty fast in comparison to my first time.
Chicken sampler: 2 lollipop tamarind-​sauce chicken and 1 regular fried chicken, 2 types of rice (white and black), spicy mac n cheese, and I opted not to have collared greens since I hardly eat veggies, and he nicely replaced it with yakisoba. I definitely liked the chicken and the spicy mac n cheese, he ain’t kidding when it said spicy on the menu, it burnt out my boss’ tongue, but not mine. The yakisoba and the black rice was a disappointment though. The soba was really dry and small cut so it could hardly be called a noodle/​soba to begin with, plus the black rice was really dry, it tasted like an uncooked rice instead.
Beef sampler: nikujaga (beef stewed soup with rice, potato and glass noodle), spicy mac n cheese, beef slider with cheese, and green beans. I didn’t really taste the green beans, but the slider was just like a slider always is, nothing special about it and the nikujaga was too plain in my opinion, it lacked flavors. Even my boss said, «I can make nikujaga better than this».
Would I go back to this truck? I probably would for the tamarind lollipop chicken, it was pretty good in my opinion. Maybe next time I could just ask for rice on top of that. I’m Asian enough that I can eat rice with anything except veggies.

After 5k-​training, my buddy and I dropped by a swap meet in Silver Lake to check out the trucks that were serving lunch. The only one that sounded promising [and that was open] was the Asian Soul Kitchen.
We both tried the Chicken Sampler. $ 6 for 3 chicken lollipops [drumsticks really], collared greens, 2 types of rice, and mac n cheese. WHOO the mac n cheese was spicy! I couldn’t take more than a bite. Everything else was fine — I’m not a fan of collared greens and I think I could make better rice. I did go to town with the chicken lollipops — they had some kick to them and the sweet sauce was great.
I think trying this truck once, was good enough for me.

Asian Soul Food?! Say What? When you see that you feel compelled to try it. Tried it at the Downtown Art Walk in March. The honey bbq chicken (not the actual name) is really good. I’m not Greens type of person, but their Greens were really tasty and had the perfect amount of seasoning.
Ventured into their macaroni, which was way too spicy for me. Bummer. But you have to try the sliders — really good!

I went to the 9^th annual Lantern Festival in L.A. where they were parked with other trucks. I was completely stoked because I’ve never even heard of this truck before and thought I’d give it a whirl.
The Southern Fried Lollipop Chicken — I can honestly say that I didn’t try it. My friends said that it was just «meh».
The Asian/​Japanese sliders — Japanese seasonings, caramelized onions, shiitake mushrooms, Cheddar cheese, in a sweet Chinese bun. This was the fricking best! I wanted more! I think the mushroom definitely made the sliders. All the flavors were wonderful mixed together in that little bite size burger. They should sell the sliders in packs of two. I think it would do well.
Spicy mac & cheese. Yucky. The spices were nasty! And I am a huge mac & cheese fan too. I was so disappointed.

meh. nothing special about this place. its not cheap. and the food doesnt stand out enough to be put into one of these trendy food trucks. its just not special at all.
i had the beef sampler, which had that nikujaku beef stew whatever its called. it wasnt anything special… could totally skip over it, but i just puked from drinking too much last night and really needed some form of soup for lunch.
the spicy mac n cheese tho, is AWESOME! the only redeeming value of all for this truck!!! i saw what others were getting, and the portions are SMALL for the price. thats why i rate this as 3 stars… it would be closer to 2 since you could totally skip this truck, but then get 3 because that mac n cheese is damn good.
how dare they charge those prices…

I’ve tried the tamarind chicken, mac and cheese and sliders.
The sliders are on hawaiian sweet bread, with a shittake mushroom and chicken. Very very good, but you def need to order at least 3 to be full.
The mac and cheese was okay, nothing crazy. It’s a little spicy.
The tamarind chicken was great– fried really well, with a slick tamarind sauce, which was just a strangely good combination.

Wishing a little more Soul in this Asian Kitchen. The soul looks like just the sides as the main course are the asian kitchen? I caught @ItsBentoBaby in Santa Monica in front of the Yahoo Building for lunch.
The Salmon Croquettes was well fried but it was slightly salty and i like my food salty. Nothing else on the menu looked really tempting personally, but i guess i’m looking for a little more uniqueness to my asian food if i’m going to get it off a truck.

Food Truck Hype.
Food was whatevers. It was AOK, but not worth driving around and finding it. The tamarind lolipop chicken was the best. The stew was all right. The fanta was yum.
AOK, but I would not drive around or drive too far looking for this place.

Another review for a food truck. This time hunting food truck during lunch time at Wilshire Blvd.
There were many of them but this one seemed like one of the favorites.
Stew of Beef with Potato: Sweet and nice flavor. But where’s the meat? 3 stars.
Lollipop Chicken with Tamarind Sauce: yummy chicken with rice. 3 stars.
Lollipop Chicken Southern Style: It wasn’t coated evenly. 2 stars.
I was still hungry after lunch. But I didn’t have to hunt for trucks.
Asian Soul Kitchen is almost yummylicious!

Contrary to unpopular belief, this is not a fusion food truck — they have Japanese and Southern food items on the menu. Not the easiest truck to catch, since they have quite a few private engagements, but well worth the hunt! That might change when they get started on their weekend runs.
Nikujaga with Thai Black Rice — By far my fave item on the menu. The nutty flavor of the black melds with the beefy carrot goodness — pure comfort food for a cold day
Lollipop chicken — Thin and crispy batter with a subtle tang from the tamarind glaze — delish!
Salmon Koroke — Lightly breaded with panko — nice and crisp
Asian Taco with Shrimp — Cute little salad-​like dish, good for a light bite
Suggestion: If you have any of the deep fried items, it’s best to eat it on the spot since it might turn soggy if you have it for to-​go

Chicken wings are NOM!!! And for $ 5… nom nom.
Yaki soba was soggy and not terribly good, even with the ginger helping out. While for the price the portions are reasonable, the pictures show beautiful chicken wings and rice on a lettuce leaf, when in reality you get a waxed cardboard containing with a (decent) scoop of rice and three drumettes. Yakisoba is also just kinda slopped in.
aka, «plop. plop. *closes box* Here’s your food!»
So varying food quality, decent pricing, but a long, *slow* line and no presentation whatsoever. Plus they were out of the other half of the stuff I wanted, and it was barely 12:35 by the time I ordered.
Not the best impression…

This place was so gross! I thought I would give it a try one day and I was very disappointed. I ended up getting the collard greens, the shrimp taco and the stew.
The collard greens were pretty ok… a little on the salty side. I don’t really know how you can mess up a vegetable though.
I thought the shrimp taco was going to be good because they use a lettuce wrap instead of a flour tortilla. Boy was I wrong. The shrimp filling seemed to be overcooked and mushy. it seemed like really cheap ingredients.
The stew was overcooked and the noodles were mushy. And wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of meat in there? No meat, just soggy overcooked and mushy noodles. Gross.
Stay away from this place. I would have rather spent my money elsewhere and got some edible food.

Cool, another Asian fusion truck. Maybe this one is good. With that in mind, I ventured across the street, walked up to the truck and ordered the Sampler with a Slider, Lollipop Chicken, Collar Greens and Brown Rice after carefully weighing my options.
For $ 8, I expected a little bit more food. Being a pessimist, the box was half emptied. An additional scoop of rice or more collar greens to fill up the box would be nice.
Slider: The chef left out the caramelized onions and the shiitake mushroom and since I asked for no cheese, my slider was just patty and buns. The patty was disgusting, chard on the outside but raw in the center. Adding insult to injury, the bottom piece of the so called «Chinese sweet bun halves» was soaked with liquid from the collar greens. Definitely not good.
The lollipop chicken was good. The drumlets were nicely fried and not heavily battered. My only compliant is that the tamarind glaze is too sweet for my taste.
The collar greens were too salty. If it didn’t mix the greens with the brown rice, they were almost inedible.
The concept of Asian Soul Kitchen is good but lacks execution. A.S.K. needs to tone down the self hype. The food is no where close to how they described it on their website. Anyway, A.S.K. is worth trying. If the patty wasn’t raw, I would have given 3 stars.

Save your time and $.
The food is just ok and I had to wait over 20 min for a pretty simple order. I was entertained by the woman waiting a much longer time who was finally told she couldn’t have her salmon because the fryer wasn’t working.
Noodles were super greasy and no flavor. Sliders are very so-​so — guy on the the truck was comparing them to Unami — NO WAY. Got back to my desk and they left the cheese off my burger.
The people who set up this truck spent 10x time on their website than thinking about how the truck would work and the food would taste.

I had the sliders (good, but not great), black rice (meh!), and the collard greens (whoot whoot!). The greens were the best part of my lunch — — perfectly seasoned and very spicy, just like my Aunt Queen Esther makes them.
I told my coworker (she had the lollipop chicken and recommends it) that next time I would just order three sides of greens and make them my meal.
I have the itis, so they are doing something right.

So the biggest downside in my quest to try every truck in the cityi, is that due to money, caloric intake or any other reason, i can only order so many items from a given truck in one visit. So as i was perusing the interesting menu at ASK, something caught my eye. My favorite word on any menu: SAMPLER. For $ 8 (closer to 9 with tax) you can try any 2 main dishes, a side and one of the three types of rice they have.
ASK is not so much a fusion of Asian and soul food, but offers dishes from both genres.
I decided to get the sampler, but left the main entrée choice up to the dude taking my order, who was more than happy to help. We settled on the tamarind glazed chicken lollipops and the sliders, spicy mac and cheese and white rice (they were all out of black and brown rice)
The food came out fairly quickly considering i had 4 different items in my order.
Sliders-​really small. The bun dwarfs the meat. Heavy on the taste of mushroom, real heavy. Everything has the same texture and it all
kind of mushes together.
Tamarind lollipops-​I liked the texture, nice and crisp without being heavily battered, maybe just a dusting of flour and seasoning. The glaze was nice, sweet at first then a little hot tartness on the back end. Best item in the box.
Mac and cheese-​I wouldnt come here for the mac and cheese. It was good for a lunch item, not to heavy on the cheese, bot not watery either. Had a little spice to it which was nice.
Rice-​its rice.
I will definitely be going back to try the more traditional Asian items such as yakisoba and salmon croquettes. Plus i love me a good sampler platter.