Bennett: ‘Green’ means go for people who want to eat healthy
When chef Roy Choi announced in 2014 that he was teaming up with chef Daniel Patterson to take on a mission to revolutionize fast food, the culinary world let out a collective gasp.
Why was the inventor of the Koji BBQ Taco Truck — the undisputed instigator for an entire wave of gourmet meals on wheels — deciding to focus his attention on creating a cheap veggie burger and French-fry-free kid’s meals? How would he do it? Would people even eat it?
But as the feature stories and think pieces about Choi and Patterson’s test-kitchen days began to flood the media, residents in Choi’s native land of Orange County had another burning question: Why did he act like he was starting this experiment from scratch?
By the time the two chefs conceived of Loco’l, the first one of which opened in Watts last year, two independently owned start-ups had already proved at least a portion of the concept here in O.C. — that you could make delicious community-minded health food that is quick and easy without breaking the bank.
Granted, the two homegrown, fast-casual eateries I’m referring to, Green2Go and Green Tomato Grill, aren’t in Watts or Oakland or anything mildly resembling the distressed, urban food desert for which Loco’l was intended.
Yet, the flavor-filled burgers, tacos, bowls, wraps and snacks created by the two unaffiliated restaurants (Green2Go is in Brea and Green Tomato Grill started in Orange with a new, second location in Brea) still shook up their respective neighborhoods’ food scenes with affordable, feel-good fast food that wasn’t from a chain.
Green2Go opened first in May of 2012, but its ideas go back to 2008, when local moms Anita Allison and Joulia Kallah decided to change the way their families eat. Because of a health scare, Kallah’s husband needed to have a diet free of salt, sugar and fats; her daughter suffers from celiac disease and eats gluten-free. Both were on a search to feed their broods quickly and conveniently.
Years of research into food systems and clean eating followed, and the resulting restaurant — tucked into a cozy corner of a Brea shopping center — feels like an extension of both moms’ kitchens. That is, if their kitchen had a five-seat craft beer bar stashed in one corner and a Chipotle-like, build-your-own quinoa bowl slash salad bar where you can pick from off-kilter seasonal toppings like grilled asparagus, caramelized onions and pickled carrots.
At Green2Go, Allison and Kallah have their takes on everything from McDonald’s burgers (made with wild Alaskan salmon and a Sriracha thousand island dressing) to Taco Bell tacos (organic, grass-fed tri tip) with nary a French fry in sight (roasted, salted fingerling potatoes suffice as a carby side). Adding to the homestyle touch are tables covered in plastic gingham, a bookshelf that serves a community trading post and a gooey, jack-and-cheddar macaroni and cheese lifted straight from children’s dreams (that’s also surprisingly gluten-free).
In fact, one of the major similarities between Green2Go and Green Tomato Grill is their subtle mutual support of special diets, including vegan, vegetarian, paleo, gluten-free, soy-free, heart-healthy, diabetic-friendly and more. All the desserts at Green2Go are made in the on-site, gluten-free bakery, and I once watched a teenage girl with her mother get teary eyed when the cashier at Green Tomato Grill told her that “everything on the menu can be made gluten-free.”
Green Tomato Grill opened in Orange in January 2013 in a similar spirit as Green2Go. With a menu of braises and melts and burgers and bowls created by executive chef Kyle Markt, the goal was to make a place that would compete with more traditional fast-food outlets on filling lunches and dinners. A second location, outfitted with a similarly quaint, fountain-lined patio, opened in Brea in 2015.
Most of the dishes at Green Tomato Grill contain up to five chopped vegetables — all of which are sauteed with a salty and somehow-buttery secret “everything” sauce made from soy, dijon mustard, garlic, rice vinegar and shallots. The spicy surf and turf bowl, for example, finds blackened calamari and grilled chicken tosssed with corn, onions, shisito peppers and snow peas.
An achiote-laden beef braise served over your choice of rice is Markt’s reverse-engineered take on Brodard’s much loved Vietnamese beef stew. And the toppling $10 Vegan Char Burger is so loaded with flavor, it’s hard to believe the cheese is dairy-free and the blackened patty has no meat in it at all.
Green Tomato Grill also eschews sides like French fries and onion rings, opting instead for supremely snackable, kid-friendly alternatives like blistered shisito peppers, chili-lime tossed popcorn and poppable rice-flour-fried chickpeas, all of which are sprinkled with a house adobo seasoning. Thirteen house-made sauces — from strawberry beet to chipotle barbecue — let you pick your meal in reverse, based on flavor profile. Meanwhile, four distinct agave-sweetened lemonades — cucumber ginger mint to jalapeno mandarin — are there to wash it all down.
Neither Green Tomato Grill nor Green2Go are attempting to be the neighborhood-uplifting panacea that Choi’s Loco’l has set out to be in Watts, but there remains an emphasis on sustainable sourcing, an aversion to traditional quick-service greasiness and a dedication to keeping pricing as low as possible that have made them unlikely oases for everyone from busy families to those with special dietary needs.
They’re part of a small but quiet Orange County fast-food revolution that’s been heaving forward since well before the big-name chefs told the world they thought of it.
Green2Go is at 2435 E. Imperial Hwy. in Brea. For information: (714) 482-2130; livegreen2go.com.
Green Tomato Grill is at 1419 N. Tustin St. in Orange and 796 N. Brea Blvd. in Brea. For information, go to greentomatogrill.com.
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SARAH BENNETT is a freelance journalist covering food, drink, music, culture and more. She is the former food editor at L.A. Weekly and a founding editor of Beer Paper L.A. Follow her on Twitter @thesarahbennett.