Lidia's Dominican Kitchen Features Hearty Portions and Fearless Flavor

There are a lot of different ways to categorize food trucks, but one of the most all-encompassing may be snack versus meal.

Many of the most popular food trucks take pains to offer small, portable food that can be consumed on the go, placing just as much emphasis on convenience as flavor. But then there are the ones that pay no attention to this, that look at a food truck as nothing more than a small, compact restaurant on wheels, that require a knife, fork, and at least 20 minutes of your time.

Lidia's Dominican Kitchen falls squarely into the latter category, and that's a huge part of its charm.

Specializing in Caribbean comfort food, Lidia's offers a few smaller, bite-size snacks, but the truck's bread and butter are entree platters, either chicken or slow-roasted pernillo pork, complete with two sides. With the slow-cooked goodness and the hearty portions, you can't help but feel like you are being fed by a warm-hearted grandmother (even if you're wolfing it down while standing in the middle of an LA intersection).

The two basic choices you have are chicken or pork, and the choice is obvious: the chicken is solid, but the pork is really where it's at. Simmered for hours and deeply infused with both garlic and citrus flavor, this meat is in a league of its own.

It is also vastly different than the similar-looking carnitas that you will find at the thousand and one Mexican trucks across our urban landscape. The entree portion gives you an incredibly generous helping that may seem insurmountable, but that you will inevitably, invariably devour.

One of the more interested offerings on the menu is a sandwich, where the chicken or pork is served with lettuce, tomato, red onion, avocado sauce and two big hunks of fried plantain subbing in for the bread. It's tasty and a very intriuging idea, but the plantain is a bit too crumbly to stand up to the demands placed upon it.

The better way to enjoy plantains from Lidia's is fried and dipped in their pungent garlic sauce. Other great side dishes include cassava root fries and pretty much anything featuring rice and/or beans.

An added perk—the truck has a great little condiment bar with the aforementioned garlic sauce, as well as a bright green chimichurri and an intense red chili paste. Again, this place is not afraid of big, bold flavors.

With the winning combination of unique, exotic flavors and soothing comfort food charm (as well as being one of the more striking trucks on the street), it's no wonder that Lidia's has fast become one of the hottest food trucks in LA. They're in West Hollywood all the time, and also offer catering. You can check out the changing schedule on their website.