Well, the time has come to say goodbye. No more dragging my friends out to Manhattan Beach to try crepes. No more interviewing my dad on the car ride back from eating three too many Birria tacos. No more eating kimchi quesadillas on the side of the road. No more obsessing over mini salsa fridges. No more monthly food truck reviews. While I am very upset that this is my last column, I promised myself that I would end with a bang. And I think I made good on my promise, but I’ll let you decide. 

In light of all the nostalgia I have been feeling as I near graduation, I thought I would make the last food truck I review connect to the first food truck I ever reviewed. I began with a true American-Jewish classic, the bagel, and today I will end with some true Israeli-Jewish classics — a very full circle moment and a nice ode to my Jewish heritage.

I ventured down to Tarzana on a hot Tuesday morning with my dad to try Meating Point, an Israeli food truck that mixes Sephardic Jewish cuisine with Ashkenazi Jewish Cuisine. For those of you who are not familiar with Judaism, Sephardic Jews have ancestry mainly traced from Southern Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East while Ashkenazi Jews are usually from Northern and Eastern Europe. Thus, the two different Jewish diaspora populations tend to have different practices and different cuisines — yet this truck mixes the two seamlessly. 

While eating at one of the tables stationed outside of the truck, my dad and I had a chance to chat with the truck’s owner, Tal Goldenberg. Tal’s mother is Moroccan and his father is Romanian, so the truck mixes the Sephardic recipes Tal learned from his mother with the Ashkenazi ones he learned from his father

“Many of the sandwich recipes are from my mom, and all of the salads are mixed. Some come from my mom, some come from my dad,” Goldenberg said. 

Clearly, the truck is more than just the food, but let’s take a second to appreciate just how amazing the food was.

We started with a traditional Israeli sandwich called sabich, which is pita bread stuffed with fried eggplants, Israeli salad, purple cabbage, hummus, tahini, diced pickles, and hard-boiled eggs. I had never tried sabich before, and it was delicious. The creaminess of the eggs and the hummus perfectly complemented the slight sweetness of the fried eggplant and the crunch of the vegetables. It was one of those sandwiches where the more bites you take, the better it gets. 

Next we tried the falafel pita sandwich, which contained everything the sabich had, minus the eggs and the eggplant. For those of you who are not a sucker for all things chickpea, falafel is essentially a deep-fried ball or patty-shaped fritter made from ground chickpeas. In this particular dish, the falafel was perfectly cooked and blended nicely into the sandwich. While not my favorite dish of the day, still amazing and worth a try — if you’re a fan of falafel of course.

The next (and what should have been the final) dish we tried was the beef kebab sandwich. This came with all the previous fixings and was served on a baguette. We chose to have a baguette for this one, but you have a choice of pita or baguette for all of them. The beef was perfectly cooked and tasted similar to a burger patty, so it mixed nicely with the pickles and the creamy hummus. This sandwich was incredibly rich and definitely meant to be shared, but it was one of my favorite dishes of the day. 

As we were gearing up to call it a day, Tal came out and started talking to us about his favorite sandwich, which wasn’t on the menu. I was full and ready to take a nap, but my dad had other plans. While I began to stand up to leave, my dad asked Tal if he could make us his special sandwich, and I am actually very glad he did. 

Tal’s sandwich contained chicken schnitzel, a Moroccan red pepper and tomato sauce called matbucha, hummus, tahini, garlic dip, white cabbage, and Israeli salad served on a baguette.

This sandwich was absolute heaven. The sweetness of the matbucha matched perfectly with the tang of the garlic and hummus. And the schnitzel was flawlessly soaked up all of the sauces into one perfect bite. I don’t know how to order this sandwich if you go, but I am sure if you ask for schnitzel on baguette with all the toppings, you can come pretty close to Tal’s special sandwich.

All in all, Meating Point was the perfect food truck to end my column with. I loved hearing Tal’s story and his parent’s influence. I learned so much about Israeli culture, and I got to eat some amazing food while doing so. If you’re kosher, or just looking for a mouthwatering Israeli sandwich, Meating Point is the place for you. 

Well, that’s all folks. I hope you enjoyed my column and tried at least one of my food truck suggestions. With all my love, from one foodie to another, never stop eating!