Nomad Truck Burger

[Bette Keesee]

Itook off to scour the Internet and find the best possible food truck to grace our set, and one willing to visit us at 4 in the morning. My best friend texted me a list of his favorites and one name stuck out: The Hungry Nomad. We had become sort-of nomads ourselves, living in motorhomes and camera trucks and pop-up tents as we set up in various locations to shoot a high-school-age-rom-com all over Chatsworth. And the name promised Middle Eastern food, or, as I soon learned, Middle Eastern Fusion, my new favorite genre.

To say we were nomads is an over statement, the true nomad collects and perfects culture as he goes. David Yeretsian of the Sasoun Bakeries, utterly delicious Armenian bakeries sprinkled around Los Angeles, came to LA from Sasoun (historic Armenia) via Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. Every time he had to start anew he opened a bakery. In Lebanon he developed a new style of flatbread endearingly titled The Torpedo, as it is shaped like the much seen torpedoes in Lebanon at the time. The morning bustle in the Los Angeles bakery gives off the air of a standard Armenian bakery, but the food stands out with its own twists.

From the perforated, anodized-aluminum shell to the cast-aluminum grill boxes inside, everything about the Nomad feels solid and well made. The heavy-duty handles and latches are strong. Even the grilling surface is held solidly in place with high-temperature-resistant magnets.

When collapsed in suitcase carrying position, the Nomad looks like a cross between something Jason Bourne would use as a carry-on and some kind of live animal cage. I told one person who asked about it that my kids had a pet wolverine. For a second, I think they believed me.

Once you get where you're going with your Nomad, you can set it up on any flat surface. Thanks to the engineering behind the grill, it never gets hot enough to harm wood, metal, stone, or sand. I would not put it on a plastic table, but it should work fine everywhere from your truck tailgate to your local park's picnic table. While flat on the ground is the most awkward way to cook on the Nomad, it also works.

For typical high-temp grilling, the Nomad folds open, giving you two sides to grill on. The catch is that the grill for the second side is sold separately and will set you back another $130. If you get the extra grill grate, you'll have total of 425 square inches of cooking surface. Nomad claims this is enough for 30 burgers. I did not test the second grill grate, but cooking single-sided there was enough room for 12 burgers at about a quarter-pound each.

The other thing to note is that the grill surface is cambered, which means that if you get both grills, you'll need to flip one over before closing it up. Nomad also points out that you can cook with the grill surface flipped over, making it something like a veggie basket.

There are two features about the Nomad worth mentioning when it comes to cooking. The first is the twin air vents. In single-sided mode, you end up with one air vent at the bottom and one at the top. If you have both sides open, they're both at the bottom. They're much smaller vents than what you'll find on typical grills, but they work well because of a second feature: the longitudinal raised slats. These ribs running the length of the grill pan hold Nomad's special charcoal cylinders off the bottom of the grill, making the air flow around them better and allowing you to maintain higher temperatures even with the lid closed.

The bad news is that if you use regular charcoal briquets, the airflow isn't as good and you won't be able to get temps as high. I cooked my way through the sample box of Nomad charcoal in about four cooks and then switched to the regular Kingsford briquets you can buy almost anywhere. I was never able to get the Nomad back up above 400 with the lid closed. But I can't think of many situations in which you'd want to get temps that high, aside from perhaps baking a pizza. If that's your use case, you can always buy more charcoal from Nomad. It's $36 for a 10 pound box.

The only thing I found annoying about smoking in the Nomad was needing to lift off the entire grill grate to feed in some fresh fuel. A hinged grill grate would be a nice option, especially since the magnets would hold it securely in place the rest of the time.

It's also worth noting that as a smoker, you have slightly less room than on the Jumbo Joe. A single side of the Nomad is 212 square inches, while the Jumbo Joe manages 240 square inches. In practice, this isn't a big difference. I managed to smoke nine chicken breasts, and another time I fit two racks of ribs. In fact, even without the second grill grate I never felt cramped while cooking for five (two adults, three ravenous children).

The grill grate takes a bit more effort to clean. I do not recommend using anything but bristle-free scrapers. I've been cleaning mine periodically with a green scrubber and occasionally throwing some wood in at the end of a cook to burn off the grate. Follow that up with a fresh seasoning and your grate should be clean and ready to go for your next cook.

The Weber Jumbo Joe remains a very good grill at a faction of the price of the Nomad. Still, the Nomad is the best portable grill I've used, and if you do buy it, you won't be disappointed. If you're in search of some grilling guidance, we love American's Test Kitchen cookbooks.

The popular burger chain held an announcement on Friday, Sept. 18 with great fanfare, including Burgerville's mobile food truck, The Nomad, at the site of the new location in Corvallis, 2300 NW 9th St.

"We've been sought after by a number of communities for some time and we know that we need to be in the valley," said Jack Graves, chief cultural officer for Burgerville."The initial overhead is a big impact on the operation, and it can be a burden or an asset. So when we saw an opportunity to repurpose a Wendy's structure (in Corvallis), some of the economic investment is already done. We've got to modify it but we've got a building with really sturdy bones that we can work with."

"Market Street was widened and they condemned us and chased us out of there. What they actually did was stage construction equipment on the former Burgerville site. When it came back together they wouldn't sell that property back to us. That restaurant never did real well. It was just OK. So we weren't in a big hurry to replace it," Graves said.

"We know Salem's a gap in our portfolio and we've been looking. We pursued Keizer Station on two different occasions. Once very early and once later during the development. We did recognize it as viable but the economics were not very good for us at that location," Graves said. It was a matter of timing and there was market share to still capture in the Portland area so the company developed the Portland Airport and Tigard locations, Graves Said.

"We are absolutely still interested in Salem. We have a small office in Salem. We're still actively looking for the right site. We're growing largely out of our cash flow and we're not interested in taking on a lot of debt. Our growth is slow and purposeful. When you do that you can't be careless with your growth," Graves said.

The company will be soliciting feedback from Corvallis residents for their opinions to be incorporated into the new location, Graves said. This process was used at Burgerville's more recent new restaurants in Portland International Airport and in Tigard. Both locations reflect the feedback that PDX travelers and airport employees gave and that Tigard-area residents gave.

"There's a community wall in Tigard. There's a big monitor and it runs a sequential listing of comment that shows social media posts. That's part of the input for the community. They wanted a forum to talk to the company," Graves said.

The "Ideation" sessions will collect input from Corvallis residents that could be used to fine tune menu offerings, service model, determine if special hours are needed, or whether the location needs to develop transportation partnerships, Graves said. The location will be approximately 2 miles from the Oregon State University campus. There will probably be 2 or 3 "Ideation" sessions, Graves said.

Burgerville is known for incorporating local Oregon products in its offerings, including seasonal berries as well as Tillamook cheese. The company is based in Vancouver, Washington and operates restaurants throughout southwest Washington and Oregon.

The Belcher family is a true comedic jewel in the crown of modern comedy. The cult cartoon Bob's Burgers has earned a mass fan following for everything from the recurring feud with neighbouring restaurateur Jimmy Pesto Sr. to the pun-tastic names of the burgers Bob slings in his restaurant.

And if you've ever found yourself wanting to take a bite out of such wonderfully named burgers like the "We're Here, We're Gruyere, Get Used to It" or the "Paranormal Pepper Jack-tivity (comes with pepper jack cheese)" might actually taste like in real life, a recent art show and pop-up burger shop in Los Angeles turned that dream into reality.

During an art show put on by Bento Box Entertainment showcasing the one-of-a-kind painting, sculpture, and mixed media pieces from 16 Bento Box artists who work on Bob's Burgers, guests had the opportunity to take in the show while chowing down on real-life burger creations inspired by the series.

The art show, which took place in LA chef Alvin Cailan's famed restaurant incubator Unit 120, took full advantage of the space's culinary creativity by having ten different local chefs create their own gourmet versions of Bob's pun-riddled burgers to mark the special occasion.

"We had all our current Unit 120 chefs make a burger: Chad Valencia, Isa Fabro, Lawrence Fama, and [sommelier] Anthony Cailan," Cailan told me. "Then my buddies from Badmaash, Welxer's Deli, and the NoMad Truck. But I was particularly excited to let people taste burgers from some amazing chefs I want people to get to know like Christian Alquiza from Sweetfin, Royce Burke from Chimney Coffee, and Dom Crisp from L&E Oyster Bar."

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