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If you ever crave an assortment of finger food and don’t want to drive the distance for something yummy and filling, TLT Food in Pasadena is a great place to check out during the lunch breaks.

After having debuted just short of 2 months ago, TLT food have earned themselves a decent lunch hour rush in Old Town Pasadena sitting right across the street from the Pasadena Playhouse.

The TLT Food restaurant chain started with a humble beginning, born from a food truck called “The Lime Truck”, who’s been serving their specialty fusion foods across the LA area since 2010.

Upon walking in you are greeted with large LED screens which display their entire menu right under the cashier. At first glance, if you are a first-timer, you will find yourself staring at those big displays, wondering what to order because they have quite a variety on their menu.

Their food menu is separated into a total of four main categories starting from Tacos, Between Bread, Lime Lite, the Goods, and Veggies.

The tacos are self-explanatory if you are used to having pulled pork, seared ahi tuna, or crispy potatoes as toppings, the Between Bread are assortments of different gourmet sandwiches and sliders, The Goods are finger foods such as pork belly nachos and wings, the Lime Lite that consists of salad bowls and other Asian fusion cuisines and lastly the Veggies, well literally veggies, consist from roasted corn to Pee Wee Potatoes, with their own twist of spices and sauces.They also offer a decent variety of vegetarian and gluten free dishes, which all have their respective label on the menu to avoid confusion.

TLT Food also have different assortment of mix fruit limeade that are made fresh daily, but aside from the fruity blends, they offers a wide range of alcohol beverages from craft beers to specialty-bottled wine.

Having the option of variety may not be bad in their case, because after getting used to their menu arrangement and unorthodox titles you will find yourself ordering like a regular, but if somehow you still find it hard or tiring looking up all the time, they have carded menus placed next to the side door.

On my first visit, I was recommended to order anything from The Goods or the Blue Crab Grilled Cheese from the Between Bread section. So I went with the grilled cheese and paired the entree with the pear limeade juice cocktail from the “daily-special” beverages.

The grilled cheese consisted of shredded blue crab meat, scallions, jalapeños, a spicy sambal sauce, and a blend of cheeses, all sandwiched in a toasty sourdough bread.

As good as the grilled cheese sounded just by reading it, it was definitely on the heavier side, but the cheese wasn’t too overwhelming and the spiciness of the sambal sauce along with the jalapeños blended especially well with the blue crab meat.

If anyone still find it a bit heavy, they can always wash it down with the fresh fruit limeade, which was really refreshing and not overly sweeten to my surprise.

Although the pear flavor limeade took a few sips to get used to, I found myself unconsciously sipping on it until the cup was fully empty.

After my first visit and read a couple of yelp reviews, I decided to go back for a round two and gave one of their tacos a shot. I ordered the ultimate taco, which consisted of their famous pulled pork carnitas that many yelp reviewers recommended, and not to my surprise it was delicious!

During lunch hour, the Pasadena location is lively but not over crowded, and having an outdoor seating area which helped to segregate the busy crowd. The interior is nice and clean with a nice modern atmosphere decorated with a steel-grey and lime green tone.

The customers are greeted kindly as they open the door to order at the counter, but how can they be born from a food truck don’t do delivery? TLT Food delivery can be order through the grubhub app, which food can be delivered to wherever you please!

According TLT food’s website, they started this business with a mindset to, “deliver amazing food, use quality ingredients, make things from scratch, and make the experience great from start to finish”, and I feel like they did just that, every dish seem to be unique and fresh.

Although reading and eating the food of TLT Food can be literally a mouthful, if you are someone who loves to try new dishes every time at a new restaurant, TLT food is a must! With their large selection of cuisines it is hard not to find something you wouldn’t want to try on your next lunch break run.

TLT FOODS – 4.5 stars

36 S El Molino Ave

Pasadena, CA 91101

626-714-7117

Hours:

Sun-Wed 11am-9pm

Thur-Sat 11am-10pm

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