LA Times writer Linda Burum led me to Adolfo Huerta’s Van Nuys hole-in-the-wall. The Puebla-style sandwich shop holds only three tables, and they were all full, so I had to eat on my feet in front of the adjacent Laundromat. Not exactly ideal, but it was still worth trying the adobada, a sesame-studded bun loaded with spice-soaked beef that was supercharged with chipotle salsa and topped with cool slabs of milky panela cheese, onions and fresh-cut avocado. The sandwich was pretty good, with big flavor, but the roll was too big and could have tasted better.

My final stop was on a stretch of Sherman Way in North Hollywood that serves as Thai Town’s main competition. The weekend-only dessert tables at the back of Cha Chaa were yet another Burum find. There’s a reason she literally wrote the book on Ethnic Food in Los Angeles. I started with fresh-steamed glutinous dumplings filled with a crumble of peanut, daikon and onion.

Sweat was streaming down my cheeks and my stomach was about to pop, but it was impossible to ignore the black rice topped with firm slabs of custard and shredded young coconut. The sweet, al dente rice, creamy custard and intensely flavored coconut were an ideal match. Five feet away, a woman was cutting mango into Styrofoam cups of hot, coconut milk-soaked sticky rice. Too often, the fruit is fibrous and out of season. At Cha Chaa, the mango was sweet, ripe and completely irresistible. It’s pretty clear that Cha Chaa has the best Thai sweets in L.A.

On my ride home through Griffith Park, while passing the Los Angeles Zoo, I spotted a deer.