Punching Your Ticket for New Food at Stubhub Center

Taste of Stubhub Center

18400 Avalon Blvd.

Carson, CA 90746

I'm not going to write about this great event and try to fool you into thinking I'm a soccer enthusiast. To be truthful, I try to get into soccer every four years when the World Cup rolls around, but then there's always some sort of awful call, or I get tired of watching the players rolling around on the ground trying to draw penalties. I know athletic skill is involved here, but flopping is the biggest reason I tune out when soccer comes on.

So you ask, why am I at Stubhub Center? My love of food outweighs almost everything. I was told that many great new food options are being offered to the LA Galaxy supporters, along with many craft beer options. I also wanted my good friend Richard, one of the biggest fans of the Galaxy, and soccer in general, to experience this event with me. So we left work a little early and braved the traffic on the northbound 405 freeway.

This was my first visit to Stubhub Center, which is not only a world-class venue for soccer but also has an 8,000-seat tennis stadium here and a soccer stadium with over 27,000 rabid fans. Opened in 2003, Stubhub Center has hosted some of the biggest soccer games in Major League Soccer (MLS) history, has been the setting for some of the hottest entertainment acts around today, and is located on the campus of Cal State Dominguez Hills. Even though I'm not a big soccer fan, I am a sports fan, and being this close to the field was pretty impressive. I may or may not have gone out there and kicked a few imaginary goals for my adoring fans in the stands. All that running around made me hungry, so I was looking forward to seeing what the folks at Stubhub had in store for us.

I was told this was not your typical stadium grub, and the first thing we tried, the Hawaiian Tuna Poke confirmed that. Poke is all the rage right now, with many restaurants solely serving these tasty dice-sized morsels of seasoned tuna. This was a good version, with plenty of avocados and cucumber slices on the side, and it was simply seasoned to allow the natural flavor of the tuna to shine through. An excellent light option for fans who don't want to eat heavy, they have the energy to cheer on Alan Gordon and the rest of his LA Galaxy teammates.

Also, not something that you see every day at sporting events was this Korean BBQ Short Ribs with Asian Slaw. These were probably one of my favorite things I had this evening. The short ribs were easy to eat since they were so tender and tasted great. I'm a big fan of short ribs, and having these while watching sports, would be a winning combination.

You've probably had nachos at baseball and football games, but nothing like these from Stubhub Center. No gross orange liquid cheese here. They use real cheese, roasted corn, cotija cheese, and some delicious tortilla chips. Not overly heavy like other ballparks nachos, you still have the energy to cheer on your LA Galaxy.

The hits kept coming at Stubhub Center, with this Jamaican Jerk Chicken served with Quinoa Salad and Yucca Fries. The chicken really did have a jerk feel to it, but it was a little clumsy to eat because it was such a big piece. The yucca fries were pretty solid, even though I'm not a big fan of yucca. I also am no fan of quinoa, as I've been burned by it many times during the run of this blog, but the girl next to me raved about this salad, so I'll take her word for it.

Of course, Hamburgers are nothing new at sporting events, but this might have been one of the better ones I've had at a stadium. I liked the natural bacon strips used on these burgers, and the cheese melted perfectly. The burgers could have used a little more condiments, but they are still juicy burgers. Garlic fries are all the rage right now, and these were excellent. Fired nicely, with a good crunch to them, and the right amount of garlic was used here.

After all this food, I did not try these Pizzas from Fresh Brothers, but they looked pretty tasty. Fresh Brothers is a pizza chain that is expanding instead rapidly, and it just became the official pizza of Stubhub Center earlier this year. So I'm looking forward to trying them out real soon.

Not only is the food being upgraded at Stubhub Center, but they have also added many local craft beer choices at many of the concession stands here.  We were talking with the craft beer guys here, and they said that this South Bay area is becoming a hotbed for craft beer in Southern California. They rattled off over a dozen brewers producing their beverages in this area, many of which are available at Stubhub Center. I enjoyed the Absolution Hefeweizen, as it went down smoothly on this relatively warm day.

I left Stubhub Center pretty impressed. The food was, of course, pretty stellar, but I was most impressed with the fact that they were taking chances and bringing items to a sporting event that you usually do not see. Talking with a few people from Stubhub Center said that soccer fans are more demanding of their food than other sports fans, and their concessions have to reflect that. But they nailed it with the new food items we tried.

The end of the LA Galaxy season is fast approaching, and if you haven't been paying attention, they currently are sitting in first place, with two games to go, and then they will be trying to win their MLS record-leading sixth championship. So you have one more regular season game (October 18th against the Portland Timbers) to try this food available at Stand 18, located on the Stadium Club end of the stadium. I might not be the biggest soccer fan in the world, but food like this, they might have made me a convert.

To find out all the latest things going on at Stubhub Center, including their schedule of events, go to their website here: http://www.stubhubcenter.com/