This review will be short and sweet, because the menu at Belly Shack is, well, short and sweet. Five "sammiches," one soup, two salads and five sides is about the size of it.

Bill Kim and his wife, Yvonne Cadiz-Kim, are in charge (they also operate a sister restaurant of a similar ilk called Urban Belly on North California). Belly Shack is aptly named. The atmosphere is ... call it Industrial Chic blended with Early Reclamation (concrete floors, prison seating and, I think, plywood). The prime location directly under the Blue Line is the frosting on this urban cake.

Would I make a special trip to go to Belly Shack? No. If I should happen to be driving by, and I was hungry, what then? A qualified yes, but only if I didn't have to wait in a long line. Really. One day, I counted 10 people waiting for the doors to open at noon.

It's that kind of place. Check the menu board overhead, order, pay, get a number, take a seat. (A self-service stand in the corner provides napkins and flatware.) The food arrives. Randomly. Which means that a side dish might show up before your "sammich" and possibly about the same time as your soup. There is no way I can put a label on the food here. It's not like anything you (or I) have had before. Potluck does come to mind, however.

When was the last time you had a spaghetti and meatball sandwich? Belly Shack has a version of one, and I smile as I write this because I really loved it. Four good-size "Asian meatballs" were tucked, along with cool noodles and mint, into the maw of a pocket pita. The meatballs were firm, but not too firm, and had a deep-down flavor. Not a meatball that you would mistake as Italian, but I would order this sammich again in a heartbeat.

I enjoyed the hot and sour soup equally well. There was a richness and depth of character to this soup. I have no idea how chef Kim does the broth (chicken stock and a lot of Vietnamese herbs?), but I do know that with bits of chicken and balls of hominy and cilantro and bean sprouts and "noodles" of tortillas, I scraped the bottom of the bowl.

I didn't love the lemongrass chicken sammich all that much. It was deconstructed, the strips of chicken here, the pita pocket over there, a small cup of papaya salad to jazz it up. Overall, compared to the Asian meatball number, I found it rather boring.

The side of Brussels sprouts was quite good. The sprouts were sliced, tender and made all the more flavorful by being in the company of crumbles of chorizo. A bit on the greasy side, but enormously flavorful.

For those who are vegetarians (vegan, no gluten), there's one special sammich, the "boricua." This involves slabs of tofu and rice and sauteed bok choy sandwiched between "bread" made of pressed plantains (I didn't know they could be pressed so flat). Two big pieces come wrapped in parchment paper. Messy as can be, and definitely an acquired taste.

Desserts are one of a kind, the kind that are all "soft-serve," as in soft-serve ice cream with some form of fancy topping. I tried only one, and that one, Vietnamese cinnamon caramel, was excellent. It was nothing more than cinnamon-laced ribbons of caramel drizzled over the ice cream, but it did the sweet trick of enjoyment.

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