LOS ANGELES — You’ve got to see this thing.

For those with exquisite taste in the finest of tastes – we’re talking tacos and burritos, burgers and KBBQ, sandwiches, both hot and cold and ice cream – it is really a thing of beauty, a map of the Los Angeles food scene that is so thorough, and so thoroughly delicious, that it could be printed and hung up in an art gallery.

We’re talking the equivalent of Raleigh’s Map to El Dorado. We’re talking the hunt for the Holy Grail. We’re talking the Zagat’s Guide, Jonathan Gold (the other one) and Yelp all rolled into one.

When Andrew Vorhees pulled out his phone at Pac-12 Media Day in July, USC’s biggest and baddest offensive linemen broke into wide smiles.

“Oh, you gotta see this,” Jonah Monheim said, his eyes glistening, his mouth watering.

Vorhees shows his Apple Maps app on his phone, and it’s nothing out of the ordinary. Then he zooms in, and the pins start popping up. One by one. Avenue 26 Tacos, Prince Street Pizza, Wi BBQ.

It is as exhaustive as it is accurate. The tastes of a 6-6, 325-pound offensive lineman – one of the best offensive linemen in the country, that is – have to be top-notch.

When we start talking about the SoCal famous eatery The Hat, Vorhees grins.

“Which one?” he asks.

He is an offensive guard who has inoffensive tastes. A mountain of a man.

With one Vor-acious appetite.

* * * * *

“I’ve got a good story,” Monheim says.

Monheim, no petite wallflower himself at 6-5, 295 pounds, became fast friends with Vorhees. Three years Vorhees’ junior, Monheim has ridden shotgun on some epic food adventures.

“I believe it was last year during camp; bunch of us went out to eat, the offensive line and (former USC quarterback) Jaxson Dart,” Monheim said. “We had the next day off and we’re burning so many calories in camp, someone says, ‘Let’s just go all out and eat somewhere good.’”

They started with a big dinner on Sawtelle at Killer Noodle Tsujita, but they were still hungry. So they head down to Downtown L.A. German sausage house, Wurstküche. “Two full meals,” Monheim says. Then street tacos at a food truck, “and we’re at like 3,000 calories at this point,” he says. From there, they go to Dave’s Hot Chicken. That’s meal four. Then milkshakes to top it off.

It’d be considered gluttonous, if we weren’t talking about 22-year-old behemoths.

And among his teammates, the legend of the giant Vorhees grows.

USC center Brett Neilon, one of the top centers in the country, is simply awestruck.

“I’ve been around some big eaters,” he said, “and I consider myself a decent eater. But we go to some of these places, and you’re just blown away. It’s super impressive. It’s almost like a spectacle. At KBBQ, you’re just in awe. It’s like wow. I’m stuffed, I don’t know how this is possible.

“He can substantially eat more than me,” Monheim said. “As a fellow offensive lineman, he can eat a lot more than me. I can recall two instances – all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ and sushi. We’re at sushi, I’m tapped 30 minutes prior to him still ordering. And I’m eating a lot also. We talk about doing those challenges, but I don’t think he’s had a challenge yet.”

Vorhees just laughs. He kind of looks like a Viking, throwing his hulking shoulders back.

“Where Brett lives, there’s some real veterans there, a group of dudes who maybe go once a week,” Vorhees said. “Wi BBQ. I tagged along with them, and I don’t know why, but we wanted to see how much we all could eat. We just started getting after it. Joe Bryson, he and I just put on a clinic. We were there for almost 3 hours. At one point, Brett left to drive some people back, drove back to the restaurant and we were still eating.

“I wish I had a receipt or something so I could line-item it.”

The next day was the first day of optional practice. The last week of May. They started with conditioning before doing some lifting. Vorhees remembers doing sled pushes and, “my body was just in a different world. I didn’t know what was going on. I think Joe threw up. I don’t think I ate that day. That was single-handedly the most food I’ve ever had ever.”

There’s quantity, sure. But there’s also quality.

And Vorhees knows a thing or two about that.

* * * * *

The myth of Vorhees’ own personal yelp has grown, along with the map itself. He’s nearing 1,000 pins – 990, to be exact, as of Nov. 2 – and only growing. He doesn’t consider himself a food snob, but he certainly prides himself on being a truffle pig. He sniffs out the best restaurants in Los Angeles like he writes a food column for L.A. Weekly.

When USC quarterback and avid food fan Mo Hasan started bragging about this great new taco place, Angel’s Tijuana Tacos, word got back to Vorhees.

“He’s a ‘Taco Tuesday’ guy,” said Vorhees, with just literally the perfect amount of scorn. “He ‘finds’ this spot, goes and tells a couple teammates how great this place is. I just laughed once I caught wind of it. It was like, ‘Alright let him have his moment of shine.’ I’d already been going there for 6 months. He thought he found a spot. I’ve been there for a long time.”

Vorhees will let just any place on the map, but it takes something special to stay.

He’s big on experience, which is different than ambiance but incorporates it. He’s big on taste, above all.

Good experience, decent food, he’ll go back. Great experience, questionable food?

“Consider it written off,” he says, his nose in the sky. “But I try to be fair.”

He rattles off some of his favorites like they’re family members. In some ways they are. Around 2017, when the Nashville Hot Chicken scene exploded in Los Angeles, he started keeping tabs on places. (Dave’s is his favorite for hot chicken, by the way.) Soon enough, he went global.

“I’ve got a couple places in the UK, just in case I’m ever out there,” he said. “But 98 percent are in America. I have the entire pacific northwest, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas. I’ve got you covered.”

His teammates know they never have to go far.

“I used to ask him for places to eat as COVID started clearing up,” Monheim said. “I remember I asked him about a place and he’d say, ‘Hmm, let me see. He opens his Apple Maps, zooms out for all L.A., does a scroll up and zooms in three times to the exact spot. No markers on the map. He didn’t type anything in. He’s just doing this on pure memory and knowledge of L.A. I can’t even go from my apartment to five streets away without getting lost.”

Vorhees’ teammates understand what they have in him.

“He’s a food veteran,” Neilon said. “He judges places. Like really judges them. Will I go back again or not? He definitely has his spots. If we go to a new spot he hasn’t tried, he’ll pin it. Over time, you’d start to ask, and he’d proudly show you his map. It’s not boastful. It’s humble.

“I think he’s just hungry.”

* * * * *

Vorhees hasn’t always been this big. It just feels like it. He was 5-1 in kindergarten.

He comes from a big Dutch family, with cousins who run 6-4 and 6-3.

Raised in Kingsburg, roughly 20 miles south of Fresno, he was too big to play football in 2nd grade, so he had to wrestle. Every year, the same routine. He’d beg for a chance to play but be told it would be unfair.

“I was the only kid in my town who wanted to play but couldn’t,” he said. “You’re at school, a 4th-grader, and your classmates ask you why you can’t play, and you say because you weigh too much. That sucked growing up.”

Wrestling was a temporary salve, and Vorhees excelled. He won youth state championships. He credits much of his football success to some of the agility and hand placement he learned as a wrestler. He continued to wrestle in high school and was a state qualifier his sophomore year.

In 7th grade, Vorhees finally got his shot at football. For the senior level of his youth football league, the weight limit was 180 pounds. Vorhees was already 6-1, 200 pounds. He cut 20 pounds and just snuck below the limit and fell in love with the sport. Going into 8th grade, he grew from 6-1 to 6-5 and he bumped up to 220. He received good news, though, when he found out they’d raised the senior limit to 200 pounds. He cut to 200 and was able to play.

At the end of the year, he weighed 265 pounds. He was 6-6 by the end of his freshman year, when he played junior varsity for the Kingsburg High Vikings. By his sophomore year, he was up to 290 pounds, and he was the small kid on a unit that, he says, averaged more than 300 pounds.

“We were big up front,” he said, matter-of-factly.

During his junior year, his recruiting ramped up, and he had a handful of offers from Group of 5 programs, as well a couple of Pac-12 offers. He committed to USC at the end of his junior year.

That was in 2016.

Now it’s 2022, and Vorhees is still around.

* * * * *

On the flight home from Corvallis on Sept. 24, not long after the Trojans defeated the Oregon State Beavers, 17-14, USC defensive linemen Nick Figueroa and Solomon Byrd were talking about players who had been in the program for the longest.

“Solomon asked Nick, ‘How many snaps do you think Andrew has played here?’ And Nick said, ‘Honestly about 3,000,’” Vorhees said. “They went and checked and said, ‘You’ve played in 3,000 snaps here as of tonight.’ I had to take a step back after I heard that, kind of analyzed all I’ve been through here. The craziest thing about it all, it went by fast. I know it’s cliché, and I’m not typically for that, but it’s crazy.”

He’s done the math: This month was Vorhees’ 70th month on campus. That’s a lot of months.

A 3-star recruit out of Kingsburg, Vorhees opened his 2017 freshman season as the 6th man in USC’s offensive line rotation, but when starting right guard Viane Talamaivao suffered a pectoral injury in a Week 5 30-27 loss at No. 16 Washington State, Vorhees was inserted into the starting lineup and made 9 starts the rest of the way. He started 11 more games as a sophomore but was injured just two games into his junior year and he utilized his redshirt season. He returned for the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign and started 5 games, and last year, he was one of the most versatile linemen in the country.

He started 8 games at left guard then bumped out to left tackle, earning plenty of postseason recognition, including 2021 AP All-American third-team honors, as well as All-Pac-12 honorable mention, AP All-Pac-12 first team, Pro Football Focus All-Pac-12 first team and Phil Steele All-Pac-12 third-team honors.

After a season in which he was regarded as one of PFF’s highest-rated linemen, Vorhees was ready to test NFL Draft waters.

He had actually told Riley that he was planning on leaving the program when they first met, even though he was granted a 6th season because of the pandemic.

“I met with a bunch of players that first Monday I was here after their last game, and Andrew was one of the guys on the list,” Riley said. “We had a quick talk, and told me thought things were going to be great but he’d already made a decision to leave early. I’d just met him, and I wasn’t going to tell him anything different. I wished him good luck, and he did the same with me.

“He called back up on Thursday and asked to meet with me and said I’ve been thinking about it, saw some of the changes, and I don’t think I want my career to end like this. I want to be a part of it. It was a cool moment.”

Vorhees was pulled in two directions. The dreams of the NFL, the reality of a wasted season being his legacy.

Vorhees calls last year’s 4-8 campaign “really tough,” and that it felt like the program was in uncharted waters. “Really the whole athletic building,” he said. Trojans don’t expect to see their coach fired two games into the season.

Being tagged with that failure didn’t sit well with Vorhees. Ultimately, he couldn’t leave with a sour taste in his mouth. At least one that wasn’t caused on purpose.

“That would’ve been my reality forever if I were to leave – I would’ve left on one of the worst teams in USC in two-plus decades,” Vorhees said. “But I saw how fast (Riley) turned things around in just the few days I was here with him. That led me here where I am today and I’m so beyond grateful for that. Looking back on these last 9 months, I’ve had some of the best times of my life with this team.”

Riley’s sure glad to have him back; surely, too, are Caleb Williams, Travis Dye and Co.

“He really has a passion for the game,” Riley said. “Any guy who could’ve left and gone to the NFL and decides to come back also sees the benefit it can have for his career. He’s been very coachable, works hard at practice, very open to wanting to improve and to help the team.

“I guess it matches his appetite off the field.”