LA on 20 a Day |

Let’s talk about the best taco in Los Angeles. I know it’s dangerous territory I’m treading on here, but I feel confident in my choice. I may not look like a taco aficionado, but I’ve actually got some cred when it comes to Mexican cuisine. For starters, I have been vetted by my Mexican fiancé. Also, not to brag, but my spice threshold is no joke for a gringa. I like my tacos spicy, and my preferred fillings are the really tender cuts of meat that shine in Mexican preparations, like lengua and cabeza. A year ago, I would have sworn that El Chato, the truck you can find late nights at Olympic and La Brea, had the best taco in town. And they do serve truly delicious tacos for $1 apiece. Those perfectly charred little salty scraps of cheap cuts of meat “con todo” topped with a few slivers of habanero-soaked onion are nearly untouchable. But there’s more to a taco than the filling, and it’s really the sum of the parts in Guisados tacos that create a true symphony in your mouth.

The foundation of the taco is the corn tortilla, which Guisados hand makes fresh daily. Their tortillas are thick and chewy and savory, delicious enough to eat by themselves. That’s a rare delight. The fillings rotate, and the day’s wares are displayed on the chalkboard. One of my favorite things about Guisados is the 6 mini-taco sampler platter, which I invariably opt for. I always want to try everything, but some mainstays that are definitely winners are the steak in salsa roja and the cochinita pibil. The cochinita pibil can be ordered on a spice scale from 1-10+, with 10+ being a blow-your-face-off pile of habanero, arbol and serrano chiles atop shredded pork smothered in habanero salsa. I like to order mine (mini sized) at an 8 or 9, which is still sufficiently crazy spicy. I also love the veggie tacos, especially the mushroom. Beautiful vegetarian tacos like these are not to be found at any of LA’s great taco trucks.

Every Guisados taco has great flavor, so you can’t really go wrong. Unless, of course, you neglect to order a quesadilla. A Guisados quesadilla is a simple thing, just a folded over corn tortilla with a thick slice of chewy, salty cheese inside and a squirt of some sort of orange colored sauce. It’s not a traditional quesadilla—the cheese is grilled, not melted—but it’s simply divine.

In a city that boasts the best Mexican food in the United States, of course there is no one taco that is worth forsaking all others. But Guisados serves a really formidable, crave-able taco that I keep returning for, despite the distance from SaMo to Boyle Heights.

6 mini-taco sampler plate

I have always idolized and adored Anthony Bourdain. I love the offhanded, frank style of his utterly engrossing memoirs, I love that he has a bad-ass, drug-addled past. The fact that he has now somewhat softened, demonstrating an ability to appear at ease in any situation while still employing his dry, sardonic wit reminds me of my Dad, only serving to feed my fondness for this man who has traveled and tasted more than any other person alive. So of course I tune in, rapt, to his new show, “The Layover,” even though I come away from each episode devastatingly jealous. Nothing can inspire feelings of great, gut-wrenching jealousy in me so much as watching someone else eat food in Hong Kong. (My friend Bryan Tan’s daily Facebook posts entitled “Hong Kong Daily Food Photojournal” are trying to kill me.) Since spending a week in Hong Kong last year, I have become so enamored of the city and all of its gastronomical offerings that even the mention of Hainan chicken rice or Hong Kong milk tea sends me into a frenzy. In Tony’s recent “The Layover” episode in Hong Kong, one of the many dishes he enjoyed was a soup with shrimp wonton and egg noodles. Sounds simple, but this dish evokes a feeling of fondness in me—upon arriving in Hong Kong last year, we immediately dropped off our bags at the hotel and headed to Central in search of Mak’s Noodles. These spindly, springy little egg noodles are, as I understand, something of a dying art, and they are wondrous. It had been a long time since I had eaten them, and when I saw Tony enjoying a bowl full, well, I had to have them immediately.

Thank God for the San Gabriel Valley. Very nearly anything you will find in China you can find there. And we did find my egg noodles in soup with wontons, and a perfectly executed version. Noodle Boy in Rosemead is, as one might expect, a highly unassuming, sterile looking strip-mall restaurant that smells of boiling fish parts. Their menu selections are more or less as follows: soup, noodles, or soup with noodles. There are toppings: shrimp wonton, (strangely lemony) fish balls, beef, cuttlefish balls. There was a special: noodles with shredded pork and special sauce. It was wonderful. There is also one vegetable option, steamed Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce or without oyster sauce. I would suggest getting that as well. You can really order anything you desire, because the soups with noodles are $4.75, and the portions are large; the broccoli is $3. You can add any toppings you like to your soup—throw caution to the wind, in fact. Your bill won’t amount to much. For a soup with noodles and wonton, another soup with noodles, fish balls and cuttlefish balls, a shredded pork noodle special (which also comes with a bowl of soup), and an order of Chinese broccoli, our grand total was $20.36. We had leftovers.

There are other places in SGV where you can get soup with spindly egg noodles and wontons—I’ll have to try B Open Kitchen‘s version and I know they have it at Tasty Garden, my new after-midnight go-to. But at Jonathan Gold’s suggestion I opted for Noodle Boy first, and as usual, JG was astute. The broth was really perfect, clear and thin like a consommé but with deep flavor. My craving thus satisfied, I am safe for now from the fits of jealous rage I experience each time I watch Tony Bourdain eating on TV. I’ll soon be back to my DVR for more punishment.

Soup with noodles, fish balls, cuttlefish balls

I love the atmosphere of Fat Spoon in Little Tokyo downtown–I feel I’ve been transported to a neighborhood diner in Japan where businesspeople converge after work for their fix of familiar favorite dishes. Or at least a neighborhood diner in a Haruki Murakami novel. I won’t pretend to be an expert on actual Tokyo dining establishments.

You know how I treasure an opportunity to get big chefs’ food for cheap, and that’s just what you’ll find at Fat Spoon. Michael Cardenas (sounds hispanic, cooks Asian,) is also the chef/co-owner of Lazy Ox Canteen, and a definite rising star in the LA food scene. Not that he’s new to fine dining–he spent 5 years managing Matsuhisa in Beverly Hills before opening Sushi Roku, and then finally going out on his own. But now, executing his vision at his three downtown restaurants, Cardenas has seized the opportunity to shine in his own right.

Lazy Ox, Los Angeles Magazine’s “Best New Restaurant 2010,” is an inventive small plates establishment serving the usual alternative cuts of meat like pig ear and beef tongue in interesting and delicious ways, as well as quite a few really nice vegetable offerings. It’s moderately priced, but you’re not going to get out of there for under $30 per person. So you can imagine how delighted I was to hear that Cardenas’ newest venture would be a casual Japanese curry spot. I’ve been on a real Japanese kick lately, craving either sushi, katsu, udon or ramen more or less every night. (Look forward to a post on the only restaurant I know in town serving Japanese breakfast.) I’m not sure if it’s all the Murakami I’ve been reading or the fact that Japanese cuisine is so varied and comforting without being heavy (or maybe it’s because Sawtelle is so much closer to me than San Gabriel Valley) but I’ve been sampling a wide variety of both Japanese and Korean katsu lately, and Fat Spoon’s pork katsu curry is a real winner. Crispy and with minimal grease, served over a mountain of rice, the cutlet is divine when combined with the special curry sauce that comes with it, served in a gravy boat to facilitate either dipping or pouring. I must say that Japanese curries have never excited me particularly–you usually really have to be in the mood for the thick, tangy stuff. It’s not sweet or spicy like Thai or Indian curry, and it’s generally rather pungent. But Fat Spoon’s curry is subtly spiced, perfectly balanced and truly delicious. There’s an undertone of slow heat, but it’s definitely not going to make you sweat; there is a savoriness that’s quite pleasant. The beef curry is no exception, the meat so tender it requires nary a chew. If the beef tongue curry is on the blackboard it’s not a bad idea–it’s the same dish as the beef curry, only with fattier, meltier, thicker slices of meat. All of the curries run around $10, and since they’re served with rice and you can add veggies for only $1, they make a very satisfying one-plate meal.

Fat Spoon may not be the pioneer of a new downtown dining movement that Lazy Ox was, but it’s comfortable, delicious, and just weird enough not to be boring. There are a few bizarre offerings on the menu–the pasta section isn’t what I would typically expect in a Japanese restaurant–so if you’re looking for adventure you won’t be disappointed. Wash down your meal with a crisp, cold Echigo beer, and listen for the call of the wind-up bird. It won’t come, but you get the picture.

Beef Curry

I’ve been following Michael Voltaggio since I first had the privilege of tasting his food at his pre-fame gig, The Dining Room at the Langham Huntington, about three weeks before he was named Top Chef in Season 6. And I literally mean following, I see the guy everywhere. Anyway, if I was maybe rooting for Kevin before that meal, I was all about Michael the moment I tasted his chestnut soup with pressed chicken. It was divine. I’ll refrain from going into more detail, since you can’t get it anymore anyway. Since then I’ve had run-ins with MV at his service at Test Kitchen, at the Rising Star Chefs Gala last summer, and finally at his newest project, Ink.Sack on Melrose in W Hollywood. Just a couple doors down from Ink., his fine dining spot slated to open (at long last) in September, Ink.Sack is a casual sandwich shop serving up inventive slider-sized sammies for $4-$6.

Michael has always impressed me with his flawless execution of playful concepts–see: his Test Kitchen offerings (a molecular “tiramisu” where the white creme was the coffee and the coffee-colored pearls were mascarpone; veal sweetbread “mcnuggets” with rhubarb ketsup, etc.) His talent level is equaled by his creativity and ambition, and I love his creations. I also love that Ink.Sack is fully committed to its hip street food concept–the cashiers wear neat tees designed in a special collaboration between Michael and The Hundreds, the beverage options are thoughtful/fun (Mexican coke, apple beer), and the sides are lowbrow-chic, like BBQ pork rinds or street fruit with chile, both $3. It’s affordable, it’s laidback, and it’s simple. Well, as simple as MV gets. Can you call a mini sandwich with crispy curried chicken skin, chicken liver mousse and tomato simple? I suppose you can. Do not miss the cold fried chicken sandwich, it’s a delight. Ink. Sack is just the right amount of whimsy, and the right amount of “only in LA”-ness. With the proliferation of food trucks and pop-ups in our city, a casual sandwich shop by a celeb José Andrés protegé is just so right now.

Speaking of the Spanish Godfather, I did enjoy the sandwich named for him, stuffed with three kinds of pork and manchego cheese. I don’t think you can go wrong at Ink.Sack–more likely, you’ll be back in line for another round…like me. The sandwiches are so petite, it’s all too easy to justify getting another.

Cold Fried Chicken Sandwich

This new Santa Monica spot is just way better than a weird little massage parlor/teak furniture store turned takeout Thai restaurant should be. The bf and I used to joke about the ridiculousness of the place all of a sudden announcing itself as a restaurant, and yet one day, hungry for a healthy, quick and cheap lunch, I was compelled by an unknown force to go into Thai Vegan. I have been frequenting the place since then, and everything I have had here, without exception, is delicious. My first sampling of Thai Vegan’s fare was the pad thai with tofu and vegetables. I was starving, and ate until my stomach hurt, but still barely finished half of the steaming heap of squishy rice noodles with that sweet orange sauce, peanuts, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, and of course tofu. Thai flavors happen to lend themselves particularly well to vegan cuisine–authentic Thai curry is made with coconut milk anyway, so nothing is sacrificed in the translation. The curry at Thai Vegan happens to be excellent, sweet and complex and not too thick, packed with veggies and soft tofu.

I ask for the curry extra spicy and order a side of brown rice, a huge scoop of multi-hued, wild rice that is always perfectly cooked. With the $5 curry, the entire lunch comes out to $7 flat, and it’s honestly enough to feed two people. Two spring roll-esque fresh vegetable wraps the size of burritos with thick, sweet, spicy peanut sauce are $5. Eating the wraps is like biting into a salad of freshly picked herbs. Full of cucumber, lettuce, tofu, basil and mint, they come wrapped in a chewy rice paper roll, and dipped in the peanut sauce they make the perfect crisp, fresh lunch. The prices here are astoundingly low. All curries are $5. Noodle dishes are $7. Thai iced tea, $2. They also have fried rice dishes and tofu wraps, satays and soups, green papaya salad and wonderful mango sticky rice. Everything is $7 or less.

I’m not suggesting that Thai Vegan is the new Jitlada. It’s not that the flavors are particularly unique in terms of the Thai places around town, even among Thai on the West side. You obviously aren’t going to find any odd delicacies like fish kidney curry (though the smell alone of that dish is enough to provoke my gag reflex). But the freshness of the food, the surprising complexity of the curries, and the spot-on execution of all of the dishes are refreshingly delightful. There are a few wooden tables and benches where you can sit and eat if you prefer not to take your food out. Perhaps you would like a convenient Thai massage to aid digestion after your meal–only $39/hr. It’s like a refreshing spa day at one of those cheap Korean spas downtown, only without the mandatory nudity.

Fresh vegetable wrap and mango sticky rice

I hate how grossly overused this phrase has become, yet the fact remains: we eat with our eyes first. And let me tell you, my eyes devoured the entire display table at the new Gjelina Take Away in Venice. I’ve never seen such attention to detail lavished upon salad presentation. GTA doesn’t just offer a cauliflower salad with salsa verde, they select three colors of cauliflower, the purple, green and orange florets enticing the eye’s palate. Bean salad is piled vertically, smoked almonds tumbling over the lightly dressed yellow and green beans and shaved parmesan. Beet and carrot salad is vibrant with chunks of avocado and a drizzling of yogurt. Every single dish on display is artfully put together, and I appreciate that they showcase the ingredients with an extra respect. I know I’ll be coming back again and again until I’ve had everything. With 90% of the produce coming from California farmers, GTA’s counter is hard-core food porn for locavores.

Of course, we also eat with our mouths, and that I did. I greedily dispatched the bean salad, crunching on perfectly crisp stalks and savoring every tart, vinegary, smoky, salty bite. The tuna conserva sandwich on homemade olive batard was stuffed with big chunks of fresh tuna, not flaky crumbles in mayonnaise. Atop the tuna, slices of roasted red peppers add sweetness and fresh peppery arugula lends crunch. The sandwich is moistened with a spread of aioli. It is a delight.

Like Mozza2Go and Charles Phan’s Out the Door in San Francisco, GTA offers a wonderful opportunity to eat master chef creations without the premiums we’re charged for sit-down service. For just $12 at GTA (no tax, this is take-out,) you can get a trio of salads or any of the sandwiches, which currently include pork meatball and BBQ beef. The breakfast sandwich, which comes with a fried-to-order egg, chard, bacon and tomato sauce on a homemade English muffin is just $5. Right now they’re breakfast and lunch only, open from 8am-4pm. The offerings include breakfast porridge, granola, pastries, salads, sandwiches, pizzas, hand-crafted beverages including espresso drinks and berry limeade, and freshly baked bread. In accordance with health requirements, they don’t have to keep their salads under glass because they sell everything within two hours of putting it out. It’s that fresh. Okay, so Gjelina doesn’t have the best rep right now due to the whole “no substitutions, even for pregnant celebrities” debacle, but if it makes you feel any better, GTA does accept subtractions. (Still no substitutions though.) So go ahead, feast your eyes on GTA. And then feast your belly.

Mediterranean cucumber salad, beet salad, farro salad

Just thought I would share this angry letter I wrote to the Food Network this week regarding some of their new programming…

Dear Food Network,

I am an avid viewer and fan of your programming, an aspiring food writer, and a lover of food. I often make recipes by Giada, Barefoot, and Anne Burrell. Regardless of what my idol, Tony Bourdain, says about your network, I remain a loyal viewer and defender. However, I was completely dismayed when I recently tuned into an episode of your new show, Hungry Girl. The chef was making her “Fettuccine Hungry GirlFredo,” a supposedly healthier version of Fettuccine Alfredo. What appalled me was the list of ingredients in her health food version: tofu noodles, fat free sour cream and a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese. Laughing Cow cheese is a pre-packaged, highly processed cheese product. I love that the Food Network always advocates using fresh, real produce and ingredients, and I find it to be frankly insulting to the intelligence of your viewer to suggest that anyone watching the show would satisfy a craving for creamy pasta with this sad imitation containing microwaved tofu noodles and waxy, tasteless faux cheese. This recipe flagrantly promotes everything that turned us off to “health food” in the first place, back in the ’90′s when we were taught that anything “fat free” was guilt-free, regardless of how many preservatives or how little taste that food product contained. As a country, we’re now moving away from that mentality with the farm-to-table movement, and this program has it backward.

It seems that all of your other chef/hosts know what any real food lover knows: that fresh produce and a little bit of real food, whether it’s cheese or pasta or anything else that has integrity of ingredients, beats the processed stuff any day. If you want to give Tony Bourdain fodder for claiming that your network appeals to the lowest intelligence and taste level of the American public, then surely this new program is the best example. I would appreciate seeing the Food Network get back on track with programming that teaches America how to make real, nutrient-filled foods taste good with authentic recipes that aren’t dumbed down. I am a lover of your content, but seeing that recipe come together was honestly disgusting–I had to change the channel after the first ten minutes.

Thank you for your consideration.

Best,
Jessica

Ewwww

I have to admit that my first experience with this casual beach shack serving “eclectic Caribbean” was not especially favorable, so when Michael Symon chose their coconut fried chicken as one of the “Best Things [he] Ever Ate,” I had my misgivings. Cha Cha Chicken is within walking distance from my apartment, so it was with great disappointment that I noted their staple jerk chicken to be decidedly lacking in flavor, moisture, and general presentation. I found the service lagging, the décor odd.

I’ve since discovered that to some extent, I just needed to adjust my expectations—the kitschy outdoor-only dining area, outfitted with patio tables and slightly sticky, mismatched chairs, and adorned with colorful lanterns hanging from a floral vinyl awning has its charms, especially at night, when a second round of dinner patrons forms a snaking line down the sidewalk, everyone taking full advantage of the BYO policy. Every hand clutches a beer, while ex-frat boys push tables together to accommodate large, festive groups, drinking and dining on spicy, sweet, sloppy Island food. There is a quirky cuteness to the scene.

I also just needed to adjust my order. A couple of the offerings are misses, and the jerk chicken is not the way to go here. Chef Symon was absolutely right about the coconut fried chicken, however—it is a delight. The thick, sweet, salty, crunchy crust breaks off in chunks as you bite into the chicken pieces, and those fallen morsels of chicken skin make your sides of dirty rice and red cabbage slaw so much better. The dipping sauces are so-so; the pineapple sauce is a little too goopy and sweet for me, and the jerk sauce is spicy enough, but the flavor doesn’t excite me. The fried chicken is all you really need. The sides, two of which are included in most orders, are clearly afterthoughts, dumped haphazardly on the plate. The beans in the dirty rice are often unevenly cooked and the fried plantains are starchy, unattractive brown chunks of room-temperature cardboard. The chicken gumbo is bland, the sweet potatoes overcooked.

But don’t be discouraged. There are gems to be found here. Do go for the salmon, it’s really nicely cooked and spiced with a sort of dry rub version of the jerk sauce. Do go for the jerk chicken enchiladas, I find them surprisingly flavorful. I actually do enjoy that red cabbage slaw, though it isn’t so much a slaw as a mound of chopped red cabbage lightly dressed with jerk sauce. It’s nothing special on its own, but with some bits of coconut fried chicken skin or a bite of spicy grilled salmon, it’s a nice crunchy component.

Honestly, as I survey the scene from beneath a heat lamp on the enclosed Cha Cha Chicken patio, nothing but the presence of purple beans and rice is remotely reminiscent of anywhere I’ve been in Cuba. But the air is relaxed, the food satisfying, and I am enjoying a funky, authentically Santa Monica evening.

Coconut Fried chicken, plantains, beans and rice

Ozumo is a high-end Japanese transplant from San Francisco, with a beautiful dimly-lit, gilded dining room and a pricey menu of fresh fish and robata skewers, among other expensive traditional Japanese fare. But you don’t have to miss out on this lovely spot in the new Santa Monica Place just because you’re a frugal diner—they have some very good values for lunch and happy hour, including a $10 rice bowl. The rice bowl is huge, you could really split it with someone if you’re not starving, and there are four options: curry tofu with vegetables and brown rice, which is my bowl of choice, as well as prime angus beef with sweet soy sauce, Japanese fried chicken, and teriyaki glazed freshwater eel. If a big rice bowl isn’t appealing to you, there are a surprising number of other affordable lunch options, including sushi bento boxes for $14 and flavorful ramen and udon soups for $11. These prices might not be blowing your mind, but for the quality of the food and the really delightful atmosphere, the value is right. What I like about the tofu bowl is the flavor of the traditional Japanese curry, strong and thick and tangy. With plenty of perfectly cooked brown rice and carrots and potatoes, it’s a hearty lunch at a pretty reasonable price, and you can order it in the bar or sitting in the dining room. On a nice day though, you may want to opt for the little outdoor lounge area.

If you hang around after you’re done with your rice bowl, you might just transition into the next mealtime, and order from the Happy Hour menu starting at 3pm. From 3-7 every day, including weekends, $3 draft Sapporos are enticing; $5 skewers of pork belly or grilled salmon or tender glazed chicken are also available. You could order a garlic edamame for $4 or a miso soup for $3. There are even some sushi rolls available for about what you would pay for prepackaged grocery store sushi. Relaxing in the bar or outside on the patio, drinking beers and eating tender sushi, you could pass an entire afternoon grazing with friends, and never dread seeing the bill.

Curry Tofu Don

I’ve been up and down the short stretch of Fairfax known as Little Ethiopia, and to be honest, there isn’t a huge gap in quality among the restaurants that line these two blocks. Each boasts, somehow, that it is the “only authentic Ethiopian restaurant in Los Angeles,” but to my palate, almost all of them are comparable in deliciousness, if not indistinguishable. There are a few details that will set one apart from the next—Meals by Genet is a more upscale dining experience than its neighbors, and consequently a bit more expensive, but the dishes offered are very similar to those at Messob two doors down. Messob isn’t quite as cheap as, say, Merkato across the street, but their versions of the key dishes have depth of flavor and hit all of the different notes that are unique to Ethiopian sauces. Ethiopian sauces can be most simply described as akin to curries, but they taste entirely different from Indian and Thai curries. In place of the turmeric, coriander and cumin you’ll find in an Indian curry, there are 20 or so different spices that go into an Ethiopian stew, or wat. The chicken doro wat at Messob is particularly delicious. As with any dish in any restaurant on this strip, it arrives atop a large flat injera, that purplish spongy sticky bread with a tangy, yeasty flavor. There is an entire chicken leg covered in a rich, thick stew that will turn your fingers red as you bring the morsels of meat to your mouth with only your hands and a piece of injera. The stew has a curious flavor—to describe an Ethiopian stew to someone who has never tasted it before is nearly impossible. It is thick and somewhat oily, but not unpleasantly so; it is close in texture and savoriness to an Indian korma, but its flavor is more complex; it’s spicy but not in a hot way. I guess you just have to try it. And don’t forget to order vegetables, which are my favorite thing about Ethiopian cooking. The red lentil stew and the collard greens at Messob are excellent.

One of the very special things about living in Los Angeles is access to authentic ethnic cuisines. Before moving to LA I had been to one Ethiopian restaurant in San Francisco; it was the only one I was even aware existed. It was pretty good, but didn’t make much of an impression—without the ethnic community I imagine it’s hard to source the right ingredients. Now that I’ve tasted true Ethiopian cuisine, I know it is extremely unique and delicious, and I crave it on a regular basis. Messob is a great option for your Ethiopian fix.

Chicken Doro Wat, goat stew, red lentils, collard greens, salad