Ita Cho (Beverly) is excellent Japanese.
The Hickory burger at the Apple Pan, a dive burger shack on Pico deserves its status as an LA insitutition.
Cantor's (Fairfax) is another insitution. It is open very late, and has good-excellent deli: cornbeef and brisket is what you want. Buy some rugellah at the bakery counter to take home,
Excellent! The Apple Pan is less than 10 minutes from where I'll be, and Cantor's about 15. Thanks!
phillippe's (near downtown) - french dip sandwiches. it sounds gross, i know, but try the lamb with blue cheese. sooo good.
la taquiza (near usc, just south of downtown) - the mulitas, which is a puffy tortilla (almost like a sope), with guacamole and pork.
tokyo plaza (in little tokyo) - i don't know the name of this place, but if you walk through the little tokyo plaza from second street towards first street, you'll see a window on the left with a guy making red bean donuts.
oh and you should totally go to clifton's cafeteria, which is downtown. really nice old-fashioned LA vibe, with a kooky nature theme and taxidermied bears. back in the great depression they used to serve food to people for free, because they had a tradition of never turning away hungry folks for lack of money. i think they won't do that anymore, but if it's your birthday you get a free cake.
God that list makes me hungry. (Lamb & blue cheese doesn't sound gross *at all*.)
Red bean donuts? Really?
You won't be close to it, but Super Pollo in Costa Mesa is totally awesome.
the red bean donuts are like little crisp crepes with sweet bean jam inside. so awesome when they're hot out of the irons. mmmm.
re: pupusas. i've heard that texis (a chain, with branches all over east hollywood and koreatown) is good, but i've never been there. there's a very good place on sunset blvd., on the border of echo park and silverlake, with some very standard name, like pupuseria salvadorena.
Also, now that I'm thinking about it, LA is a paradoxical donut mecca.
If you are close to the apple pan you are also close to Stan's donuts in Westwood Village: buttermilk crullers and cinnamon sticks.
Also, the Westwood W hotel generally has a good (and by that I mean rap star + crew) bar scene.
Paradoxically, LA is something of a donut mecca.
If you are close to the apple pan you are also close to Stan's donuts in Westwood Village: buttermilk crullers and cinnamon sticks.
Also, the Westwood W hotel generally has a good (and by that I mean rap star + crew) bar scene.
Best old school chili since like the 1940s:
Chili John's on Burbank in Burbank
Best new wave chili since like the 1990s:
Chili My Soul on Ventura in Encino
Canter's is a fine institution and essential for late night survival, but its one of our weaker delis during the daytime - nab some matzoh ball soup at Greenblatt's on Sunset and then hit Canter's for the poppy strudel.
I'm sort of surprised to hear people talking so much about deli food in LA. I've spent very, very little time there, but when I introduced my LA based roommate to, for instance, Katz's, he didn't seem to have had anything like it. Was he missing out on the thriving LA deli scene, or is New York deli just much better (which is what I had assumed befored reading these these comments)?
Good Mexican not downtown:
Gardens of Taxco, 1113 N Harper Ave, West Hollywood.
Marix [Tex-Mex] 1108 N. Flores Street, West Hollywood
Spanish Kitchen, 826 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles
Best Pastrami: Langer's Delicatessen + Restaurant | 704 S. Alvarado Street, Los Angeles [Bad neighbourhood after dark, but they do car service if you call ahead]
Other delis: Junior's, Westwood Blvd, Westwood; Greenblatt's on Sunset, West Hollywood
Great Italian, tho' pricier: Piccolo, 5 Dudley St., Venice Beach
Ob$cenely great food: Table 8, 7661 Melrose Ave., Hollywood.
Best Burger in town [Kobe beef], tho' astronomical in price: Chateau Marmont, 8221 West Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood.
Kobe beef is idiotic on a burger.
B-Wo: Really? Even if it tastes really good?
What if they called it "Pan-seared Kobe Beef pate with 3-year-old Vermont cheddar, heirloom tomatoes, and micro greens, served on house-baked artisanal roll?"
(He says, although his favorite burger is filled with Velveeta.)
I think there's a point beyond which the delicacy of the ingredients of a burger exceeds one's ability to detect it—the instrumentation isn't sensitive enough. There's a lot of stuff in a burger, and you lose some significant digits.
I suspect most people eating Kobe beef in simple presentations that can show off whatever its supposedly great qualities are can't detect them anyway. It should be reserved for Sancho Panza's kinsmen.
I suspect most of what is called Kobe beef in this country isn't.
I'm not sure you're allowed to import Kobe beef. There's some restrictions or other. You can get beef from cows treated in the Kobe beef fashion from, I think, Oregon.
Yeah, I think there's a reciprocal ban against importing Japanese beef because of their banning American imports out of Mad Cow fears.
But the point i'm trying to make is, the vast majority of beef sold in the U.S. as "Kobe" is not raised and slaughtered in the Kobe manner. The burgers LizardBreath are referencing may very well be Kobe-style beef raised in Oregon (I wouldn't know, Kobe's out of this fella's reach).
Let me ask you this: what would you say to a burger made from, I dunno, the chateaubriand (tastiest tip of the tenderloin), dry-aged, grass-fed Angus steer?
My personal instict would be to say just give me the steak, BUT I can see a burger made in that fashion being fucking-A good (especially if stuffed with foie gras a la Daniel Boloud (sp?)).
Yeah, it would be good, but is the marginal improvement over a burger made from a less aristocratic cut really that significant? Would you even be able to notice? Especially if it's also stuffed with foie gras, and there's some cheese, and maybe some reduced red onion–thyme stuff going on...
It's like using $1500 cognac to make a sidecar. Yeah, it'll be good, but you're still being stupid (especially given that you can't get, like, $750 lemons).
Well, keep in mind the whole Velveeta thing above, but I have had one of these fancy-pants "super-premium" burgers at a local schmancy restaurant. The beef was some sort of dry-aged house-ground high-end-cut deal. The bun was a local name-check bakery. The cheese was aged Vermont cheddar, and so on. The kicker was the "bacon" for the burger--paper thin pancetta cooked until it was crispy like a potato chip. It was at a happy hour, the chef had a thing about keeping his prices within reach, I think I paid $9.
If I could go back in time to order that burger again, I would gladly pay $25. It's not Hotel Marmont prices, but I guess what I'm saying is, if the chef for maybe the 10th best restaurant in the Twin Cities can make something I'd be willing to pay $25 for that just happens to be called a "hamburger," then I will go out on a limb and guess that Daniel Bolud or Thomas Keller or Charlie Trotter can do something that will flat out knock me on my ass, get me to shell out $50+, and moue flirtatiously whenever I saw them walk by, and if it takes Kobe beef in their minds, so be it.
I think you paid a fair price, but then I think lots of food is way overpriced.
And cognac should be drunk neat.
Yeah, well, Kobe beef shouldn't be ground and made into a burger. That was easy. Sidecars are good.
I've never had one. I'm sure you're right.
The recipe I just Googled specified brandy, sour, and triple sec.
I can see substituing cognac for brandy, but there's no mention of lemons independently of the sour. Is this something you add? An alternate recipe?
(Can you tell I really hate the paper I'm not writing?)
I think the question is, could a hamburger potentially utilize all of the flavor of Kobe, or improve upon it? I'd say a typical well-made hamburger improves upon the ground beef. Perhaps you could say that your fancy burger was able to utilize the choice beef. But is it at all conceivable that a Kobe burger could do anything but degrade the taste of the beef?
Not having had it myself (actually, I had to google it to know what you're talking about) I don't know. Perhaps the tastiest pure thing I can think of is salmon sashimi. As far as I'm concerned, any cooking with salmon is a degredation and done only because one cannot have it as sashimi.
A recipe that specifies that you use sour mix is a recipe you should ignore. Classic sidecar: 2 parts cognac, 1 part lemon juice, 1 part Cointreau (or a triple sec of similar quality, eg, Marie Brizard; most are too sweet and have a much lower alcohol content, on the order of 21% compared to Cointreau's 40% or MB's 39%). Other formulations have equal parts of all ingredients, but I think that wouldn't be very good.
Short answer: a Kobe burger might be a great burger, but it's a terrible waste of Kobe beef.
Or fatty tuna. I'm not so strict as Michael about cooking salmon at all (in fact I think it can taste better cooked than raw, if you do it well), but the topic of cooking salmon has come up here before (I think in a thread about seduction food or something like that), and it certainly is best when minimally treated.
Right, but I guess what I'm trying to say in re the Kobe burger is in essence the label 'burger' is immaterial--it's super-high-quality ingredients cooked by a classically trained chef with a well-thought-out approach to making the various other ingredients work together. So on one hand, calling it a burger is a misnomer, since it transcends the burger label. On the other hand, using the idiom of "burger" with the schmancy ingredients is a commentary on the nature of "burger." It's a metaburger.
Ya know, ya gotta do something with the bits trimmed off other dishes made with the Kobe beef. So you chop the bits delicately with a Shun knife, mound them gently and cook them to perfection. It's not your average Big Mac.
Wagyu cattle are being ranched here under the same standards as in Japan. They're even shipped back to Kobe for processing, making the meat officially Kobe.
Table 8 has a Kobe beef entree that shouldn't be served to anyone under 18.
Oh, God, I'm so jealous.
I once had a lifestyle that afforded me the opportunities to eat such things. Now, no longer. I long for the days of yore.
I would love to get my hands on some toro, but it's rare around here. (Of course, I haven't been specifically trying, either.) All I've had is maguro, which can be excellent, too.
I should clarify that I've had some perfectly enjoyable cooked salmon. I've never had any better than sashimi, but I suppose I can't rule it out. Of course, I should mention that I am perhaps quite funny to watch while eating good sashimi. Definately not something I'd choose for a first date, as I do demand silence.
Well, this depends on your taste, of course, and mine is strictly middlebrow. With that in mind.....
Tommy's for chiliburgers. The original stand at Beverly and Rampart is best for ambience.
And a personal favorite: Bryan's Pit Barbecue at the Farmer's Market. Get a pork or beef sandwich (or one of both!) on a hamburger bun. Yum!
Bryan's Pit Barbecue at the Farmer's Market.
Good, but for really good barbecue, go to Mr. Cecil's California Ribs, 12244 W. Pico Blvd, Los Angeles.
Farmer's Market is good for a variety of cuisines; it's worth making the trip. Next door is The Grove shopping mall, which looks like Europe as seen by Disney on drugs. The Greek restaurant there is good, but avoid the Italian places.
It's not like that Kobe Beef will otherwise be used to make an AIDS vaccine. If you can afford the burger, go to war.
Also, I second DE's recommendation of Marix. The focus isn't on super-exquisite food, but on good food in a mellow atmosphere. I love the Westside...
Copy editors must do ok by themselves.
Which--Jesus Christ!--talk about an appropriate career path for a professed sadist.
Sorry, an acronym I use with my circle of lawyer friends.
Yet Another Fucking Lawyer.
That's an available specialty? Commercial litigation seems so dull by comparison.
It certainly would give new meaning to corpus delicti, wouldn't it?
Let alone habeas corpus.
"Ooo, I'd like to take his deposition. Come on, baby, badger that witness."
YAFL
I have repented my sins and am no longer a practicing lawyer. However, in my previous existence, I got to torture, er, interact with the denizens of the estate & gift tax section of the IRS. Satisfying, in a wildly kinky sort of way...
I'll tell you what I do for a living, but only if Ogged agrees to pose for a nude calendar of "Blogger Boys".
What is it with the ladies trying to trade nakedness for my humiliation?
What is it with the ladies trying to trade nakedness for my humiliation?
No, we're trying to trade information for your nakedness. Whether you're humiliated or not is up to you.
Admit it, tho' - if PG offered to strip down, all you Blogger Boys would grovel at her feet wearing silly hats.
Madam, you seriously misunderestimate my capacity for preferring antiquated and idiosyncratic notions of dignity to achieving the object of my desire.
And I'm pretty sure you mean "Boyz."
If she meant 'Boyz', wouldn't she also mean 'Blogga'?
WASPs don't say "Boyz". It's against our religion. One would be stripped of one's Brooks Brothers account and be doomed to a life of polyester from K-Mart were one to so transgress. No more cashmere twinsets to wear with pearls, no more crustless sandwiches, no more monocles and sherry... [Oops! That last was Lord Peter Whimsey.]
FTM, all those males posing for the BB calendar will be required to wear ties.
Wimsey, I think you meant? Or is there a cadet branch of the family?
One would be stripped of one's Brooks Brothers account and be doomed to a life of polyester from K-Mart were one to so transgress.
You see, although I have no beef with splitting infinitives, I feel that in this case "so to transgress" would not just sound better, but also fit better with the character.
For the love of god, people, she's on the brink of death. *Of course* she can barely string a sentence together.
That last sentence reads *really* weird when you substitue Female to Male (as in transexual) for FTM.
I lived in LA for four years, and this is a no-brainer. Cuban food. Go to Versailles (there are a couple locations, the one on La Cienega is closer to downtown, but really, go to the one on Venice). Order the garlic chicken. I've seen waiters come out of the kitchen with 6 orders of garlic chicken, 3 on an arm. It's pretty cheap. It's good food. And you'll probably see some movie starts there to boot.
I am now a vegetarian, and when I'm in LA, I go to Versailles, and I order the garlic chicken.
Wimsey, I think you meant? Or is there a cadet branch of the family?
LB: It is "Wimsey". I was attempting whimsicality. Forgive me; I'm drugged.
I feel that in this case "so to transgress" would not just sound better, but also fit better with the character.
BW: That "so to" construction is a bit too churchy and it doesn't really fall trippingly from the tongue. At least not in the way I wish it to do.
Character? Do you mean to imply that I'm not a WASP, but only play one on TV?
For the love of god, people, she's on the brink of death.
Ogged, my pet: Indeed, I could get to like this freaky Vicodin haze. So what if it impinges upon my ability to communicate via the written word? So what if my spelling fails, my logic wanders, my grasp of string theory begins to fade? CSI is on all day long! Or at least when I'm awake...
That last sentence reads *really* weird when you substitue Female to Male (as in transexual) for FTM.
C: And tomorrow is transexual night at the French Market, so that misreading is particularly apropos.
Cuban food. Go to Versailles
p.a.l.: I second that. We hit the one on La Cienega when the lust for Cuban food overcomes us.
So what if my spelling fails, my logic wanders, my grasp of string theory begins to fade?
being me is like free Vicodin 4 life?
I love the subtle misdirection on your location that this post involves (at least by my own pet theory of your location).
I remember your pet theory. You might consider putting it up for adoption.
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