lil mikey's Profile
downtownish amazingness! culture shock?
How about Kagaya? There's nothing like that in Hollywood.
Looking for an Italian deli/bakery in Hollywood
The best sandwiches in Hollywood imho are from the Tamarind Deli. Their bread is perfect for the Italian sub. And you can hear raves about the brisket sandwich if you do a search.
If you're just looking for the bread, there's a bakery called Mundo de Sabor, which is not Italian, but rather Mexican. They make awesome fresh rolls for tortas.
Another source for good sandwich bread is Jon's on Hollywood and Vermont. They have a bin in the front of the store with freshly baked sandwich rolls. Same type of thing at Yucca Market on Cahuenga and Yucca.
Lucky Devil's Remodel
Walked by Lucky Devil's yesterday, and the place was gutted. It says they're re-opening April 6, but that will be quite an accomplishment seeing the state of the space yesterday.
The Coffee Co. on La Tijera and Sepulveda Expressway, near LAX or just off of Sepulveda???
I had the best fried fish and eggs this morning. It was one of the specials. The fish was light and flaky and battered with the kind of batter you might find at Popeye's fried chicken. It was a very thin batter, but it was crispy and kind of spicy... not hot spicy, just flavorful spicy. YUM. I couldn't stop eating it until it was gone. Then I moved on to the rest of the meal: eggs, potatoes O'brien (which were simply country fried potatoes with onion and bell pepper) and two fluffy buttermilk biscuits. This was a delightful meal.
As I was working in that part of town this week, I also had breakfast there yesterday. It was similar, but with bacon instead of the fried fish. Everything was consistently good, and you get 4 strips of crisp bacon instead of the fish.
Two good breakfasts in a row. I hope I'm back in that part of town next week to try more of the breakfast menu.
POLL RESULTS: Ultimate Los Angeles Restaurants 2011: Complete Poll Results [Post #2 of 2]
Thank you Peripatetic.
Good catch on the prior year Pa Ord ranking.... it was listed twice last year and you added up the scores to properly rank its prior year position in this poll.
And in the words of McMichael, mea culpa. I was the one who inadvertently included Marche Moderne, a restaurant in OC.
finally! good gyros in hollywood at pita on vine
Thanks for the tip. I went there about 2 years ago and it was not so great. I'll try it again.
Best Little Armenia Eatery?
Good point. Taron's has a few tables out on the patio in front, and parking. But the menu is very limited to lahmajun, borek and a couple other baked goods. I've never been to Mush. Hayakazumi is a market that has no seating.
Since this was originally written in 2009, there have been a few additions to the neighborhood. Against all odds due to the location, Western Chicken is still in business and seems to be doing well. It's on Western, just north of Sunset. They have a decent selection of Middle Eastern food; and they have seating and parking.
Afternoon Tea: Belvedere vs Langham vs Montage vs Huntington Library's Rose Tea
Agree with everyone's assessment about the Huntington. The only reason to do this is to add-on to something else (in our case a family outing). The food is nothing to get excited about and the atmosphere is less than elegant. When we went, there were kids running around and the food was served buffet style.
We went to the Peninsula several years ago, and it was the polar opposite. It was quiet, with a harp player in a corner. You select your tea and what kind of food. Then they serve it in a sliver pot, and the food comes to you on a sterling multi-level platter. Quality of the food ranged from pretty good to very good. You can also order champagne if you wish.
Osaka Restaurant in Hollywood
"closes in merely 5 years"? This place just opened in late 2011. More like 5 months.
Katsuya is right across the street, and until they complete all the additional residential construction (535 more residential units at Hollywood and Argyle), it looks like this area couldn't support two places so similar.
It was a beautiful buildout, though. I'm sure a new operator, who can differentiate themselves from what's already around there, and without all the overhead of paying for the buildout, will have a much better chance for success. I'll be keeping my eye on it.
El Chavo - Good Value
It’s not the best place in town, but for the price it makes quite a nice meal. They fixed it up a few years ago so it’s not quite as dark and dingy. They still have the Christmas lights.
Maybe I just never realized it was there, but there’s now a separate bar area in a room to the west of the dining room.
Service is good, and for $15 you get a starter green chili-flavored soup, with a main course of juicy New York steak, grilled to give it more flavor, along with chilaquiles in red sauce, a scoop of guacamole and warm tortillas. This makes for a delightful meal, and it’s priced right in my book.
I also liked the crispy beef taco. I’m a sucker for crispy tacos.
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El Chavo
4441 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Restaurant recs for dinner close to the Pantages Theatre
New in the area (within a block) are Osaka, Lexington Social House and Wood & Vine.
Osaka is Peruvian, with a heavy Japanese influence. The menu is quite varied and the food should appeal to a broad taste spectrum. Quality of food is quite good. Nice interior design. They could put the 10 of you together at 2 tables in the side room. I found the prices to be reasonable for what you get.
Lexington Social House and Wood & Vine serve American food (think short ribs, mac & cheese, fried chicken, fish), with Wood & Vine steering more towards shared plates, although Lexington also has shareable plates. Standouts are the flatbreads at Lexington and the fried chicken and waffles and charcuterie at W&V. Both of these places could easily accommodate a party of 10.
Unfortunately, the Delphine,while convenient to the Pantages, is unremarkable at best. Service and food quality are not "all that" imho. Although sometimes it's fun to sit at the bar and watch the crazies getting on and off the Red Line.
Cafe Was has closed its doors.
Papilles - New in Hollywood
There’s no printed menu, it’s a 3-course pre fixe consisting of two choices for each course. And the menu changes every 4-6 days. It’s $25 per person. There are no a la carte options except sometimes an add-on course.
Similarly, the wine “list” is shared with the diners by simply pointing to all the wines on shelves against the far wall. Guests are invited to go over and browse the wall for various wines and beers.
As the menu changes often, the following is simply to show the type of dishes as opposed to what might be offered any other time.
The atmosphere is very homey. There is nothing separating the kitchen from the dining area: no wall, no glass, nothing. The kitchen is part of the same room. There’s an island casually separating it, but you’re basically in the same space. But it’s small. Reservations are strongly suggested.
Bread service is fresh and warm, and refilled if desired.
As an add-on we ordered the starter of a torchon of foie gras, served with a small root vegetable salad. The fois gras was so decadent that it melted on the tongue. And the portion was quite ample for the two of us. The root salad had wafer-thin slices of beets and persimmon, along with arugula topped with a lemony dressing.
For the first course, we had the choice of carrot soup or root salad, but as we’d had the root salad with the fois gras, they substituted house-cured halibut with crème fraiche and tiny black caviar. The carrot soup was extremely smooth and velvety in texture, with a rich carrot flavor. On top was a dollop of ginger citrus sabayon, which broke up the carrot flavor nicely.
The house smoked halibut was very smoky tasting, but I would have preferred the slices to be a little larger and less firm. This was a substitution, but I would skip it if offered again.
The main courses were tenderloin of veal and local (white) sea bass. The veal was cooked perfectly and served with a light hollandaise sauce. Alongside were boiled baby turnips, large (1/2 inch diameter) leek slices and twice fried baby potatoes. This was a delightful combination.
The sea bass was moist, flaky and topped with a maltaise (hollandaise with citrus) sauce. Alongside were baby boiled potatoes and kale over a sunchoke puree. The sunchoke base added a delicious earthiness to the other ingredients, and was a nice counterpunch to the sauce served over the fish.
For the third course, we had a very eggy-tasting lemon tart served with a foam alongside. The crust was buttery and crumbled exactly like I wanted it.
The second choice for the third course was a pungent washed sheep’s cheese served with very fresh tasting Spanish almonds and sliced figs.
In general, this was a very reasonably priced meal. The quality of ingredients was very high, and the execution was terrific.
Service was helpful and gracious, and the chef came over afterward to say hello... a trek of about 50 feet. Their target audience is the local community, and I think it’s a good addition. I expect they can also attract some other business as the whole Hollywood and Vine area is experiencing massive growth.
Papilles
6221 Franklin Avenue (at Argyle)
Hollywood
www.papillesla.com
Cube Cafe - Relaxed Weekend Lunch
Creamy tomato soup was delicious, using fresh tomatoes with several small chunks of tomato left in the soup. The cream was also fresh tasting and used sparingly. I really liked this dish.
I spread the sunny side up fried eggs around the top of the black truffle and mozzarella pizza, and it added a nice creaminess. It also complemented the black truffle pesto on this good-sized thin crust pizza.
The radicchio served with the burrata had a little balsamic mixed in, and added the necessary bitterness to offset the smooth creaminess of the cheese. The portion of burrata was impressive…. a whole hunk of it served with the radicchio and Mediterranean bread.
Rapini was cooked perfectly, with a nice bite still present. And the lemon gave it a nice zest.
This place gets busy and a little loud for weekday lunches, but for an early weekend lunch, it’s quite relaxed and pleasant.
They also have a wide variety of gourmet food items ranging from various dried pastas to a huge selection of dried beans to various olive oils and vinegars to condiments, including a favorite: purple condiment.
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Cube
615 N La Brea Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036
PLEASE POST YOUR VOTES HERE: Ultimate Los Angeles Restaurants 2011
-- Over $25 --
Marche Moderne
Providence
Ink
Drago Centro
Jiraffe
-- Under $25 --
Gio Cucina
Pa Ord
Little Dom’s
Elite
Marouch
Help please - looking for a venue in Hollywood
I don't know what date you're thinking of, but the Magic Castle re-opens January 13th after the fire reconstruction. You might also consider buying out some non-conventional places, like Ripley's Believe it or Not, or Madame Tussaud's, although I'm not sure what that would run.
The Spice Table
Space is nice, with exposed brick and concrete floor. Interesting light fixtures featuring retro light bulbs in birdcages (trapped ideas?). It felt warm on a cold night. In summer, I expect the sidewalk seating would be nice, and I assume they open the large windows.
Menu is not large, with one or two items in most of the major food groups (meat, fish, noodles, veggies, etc.)
Fried peanuts with anchovies are a good appetizer, and better with a cold beer. This provides an opportunity to practice your chopsticks skills trying to pick up the peanuts. Or you can just use a spoon.
The deep fried cauliflower was the only dish served hot. (The rest were lukewarm except the peanuts, which were cool.) I liked this dish, served with a sweet vinegar and jalapeno dipping sauce.
Grilled bone marrow would have been unique and exotic if it wasn’t being served in other restaurants in town. And there wasn’t enough of a difference to make this stand out.
The noodles with asparagus, pork belly and sambal were fine. It didn’t suck, but this dish didn’t really stand out, either.
The beef Rendang was lukewarm like the other dishes, but it had a nice balance of flavor and texture, with the same peanuts as in the appetizer served alongside the rice and sauce. This added crunch and salt to the dish's spicy/creamy coconut milk sauce. The meat was tender and well prepared.
Overall, the food reminds me of Lukshon, but they don’t do it as well. The flavors and textures don’t jump out like they can at Lukshon. But the prices are about the same. There is also some borrowing from Animal, with the bone marrow and pig’s tail. As Lukshon is all the way over in Culver City, this may be the place to go if you’re downtown and need a fix.
And let me say a few words about service. It’s structurally faulty, and poorly executed. Specifically, they had one waiter who would take the orders and a host of busboys who would bring the food/water and clean up. This works to an extent, but was clearly insufficient as the one waiter discovered a friend at the bar and consequently all proper waiter work stopped. This led to a domino effect of trying to catch up. He was unsuccessful in his efforts, and despite running around, he never did catch up. Service suffered. At a minimum, they need two waiters.
Further to the execution problem, upon approaching to take the order, the waiter first took the menus. As it is recommended to order 5-6 dishes for two people, one is challenged to remember what you wanted if he takes the menu first. And to complicate things even more, he explained the specials as he was taking the order….AFTER we had the menus for quite some time, and had decided what to order for the meal. So to then go back and rearrange our order, AFTER he had taken the menus, was clearly out of the question.
The space is nice, the food is fine but nothing special, and they need to re-engineer the service aspect.
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The Spice Table
114 S. Central Avenue, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Breakfest East Bay
Had a nice chorizo scramble at Cafe Leila the other day. This really hit the spot, with an oversized flour tortilla and thinly sliced fried potatoes with a dollop of sour cream. The scramble was moist, with tomato and onion, and a little cumin to keep it interesting.
Also got (1) strawberry smoothie and (2) peach smoothie. I liked the peach one better, although the strawberry one was also good, and my wife preferred it. I found it too acidic.
Grindhaus Sausage Haus in Hollywood is Closing/Closed
I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm not surprised. I never quite understood the business model.
Other recent closures in the area are:
Cafe Was - RIP
Village Coffee Shop - RIP
Shin Korean BBQ - RIP
Dive bar L.A.
Charles Bukowski used to frequent the Frolic Room in Hollywood. And they used to have Bukowski readings on Monday nights. I don't know if they still do.
The Smog Cutter on Virgil and the Monte Carlo on 3rd & Vermont are two more with "character."
Gastronomico - Looks Can Be Deceiving
Walking out of Gastronomico, I was cursing that I’d overpaid for exactly one pound of vegetables: It was the Veggie Trio, and it’s $11.95. Considering one of the components, the beet salad, was simply scooped from the display case, I was thinking I could have had a much better salad from Tender Greens, or even Gelsons. Or better yet, I could have gone up the street to Tropicalia and had a 2-3 pound salad, with meat, for less money.
But no, here I was walking to the car thinking these guys are sticking it to me. When I got home and opened up the bag, it was indeed a smallish portion, which was made to look smaller due to the mis-matched size of the container.
But what I didn’t expect was the quality of the dishes. The fried cauliflower had a nice burnt crust, which I love, and the tomato kept it moist. The ingredients were obviously top notch. And even though I saw the guy scooping the beet salad from the display case, it too tasted fresh and was very bright with the citrus.
The real winner was the Llapingachos. This is like a thick potato pancake, or maybe a potato biscuit, with a nice sauce and leeks. With the other two dishes, this added the necessary starch to make the meal quite satisfying. And it was topped with a sunny side up quail egg.
I think I’ll be going back after all.
Gastronomico
1802 Hillhurst (at Melbourne)
Los Feliz
(323) 660-8800
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Gastronómico
1802 Hillhurst Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Baked Goods at Little Dom's
I've been repeatedly impressed by the baked goods at Little Dom's. In the deli in back, they have an assortment ranging from scones to cinnamon rolls. They also have daily focaccias.
The cinnamon rolls are smaller than other places, but bursting with flavor. Similarly, the scones are small, but the use of cornmeal reduces the crumble, making the texture quite enjoyable. The raspberry scone last weekend was especially delicious. And the focaccias are always flavorful, if a little salty.
Good Beer Bottle Shop in LA
Try Total Wine in Northridge or Redondo Beach - 2,500 different beers. For a more curated selection, I go to Cap-n-Cork in Los Feliz.
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Total Wine
394 N Moorpark Rd, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360
Maison Giraud is officially open!
1032 Swarthmore Avenue
Pacific Palisades
(310) 459-7561
Food (or late night) near Music Box
I know the OP's already gone to the show, but to update the topic:
There are no other Music Box "adjacent" restaurants. But within easy walking distance are Lexington Social House and Wood & Vine, both kind of chill, with Wood & Vine being a little more laid back imho. There's also Delphine, which can be more sceney, and the food's not as good as the aforementioned two, with Lexington being the better. All three are in the $20-30 range.
More casual and inexpensive places are Al Wazir chicken, Burger Factory and Dos Burritos.
And they have surprisingly good food at The Well. Or there's Dillons which serves traditional sports bar fare in...... a sports bar. They have lots of beers, too.
All of these places are within 2 blocks of the Music Box.
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Dos Burritos
4734 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Lexington Social House
1718 Vine St, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Wood & Vine
6280 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028
WHERE IN L.A. CAN I PURCHASE FRESH SAUERKRAUT
Victor's restaurant in Hollywood has it.
Breakfast at Tonny's
I love Tonny's, in fact I had lunch there yesterday. The ladies are so friendly, and the food is great. I like their salsa verde very much, and the chile verde is a real treat. Yesterday I wasn't very hungry so I got a simple carnitas tostada. It's not much food, but full of flavor. I put a little of the salsa verde on top and yum yum. Very porky carnitas. I've had lots of dishes over the years, and never had one I didn't like. This is a treasure.
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Tonny's Restaurant
843 E Orange Grove Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91104
need some more Thai Town ideas- getting bored of the usual!
Pa Ord is my favorite at the moment, but one that's not on your list is the fried pork belly at Wat Dong Moon Lek. They seem to have gone a little downhill recently, but this dish is quite good. I also really like their flat noodles.
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Wat Dong Moon Lek
4356 Fountain Ave, Los Angeles, CA
Pita Bread Soaked in Soup and Shanxi Knife Cut Noodles at Shaanxi Gourmet In Rosemead
Nice review PandanExpress. You've sparked my interest.
