{"id":2807,"date":"2003-06-18T21:28:54","date_gmt":"2003-06-18T21:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=566"},"modified":"2003-06-18T21:28:54","modified_gmt":"2003-06-18T21:28:54","slug":"food-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2807","title":{"rendered":"FOOD"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inspired by a link<\/a> to Tedman’s blog I found on LA Blogs<\/a>, I decided to come up with a quick list of my own favorite restaurants in L.A. and what I remember (not looking at menus, so if I’m wrong, sorry) as my favorite dish.
\nIn alphabetical (hence no particular) order:
\nChez Melange, 1716 South Pacific Coast Highway, Redondo Beach<\/b>
\nGreat, imaginative upscale food in a motel restaurant on a nondescript commercial street a mile from my house. Discovering this place made moving to the South Bay from Venice a lot easier. Come for the Sunday brunch, eggs and smoked salmon sound boring but they make kind of Platonic version of them.
\nChinois on Main, 2709 Main Street, Santa Monica<\/b>
\nSeems like it’s been here since everyone in L.A. had a BMW and a coke habit; the food is more than good enough – you won’t think it’s original, but along with the much-missed Restaurant Lyon, it defined California pan-ethnic cuisine. Catfish, duck…
\nFour Oaks, 2181 North Beverly Glen Boulevard, Bel-Air<\/b>
\nBeautiful, quiet, slightly better-than-decent food, but an amazing date restaurant when you’re old enough to want a quiet, romantic evening. Salmon cakes.
\nGallo’s Grill, 4533 Cesar E. Chavez Ave<\/b>
\nAwesome Mexican grill. Get the arrechera asada. Cheap, superb, if only they had beer. Well worth the drive, even from our place..
\nGeoffrey’s, 27400 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu<\/b>
\nWhen people visiting from out of town ask for a ‘quintessential L.A. restaurant,’ I suggest this one, secluded in a canyon above the beach in Malibu. The food and service are not quite as good as they used to be (but try the tuna tempura); but it’s such a pleasant place to eat that I still enjoy it. Plus a bunch of my friends were in a movie there…there’s a key scene in the movie ‘The Player’ that takes place there, and the cycling team from Ernie’s was in the shot.
\nGutter, 5621 North Figueroa Street, Los Angeles<\/b>
\nThe anti-Geoffrey’s. A perfect restraurant for a great old punk venue located in a bowling alley (Mr. T’s). Try the hippie scramble, and the homemade ketchup.
\nHal’s, 1349 Abbot Kinney Boulevard, Venice<\/b>
\nHigh-end yuppie comfort food. When I lived in Venice, we used to try and walk there once a week…one advantage of being an armed<\/i> liberal. Great food, comfortable atmosphere, great grown-up bar scene.
\nHide Sushi, 2040 Sawtelle Boulevard, Los Angeles<\/b>
\nNo atmosphere, no rock n’ roll, no attitude, just amazingly good sushi at semi-reasonable prices.
\nHu’s Schezewan, 10450 National Boulevard, West L.A.<\/b>
\nAt the corner of National and National (really!) is this great neighborhood Chinese restaurant. try the Schezewan dumplings, and save the garlic sauce to pour on your rice. Then General Tso’s chicken.
\nMimosa, 8009 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles<\/b>
\nI want to resent this hangout of the beautiful people, but I can’t because the food is so damn delicious. Old-school French, with the intensity of flavor that I remember from France. Cassoulet!
\nOcean Seafood, 3209 North Broadway, Los Angeles<\/b>
\nThe dim-sum mother ship. Try the crunchy shrimp in salt…all feet and eyes.
\nPaco’s Tacos, 4141 South Centinela Avenue, Los Angeles<\/b>
\nHomey local Mexican chain. Hand-made flour tortillas, do I need to say more?
\nPhillip’s BBQ, 4307 Leimert Blvd., Los Angeles<\/b>
\nBurnt ends. Hot links. No seats, just carry-out. I never make it home, so we just eat at the side of the road.
\nRiviera Mexican Grill, 1615 South Pacific Coast Highway, Redondo Beach<\/b>
\nFunky surfer reinvention of a Mexican restaurant. Nothing authentic at all, but damn good. Smoked chicken burritos…
\nTacos Delta, 3806 West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles<\/b>
\nAs authentically Mexican as it gets. Amazing carne asada gorditas.
\nTaylor’s Prime Steaks, 3361 West 8th Street, Los Angeles<\/b>
\nI keep looking for Jack Vincennes. The culotte steak, slightly more than medium. Straight out of Ellroy’s L.A.
\nThe Pit, 5309 South Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles<\/b>
\nBrisket sandwiches, ribs. Oh…and burnt ends. You can sit and eat here, so even though I like the BBQ at Phillip’s a bit more, I can get a more immediate fix here.
\nThe Shack, 185 Culver Blvd. Playa del Rey<\/b>
\nShack-burger. Polish sausage and a cheeseburger; why didn’t someone else think of this? Don’t go to the depressingly yuppified Santa Monica location; head down to the beach at Playa.
\nWoo Lae Oak, 623 South Western Avenue, Los Angeles<\/b>
\nKorean BBQ. My martial-arts school used to have banquets there; whiskey and kimchi weren’t designed to be consumed together. The kinchi\/scallion pancake is memorable, as are the short ribs.
\nZankou Chicken<\/b> (all over town)
\nArmenian roasted chicken…the garlic paste…the garlic paste…
\nThat’s just off the top of my head…I’m sure you’ve got some suggestions to leave in the comments…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inspired by a link to Tedman’s blog I found on LA Blogs, I decided to come up with a quick list of my own favorite restaurants in L.A. and what I remember (not looking at menus, so if I’m wrong, sorry) as my favorite dish. In alphabetical (hence no particular) order: Chez Melange, 1716 South […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}