Midtown Lunch

Everybody I’ve met who works in Beverly Hills has pretty much told me the same thing… it is a wasteland of overpriced power lunches. You want cheap, interesting food- you’re going to have to go out of your way.  Cheap and decent ethnic food?! Good luck.  But I haven’t given up just yet, and when Los Angeles Magazine put Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop on their list of the best sandwiches in L.A. I couldn’t help but get a little bit excited.

See, I like sandwiches.  But not just any sandwich.  “The best” roast beef sandwich doesn’t nothing for me.  Dip that same sandwich in gravy, or cover it in horseradish and then we’re talking. “The best” turkey sandwich? Snore.  Top that turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce, and serve it in a month other than November… now we’re getting somewhere.  Oh, and cole slaw and russian dressing automatically makes any sandwich better.  Which brings us to Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop (on Wilshire).  They’ve got both.

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Last month Josh Lurie, the blogger behind the website Food GPS, penned a tasty looking review of Mapo Restaurant (3611 West 6th Street) in Koreatown.  The dishes he tried looked delicious enough, but what really popped out at me was the line at the very end of the review:  “[During lunch] you can score bi bim bap, hand made knife-cut noodle soup or beef soup, plus an array of bottomless panchan, for only $5.99.”   $6 for a quality K-Town lunch sounds like a must try… throw in a massive amount of banchan (the little dishes of stuff they bring you for free just before the meal) and it seems too good to be true!

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In case you missed it, the cover story of this month’s Los Angeles Magazine is dedicated to a topic that is near and dear to our heart… Lunch! The issue is jam packed with lunch ideas, including 10 Food Truck Finds, 4 Lunch Deals at Fancy Restaurants, and a feature on 4 food courts by our good friend Noah Galuten.  (It also has a little feature on Midtown Lunch, but you don’t care about that because if you’re reading this, you’re already in the know!)  The best part of the issue, though, is a scanwiches style list of 17 sandwiches that all look pretty amazing.   Sadly the issue isn’t online (yet), but the sandwiches I’m most excited to try from the list are after after the jump.

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As is customary on Midtown Lunch, every Tuesday we’ll profile a random reader to get their recommendations for the best spots to lunch near their work. This week it’s Arianna, a freelance copywriter who doubles as a food truck blogger on the site Foodtrucktimes.com.

Name: Arianna

Age: (gasp!) 35 (grumble)

Occupation: Freelance copywriter

Where in L.A. do you Work?: From my home in Mid-Wilshire

Favorite Kind of Food: Almost anything Asian. I’m a sucker for sushi, in particular.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Ethiopian

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch: Since I write a blog about the LA food trucks (www.foodtrucktimes.com), I’m frequently up on Wilshire, trying new ones. So far, my favorites are Flying Pig (the duck tacos kill me – in a good way), Komodo truck (chicken burrito) and Kassava truck (jerk chicken). Like everyone else on earth, I also love the Kogi truck (currently really into their tofu tacos, but it’s all delicious). There is also an Armenian brick-and-mortar chicken place nearby, called – of all things – City’s Best Chicken (5303 W Pico Blvd). I get their chicken kebab plate; their hummus and babaganoush make me cry (again, in a good way).

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If you missed Downtown Chef Josef Centeno (from the very awesome Lazy Ox Canteen) aboard the Cart For a Cause Truck last week in Santa Monica, you’ve got another shot at it today. The truck will be parked at 5900 Wilshire today from 11:30 am to 1:30pm, and it looks like he’ll once again be serving up his signature “baco” – a self proclaimed hybrid of a taco and flatbread (although we thought of it more as a Chinese bun “sandwich”, made with flatbread instead of bao.) You get one of those plus a cookie, pistachios and a drink- all for $10! And it benefits City Meals on Wheels. Still not convinced this is the place to be for lunch today? Check out the baco porn, after the jump…

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