Midtown Lunch

It’s been a big couple of months for Ricky’s Fish Tacos, the much heralded fish taco stand that popped up last year on the sidewalk of Sunset Junction. Considered the best Baja fish taco in Los Angeles by the Taco Task Force, Ricky’s started off as a Saturday and Sunday lunchtime treat. But after a brief stint on Santa Monica Blvd., it looks like Ricky has found a permanent spot in a parking lot at 1400 Virgil (just south of Hollywood Blvd.) The rainbow umbrella is gone, replaced by three big green pop up tents, covering two big fryers… and if the last two weeks are any indication, he is now open Tuesday Wednesday Thursday through Sunday!

Last week Ricky’s kicked off the Angeli Cafe’s new series of Street Food Mondays, and tomorrow Eating L.A. (aka Profiled Lunch’er “Pat”) will celebrate their 6 year blogiversary by throwing a party at Ricky’s, with “cupcakes, free fish tacos for the first 25 readers, friends and supporters, and muy special aguas frescas”. Basically, if you work (or live) anywhere near the border of Hollywood and Los Feliz and haven’t been to Ricky’s- what the hell are you waiting for?

Fish taco porn is after the jump…

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Just a quick look at the Midtown Lunch map and you can tell that Westwood is one of the main areas of Midtown Lunch’ing in L.A.- and not just because my wife works there. (Ok, maybe it is because my wife works there.)  I still haven’t been to Sak’s Terikayi (so sad!), but Hammer Cafe is a decent deal, the completely under the radar French cafe Ratata is adorable, I’m admittedly a Pitfire fan, and of course there’s all the great Middle Eastern food on Westwood Blvd btw. Wilshire and Santa Monica (Alcazar Express, Attari, Sunin).  So, when I read on Squid Ink and Tasting Table that Wally’s Wine had recently spun off their cheese selection into its own adjacent store, Wally’s Cheese Box, I was pretty excited to check it out.

I was even more excited to find out they had sandwiches! Making it a new Westwood lunch destination…

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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 Robert, a web guru who clearly needs some help finding delicious lasagna in SaMo…

Name: Robert

Age: 25

Occupation: Founder and CEO of VOKLE.com, a live video townhall platform with the goal of humanizing the web.

Where in L.A. do you Work?: VOKLE HQ is located in Santa Monica, CA, right by the 3rd Street Promenade.

Favorite Kind of Food: Italian – a good lasagna could be a work of art.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Anything with anchovies. I know that sounds cliche, but anchovies generally taste like fish-flavored clumps of salt to me.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch: There’s a lot of health conscious places to eat in my area of Santa Monica. Like “Real Food Daily,” (514 Santa Monica Blvd.) which serves only organic dishes (they have a “sweet green juice” made up of every green vegetable you can think of). But if you want a really delicious dish, there’s a hole-in-the-wall Middle-Eastern restaurant on 5th and Lincoln called Sham (716 Santa Monica Blvd.) that serves the most amazing “Shawerma Beef & Chicken Combo” plate. One combo plate is enough to feed a hungry pack of grizzly gold miners.

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There were quite a few standouts at the LA Food Fest tasting event last weekend at the Rose Bowl, but none stood out more to me than the pork belly adobo served up by the Manila Machine, a Filipino food truck that hit the streets of L.A. back in June. Run by two popular food bloggers (not a joke), the truck launched with a ton of great press (mostly by bloggers, natch) but I couldn’t help but be a little skeptical. Nobody gets more excited about street food than me, and I’ve been covering the ascent of the “hipster truck” for over 4 years now.  But I’ve also been burned by one too many mediocre new school food trucks, and have gradually gone from feeling like “anything new with four wheels is worth getting excited about!” to “I’m going to wait until I hear something really good from somebody who isn’t friends with the owner of the food truck, or getting free food” before I dig in.

A single bite of pork belly adobo with pineapple changed all of that, so on Friday I found myself on Olympic btw. Bundy and Centinela- ordering practically the Manila Machine’s entire menu.

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