Midtown Lunch

Over the weekend LA Taco’s 3rd Annual Taco Madness came to a close, and in the closest vote of all time Mexicali Taco & Co (in Westlake) was crowned the champ of Los Angeles tacos.  Only one problem for this lunch hunter…  they’re only open at night!  In fact, sometimes it seems like most of the great taco trucks are only open late at night (Leo, I’m looking at you.)  So when I saw that the Taco Madness Runner Up, Mariscos Jalisco was *only* open for lunch I got pretty excited.  Add to that the fact that they’re pretty close to Downtown, and dispatched (the amazing) Ricky’s Fish Tacos (1400 Virgil, Hollywood) in the semi finals, and I couldn’t resist heading over Monday to check it out.

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As is customary on Midtown Lunch, every Tuesday we profile a random reader to get their recommendations for the best spots to lunch near their work. This week its Veronica, a Downtown marketing expert looking for some solid Vietnamese food in Chinatown.

Name: Veronica

Age: 29

Occupation: Online Marketing/Social Media

Where in L.A. do you Work?: During the day, at First 5 LA – Downtown, near Chinatown/Little Tokyo

Favorite Kind of Food: Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: I can’t stand veal or fois gras. Regardless of the ethical reasons, I just really, really don’t like the taste of either of them.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch: Despite working at the transportation mecca of Los Angeles, we hardly ever go anywhere that’s not within walking distance. The Rattlesnake & Rabbit or the Austin Blues at Wurstkuche (800 E 3rd St), along with a bucket of their life-changing fries. I also love hitting up the Little Tokyo Marketplace (333 S Alameda St) for fresh sashimi from Woori Market, the Spicy Champon at Hana Ichimonme and the macrobiotic bento boxes at Shojin. Phillippe’s (1001 N Alameda St) would also be on this list if I could ever get in at lunch without a huge line out the door.

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I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since Uncle John’s Ham & Eggs was forced out of their old school diner and into the kind of scary looking Hotel Stillwell (on Grand between 8+9th). The gussied up decor ruins a bit of the charm, but the old hotel more than makes up for whatever “weirdness” they might have lost in the transition. Their Chinese/American diner food mash up is still one of my favorite places to eat in Downtown L.A., but it turns out it’s not the only great lunch to be had in the hotel.

As a big fan of buffets, I couldn’t help but notice the old sandwich board outside the hotel promoting Gill’s Indian Buffet. I don’t usually get turned off by the sketchiness of a lunchtime scene, but the lobby isn’t exactly inviting and the thought of walking into the bowels of an abandoned looking hotel searching for an Indian buffet had horror movie written all over it. But the $7.95 price tag (and my all you can eat loving gut) eventually won and this past Friday I finally gave into the lure of the Stillwell Hotel’s Indian buffet.

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Photo courtesy of the LA Times/Anne Cusack

• CULVER CITY La Cocina del Camaguey looks amazing [LAT]
• DOUGHNUTS I want to eat every single one of these [Serious Eats]
• DTLA Freshii is coming to 7th [Brigham Yen via Blogdowntown]
• SAMO I need to try this sandwich at Bru’s Waffle [Unemployed Eater]
• SAMO Huckelberry’s owners to open a pizza place/bakery in November [Eater]
• WESTWOOD Native Food’s “meatball” sub isn’t as bad as you’d think [Unemployed Eater]
• TACOS The best carnitas tacos in Los Angeles [Street Gourmet L.A.]

It seems that these days more and more food trucks are getting into the brick and mortar business.  It might appear to be a prestige or legitimacy thing to some, and I’m sure there are food trucks chefs who always saw a restaurant as their end goal.  But at its core, having a storefront is one of the best financial moves a food truck owner can make.  For one thing it gives your fans a static location to enjoy your food (a necessity for running any kind of retail establishment), but more than that it gives you a home base for your operations that actually generates revenue. It doesn’t guarantee success, and I wouldn’t recommend opening a restaurant to anybody. But if your concept is good, having a brick and mortar business spreads the overhead of your truck out and gives you a better chance of being profitable over all.

What many people don’t realize is that food trucks don’t really operate rent free.  In addition to the cost of running the trucks themselves, they also have to pay rent at a commissary or commercial kitchen to do all the prep work (and in some cases, a lot of the cooking.)   Having a self sustaining brick and mortar restaurant to utilize for prep is a great way to place less of a profit burden on your truck, and it’s part of the reason that it is far more economical for a restaurant to launch a food truck spin off, then it is for a food truck to launch on its own.

And that’s the main reason why you’re seeing so many food trucks going brick and mortar these days. Flying Pig has plans to open 3 restaurants, Coolhaus is opening a shop in Culver City this summer, and Komodo recently opened a storefront on Pico and Robertson- which I went to check out the other day.

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When my friend Katie wrote about Tempura House back in October on Squid Ink, I was pretty intrigued. A 22 year old take out Japanese lunch counter, run by a married elderly Japanese couple, serving up authentic Japanese style bento boxes, all for under $8? Maybe intrigued is an understatement. It sounded downright awesome! Located on Sawtelle, a few blocks north of the Japanese intensive drag known as “Little Osaka”, Tempura House feels like a gem that is off the beaten path of an area that itself is considered by some to be off the beaten path. An island off an island.

As promised, I found Tempura House to be completely charming, totally homey, and most of all cheap. But not everything is great, and some stuff they serve is downright awful. But if you know how to navigate the menu, you can leave with a great lunch- and support a truly old school Sawtelle institution.

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