Midtown Lunch

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 it’s Felicia, a farmer’s market fanatic who works pretty far East, but lives in Highland Park.

Name: Felicia Friesema

Age: 38

Occupation: By day, spokesperson for a public transportation agency. By night, farmers market columnist for the LA Weekly’s food blog, Squid Ink.

Where in L.A. do you Work?: West Covina, CA

Favorite Kind of Food: In LA, I cannot have one favorite food. Depends on my mood and what’s available. Today it might be Palak Paneer with plain naan and raita from Delhi Palace in La Puente.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: This actually makes me sad. I want to love it because it has so much great tradition behind it. But I’ve never been able to eat Ethiopian cuisine. Every time I’ve tried, the spice has been uncomfortably overwhelming. I adore injera, though.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch: It’s been somewhat difficult to find good lunch options out here that aren’t gigantic chain food factories. But there are a few gems. One World Café on Glendora Ave. has some great vegan options, including their “B.B.Q. Drumsticks”, which is actually gluten wrapped around a stick of sugar cane, fried, and then sauced, and their “Passionate Tofu” served over brown rice. Anna’s Pizza on West Covina Parkway makes some of the best pizza in LA. Love the carnitas at Bronco’s in Hong Kong Plaza on Glendora. And then Claro’s over on East College St. in Covina for their prosciutto sandwich with everything. There’s also 1+1 Dumpling House, Anjo Japanese, and Fonda Don Chon. I live over in Hermon, next to Highland Park, and my go-to neighborhood places are Good Girl Dinette (110 N Ave 56), The York (5018 York Blvd), Schodorf’s Luncheonette (5051 York Blvd), and Café de Leche (5000 York Blvd.)  Folliero’s (5566 N Figueroa St), too, though I often forget that they are cash-only, which leads to pizza pout.

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Ever since the Manila Machine food truck closed back in April I’ve been on a hunt for decent Filipino food between Downtown and Santa Monica, and who better to help me on my quest than Nastassia- the brains behind the whole Manila Machine operation.  For our first stop back in June we hit up Aristocrat, a newish steam table place in K-Town where we found a decent kare kare, among other tasty dishes.  Better than average, but nothing that was going to halt our search. But where to go next?

Enter Lunch’er Remil to save the day (aka Pinoy Panda).  Shortly after our trip to Aristocrat he was a profiled L.A. luncher and gave us two quality recs off of Alvarado, just to the NE of Downtown L.A.: Salakot Sizzle and Grill (a sit down restaurant, and his personal favorite in the area), and Bahay Kubo Natin (a steam table place for a quick lunch.)  Always going for the quick and the cheap, we decided to hit up Bahay Kubo first…

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