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. I don’t get up to the Valley too often, so today we’re turning to David for some good recs north of the typical Midtown Lunch’ing area. Plus he loves turkey burgers, which makes him the perfect Thanksgiving week profile…

Name: David

Age: 30

Occupation: Marketing and Promotions for motion pictures and I run a little cupcake blog for kicks.

Where in L.A. do you Work?: Universal Pictures in Universal City , CA

Favorite Kind of Food: Burgers….but oddly, I don’t eat red meat. But I love a great turkey burger or veggie burger. Oh, and I love fries. Oh, and I love cupcakes. Yeah…I love those things, but not in that order.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Seafood. I’m deathly allergic.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch: The Counter ( 12117 Ventura Blvd. ), Pitfire Pizza ( 5211 Lankershim Blvd. ) The Griddle (7916 Sunset Blvd.) The Artisan Cheese Gallery ( 12023 Ventura Blvd. ) and Mr. Cecil’s Rib ( 13625 Ventura Blvd. )

The “goto” lunch place you and your co-workers eat at too often? We often hop in a car and leave the studio with no direction or plan, and most often we end up at Suzanne’s Deli ( 11273 Ventura Blvd. ), a great spot in a strip mall. Awesome bar-be-cue chicken salads and Paninis. And they know our names and have a frequent punch card. I filled up my first card a few weeks ago, it was like Christmas!

Places you’ve discovered thanks to Midtown Lunch: What’s Midtown Lunch? Ha! Ha! Just kidding. There is not a great deal of love for the Valley – but I’m here to help change that! However, Lemonade was put on my map from the site. I was at First Fridays on Abbott Kinney working a fundraiser and realized that I was super close. Love the salads and the atmosphere. Makes me feel very chic and LA.

The farthest place you’ll drive for lunch on a normal day? My lunch break is pretty nice, 90 minutes, but I’m lazy and would rather chill and eat then spend most of my time stuck in traffic. I’ll make the trek to Hollywood to hit up Toi (7505 ½ Sunset @ Gardner ). I love tempura and theirs is top notch! The place is also a random Hollywood , hipster, musically decorated kind of joint. To me, nothing makes sense…but it’s definitely an eye orgy.

Dream job location (anywhere in the world), purely for lunch purposes, and why? That’s a tough one. It would be awesome to work in a place where tons of neat, trendy restaurants were in walking distance so I would have to say San Francisco or New York City . Again, I’m lazy; I don’t want to wait to eat.

As always, if you want to be next week’s Profiled: L.A. Lunch’er (or know somebody you’d want to nominate), email me- zach@midtownlunch.com.