Midtown Lunch

The Gordita from Antojitos Carmen. Photo courtesy of Serious Eats

• DTLA Two Boots is opening next month [Eater]
• DTLA Getting lunch from around the world [DowntownNews]
• EAST LA The gorditas are the best things at Antojitos Carmen [SE]
• MID CITY Paper & Plastik will soon have Jeremy Fox created offerings [Eater]
• PALMS Simpang Asia makes a good roti [Squid Ink]
• WEST LA Seoul Sausage Co is opening soon [Grub Street]
• WEST LA The Turkey Burger at Hole in the Wall is great [Unemployed Eater]
• WESTWOOD The carne asada at El Gallito is surprisingly good [Great Taco Hunt]
• LIST 5 Fast Food Chinese spots under $5 [Squid Ink]

We interrupt your regularly scheduled lunchtime content to bring you this news: the preview episode of the Food is New Rock podcast is now available!   If you haven’t seen it yet, Food is the New Rock is a little Tumblr side project I started last year to celebrate the places where food and music intersect, but since I started off in radio I always hoped it would evolve into a free podcast.  The preview episode is 35 minutes long, and features Mike D from the Beastie Boys and Chef Roy Choi talking food and music, and you can download it from iTunes or Soundcloud. On future episodes I’ll be joined by my co-host and all around music geek Chuck P (from KCRW), so if you like what you hear please leave a comment and subscribe to receive future episodes over on iTunes.  You can also follow FitnR on Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter.  Thanks… and we now return you to your regularly scheduled lunchtime programming.

Last week Transmission LA: AV Club opened at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Downtown L.A., an installation curated by the one and only Mike D from the Beastie Boys.  A maze of visual wonders, complete with a coffee bar that doubles as a race track for remote control racing boats, the exhibit is open for three weeks and meant to be more than just a thing you visit once before checking it off your list.  There will also be performances by bands and DJs, and to add to the draw Mike D enlisted Chef Roy Choi to offer up food from a Kogi truck parked outside the building.  Each day the chef plans to offer something completely new, alongside old Kogi favorites like pork belly tacos and blackjack quesadillas.  Last week it was peanut butter and jelly pupusas, this week- who knows?

Sadly, though, Kogi will only be serving food Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights from 6-10pm  (with lunch service just once a week on Saturdays from Noon to 2pm.)  So if you want to check out the installation during the week on your lunch break, you’ll be on your own food-wise.  Thankfully The Geffen is right in the heart of Little Tokyo, and there are plenty of great, quick lunch options within walking distance.  Here are 6 of my favorites…

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The crunchy pork soup at Darabar in Thai Town. Photo courtesy of Josh Lurie

• DTLA Mike’s Deli is now open in Little Tokyo [Eater]
• DTLA Totally not a surprise that these guys don’t like the Escondite [AHT]
• HWOOD The definitive guide to Thai Town [DineLA]
• MID CITY Pitfire has a few new pizzas designed by Jason Neroni [Grub Street;Serious Eats]
• PALMS Chego is starting lunchtime ordering next month!?!?!  [Kogi Blog]
• WEHO Holy Cow is becoming a quick service pasta place [Eater]
• LISTS The 10 best grilled cheese sandwiches in L.A. [Squid Ink]
• MOBILE Trailer Park Truck serves chx and waffles and an onion string topped burger [Eater]

When Eater dropped their 14 best restaurants in K-Town list back in February, Oo Kook was the only all you can eat BBQ joint to make the cut. It’s a place a number of my Korean friends have been telling me about for a while being that I am white and fat, the two important pre-requisites for loving ayce Korean BBQ. Sadly it’s $20 for lunch, making it a bit out of my price range for a typical K-Town weekday lunch.  But all is not lost!  Oo Kook offers a bunch of incredibly worthy lunch specials, one of which is something I’ve been looking for on a K-Town lunch menu for a long long time.

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It’s hard to believe, but it was one year ago this week that Spice Table started serving lunch downtown.  A lot has happened in that year, including Chef Bryant Ng being named one Food & Wine Magazine’s Best New Chefs for 2012.  And even though dinner is what the Southeast Asian restaurant on the outskirts of Little Tokyo gets praised for most, I’ve always been a huge fan of their lunch. It’s not only delicious, but it’s a relative bargain when put up against comparable restaurants in the hood (I’m looking at you Lazy Ox and Baco Mercat!)

When they first started serving lunch the menu centered around their semi-controversial $8-9 sandwiches, anchored by a cold cut banh mi made entirely with house made charcuterie. But since then they’ve added a number of new dishes, including a pork belly sandwich that might be my new favorite…

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