Midtown Lunch

Fat Spoon’s Hamburger Curry “Loco Moco Style”. Photo by The Minty

• BEV HILLS Mulberry St. Pizza has a decent lunch special on M/T [UE]
• CENTURY CITY Joe’s Pizza is coming to the Westfield Mall [Toddrickallen]
• DTLA Fat Spoon does a loco moco style hamburger curry [The Minty]
• DTLA The current location of Starry Kitchen is closing on Tuesday [Eater]
• HWOOD The oinkster is coming to Vine! [Squid Ink]
• HWOOD God, I am a fat bastard [Amateur Gourmet]
• KTOWN Mapo Jip is now Isa Ramen [Grub Street]
• MELROSE Marcona makes a good lomo sandwich [Food GPS]
• MID CITY Sycamore Kitchen is a sophisticated lunch [Eating L.A.]
• WEHO A new Zankou opens today on Sunset [Grub Street]
• WEST LA Spaghetti by Orris is becoming a soba place [Eater]
• WEST LA The Guru sounds off on Miyata Menji [LAT]
• LISTS A Guide to L.A.’s best Ramen shops [Eater]
• LISTS The 40 Best Tacos in L.A. [Grub Street]

Great news out of Park’s Finest, the upgraded from a catering company Filipino barbecue brick and mortar just outside of Downtown L.A. A few weeks ago they introduced “Worker Wednesdays”, a new lunch special that includes coconut beef, pulled pork, sausage links, chicken, cornbread, veggies and rice. And the best part is, this greatest hits platter costs just $10.  It’s only on Wednesdays, but it’s hard to complain once you see what you get for your money.  Order the special solo (or to go) and you get the borderline massive plate seen above.  Go with a big crew, and they’ll most likely serve you family style.  Last Wednesday we went as a party of four, paid $10 a piece and got this ridiculous feast…

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Over the weekend thousands of people flocked to the Rose Bowl for the 4th Annual L.A. Street Food Festival.  Now entering its third year at the Rose Bowl (and not going up against Carmageddon), you could pretty easily argue that this was the best year ever… and I’m not just saying that because I had a booth on the field with Food is the New Rock T-Shirts, the food and music podcast I do with Chuck P from KCRW.  (Ok, maybe that’s part of the reason I’m saying it.)  And even though I spent most of the day on the field fielding “What’s a podcast?!” questions, I did manage to sneak away for a solid hour of face stuffing goodness.  Plenty of Midtown Lunch faves were there, including Mariscos Jalisco, Frysmith, Kogi, Mexicali Taco & Co, Park’s Finest, Fat Spoon, Simpang Asia, Starry Kitchen, and Spice Table.

But I did discover three great new lunches that I’m super excited for (and one that I was excited for, but now I’m going to avoid)…

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• EVENTS Come to the L.A. Street Food Festival at the Rose Bowl on Saturday!  I’ll be there w/ my food/music podcast “Food is the New Rock” next to the tequila and wine  [L.A. Street Food Fest]
• KTOWN Shaken Dosirak looks like a lot of fun [Amateur Gourmet]
• MID CITY The turkey sandwich at Sycamore Kitchen is just OK [Food Monster]
• PALMS Tofu Ya on National is now Galbi King [Grub Street]
• WEST LA Seoul Sausage is hoping to be open at the end of this month [Squid Ink]

After this epic Thai Town crawl w/ Jet Tila yielded some pretty great finds, I felt pretty comfortable tagging along with Food Republic’s Jason Kessler a few weeks ago for another Asian food crawl, this time through Koreatown. While I can’t relate to his feelings about Asian food (I thought loving Chinese food was part of the genetic makeup of Jews, like a culinary tay-sachs if you will), the dude is a good guy and I will never turn down an excuse to eat four lunches in succession.  And while I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job of stuffing my face in K-Town (with the help of guides like The Guru, Mattatouille and @samkimsamkim), it’s always nice to see a neighborhood from a new perspective.  And most of all I hoped that maybe I’d end up being introduced to something completely new and cool.

Well, if you read Jason’s post then you know that it didn’t quite turn out that way. Our Korean food guide was no Jet Tila, and Haus is no Bhan Kanom Thai.  But there was one thing that we tried on our first stop, that kind of blew everybody away.  It’s called duruchigi, and at Moo Dae Po 2 they serve it to us in a giant shovel.  Of course always being skeptical of organized media eating, I returned last week to see if this “shovel” existed for real people.  Or if it was just some kind of PR mirage rolled out for the big guns at Food Republic…

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Completely sick of food trucks?  You might want to stop reading.  Sick of food trucks with stupid names?  Stop reading. Sick of gluttony?  Stop reading.  Sick of food bloggers getting excited about disgusting creations that nobody who doesn’t hate themselves would ever be caught eating?  Stop reading.  Hate fried chicken and waffles?  Stop reading.  Mom, is that you?  Stop reading. Don’t want to see the food version of Leaving Las Vegas?  Stop reading.  Because if I die anytime in the next month, they will likely point to this lunch as a major cause. I’m not saying it will get blamed the way Marilyn Manson did for Columbine… actually, that’s exactly what I’m saying.  The only difference is, this lunch will truly be to blame. Don’t want to throw up in your own mouth?  Stop reading.

Last week I found myself at the recently re-opened food truck lot on Washington and Overland, and by some amazing bit of luck two trucks both serving fried chicken and waffles were parked side by side.  Well, maybe “luck” is the wrong word for it. By some amazing bit of the-gods-conspiring-against-me-and-my-overall-health, the Slap Yo Mama Truck and the Trailer Park Truck were parked next to each other, making a fried chicken and waffle battle practically mandated by Fortuna.  Aka, it had to be done.  You know… for science.

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