Midtown Lunch

Dominoes atrocities aside, pizza and fried chicken are not exactly two things you might associate with each other. New York style pizza and buffalo wings? Sure. But individual size, quick fired Italian style pizzas alongside southern style spicy fried chicken doesn’t necessarily feel as simpatico.  After all, you wouldn’t expect 800 Degrees to turn out a delicious fried chicken any more than you’d expect Popeye’s to start selling a perfectly cooked margherita. And yet that’s exactly what you’ll find at the newly opened Pizza Romana on La Brea.

Formerly Cube Marketplace and Cafe, and still owned by the same people, this new fast casual pizzeria is clearly meant to compete with the new wave of quick serve pizza joints that have sprung up all over L.A. in the past 3 years. The pizzas are mostly $9 and $10, and come out quick with ingredients like proscuitto, broccolini, and buffalo mozzarella. But there is one important Cube holdover that differentiates Pizza Romana from 800 Degrees, Pitfire, Blaze, and the rest.

Their fried chicken.

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If you follow me on Instagram than you are probably worried that I’m giving myself mercury poisoning know I’ve been obsessed with poke, the Hawaiian version of tuna ceviche that has been spreading through Los Angeles like it’s food trucks in 2010. Nobody knows exactly what has led to this #pokexplosion (see what I did there?) but it’s likely a combination of the ease with which poke can be Chipotle-fied, and the inevitability of the idea.  While nobody wants to officially confirm it, it’s likely that a lot of different people had been contemplating the idea of a modern, fast casual poke chain, and once one person announced that they were launching, everybody else kicked their concepts into high gear.  Since serving poke doesn’t require an enormous kitchen investment (no cooking = no hood) it was easy for all of these concepts to open in such a short period of time. So, there you have it. #pokexplosion.  As a lover of poke, it’s best not to think about it too much and just enjoy our good fortune!

When most people ask me which of the new places is the best, I usually answer “Whichever is closest to you.” I kind of love them all, for different reasons. And, surprise!  You do get what you pay for.  I made a map of all the new poke places for Eater so you can find the one closest to you. I pretty much haven’t met a poke I didn’t like, but if push comes to shove (and by that I mean “If DineLA is going to pay me money to pick my 10 favorites”), here’s a list of the 10 Best Pokes in Los Angeles, new and old, according to yours truly.

And if you're too lazy for all that reading, and would prefer to hear me talking about poke, I'll be on KCRW’s Good Food talking about all of this stuff on Saturday morning at 11am.

After weeks of random on again/off again lunch service testing, and a two weekend Coachella pop up with sister restaurant Egg Slut, Ramen Champ is now officially open for lunch in the same Chinatown mall that houses Pok Pok and Chego.  The menu is pretty simple. For $10 you can get the vegetarian shitake shio ramen, topped with scallions, roasted mushrooms, and a seasoned egg.

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