Midtown Lunch

Back in May I posted a taco crawl for out of towners and locals alike; a perfect way to enjoy 5 of the best tacos L.A. has to offer, all in 2 hours. The journey starts in Los Feliz with a Baja style fish taco, and ends in Boyle Heights with a fried shrimp taco from Jalisco.  In the middle?  The best guisados, vampiro, and carnitas L.A. has to offer.  It wasn’t so much a recommendation as a glimpse into my demented eating habits.  The way I like to eat my tacos… because after eating at one, I find it hard not to crawl on to the next- each taco so cheap, and so close to the one that precedes it on the list.  The crawl is still the best way to enjoy these tacos, but two of the places have now opened 2nd locations- neither of which are too far from the original (much to the disappointment of westsiders.)

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Left: Starting Line. Right: Finish Line.

Back in February, to celebrate the two year anniversary of Midtown Lunch: Los Angeles, I put together a list of the 21 best lunches in L.A. In addition to being a milestone celebrator and a shameful traffic builder it also meant that I now have a link I can send any friends from out of town when they visit and want to be taken to lunch. Naturally Mexican food dominates the list (6 of the 21 places), but I realized something interesting when a couple of friends from Boston visited last week. Why eat at one place, when you can eat at 5. In other words, there is a pretty spectacular lunchtime taco crawl to be had between Los Feliz and Boyle Heights. And the best part is, you not only get to try 5 completely different styles of taco, but it can all be done in two hours if you don’t dilly dally.

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Obviously we here at ML believe that lunch is the most important decision you’ll make today, and I often get asked how I decide where to go. I can’t divulge all of the complex algorithms that determine whether a place is worthy of being called a Midtown Lunch, but there are a few menu items that are guaranteed to get me excited (spoiler: putting avocado on a chicken sandwich, which an improvement, is not one of them). Topping a burger with a runny egg will guarantee you a looksee. In fact, topping anything with a runny egg is good thing in my book. Putting french fries or onion rings in places where they don’t belong also brings me a lot of joy (i.e. inside falafel pitas, or stuffed into burritos). And of course, there is the all you can eat buffet- which could be the greatest form of lunchtime eating ever invented. I am a very forgiving eater when faced with the prospect of all you can eat.

Now I know what you’re thinking. “You, are a fat bastard Zach. Of course you like the all you can eat buffet!” But to be completely honest it is way more about variety than quantity. Which is why I was super excited by the $7 sampler platter being served at Guisados in Boyle Heights.

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