Midtown Lunch

When Naan Hut opened at the beginning of the year on Santa Monica Blvd. in West L.A., fans of freshly baked sangak who live or work on the westside rejoiced. The ironing board sized bread is the hallmark of any truly great Persian bakery, and those of us who live or work on the westside were excited to not have to drive all the way to the Valley for fresh baked sangak goodness. As a fan of lunch I was also excited that they were serving chicken and beef kebabs with sangak for $6-8.

Back when they first opened the “menu” was clearly a work in progress, scrawled on sheets of paper hanging on the walls. But the other day I was wandering past the store and noticed they have upgraded to a full printed menu, which not only offers kebabs and sandwich, but also includes something called sangak pizza. “What the hell is that?” you might be asking. Well, it’s exactly what you might imagine it to be…

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Ever since discovering the awesomeness of freshly cooked sangak, I’ve been kind of obsessed.  Not to be confused with lavash, the flatbread used to make sandwich wraps in many Middle Eastern countries, sangak is the slightly puffy, slightly sour, surfboard size, Persian bread found at specialty bakeries like Naan Hut in West L.A.  I couldn’t imagine a better Persian lunch than a koobideh kebab wrapped inside a fresh piece of sangak with roasted tomatoes.  And then I saw the sour cherry rice from Javan Restaurant on this “Best Persian Food in L.A.” article on The Huffington Post.   Sure, I’ve had sabzi polo- the green herbed basmati rice you’ll find at most Perisan restaurants.  But sour cherry rice?  This was new.  And the best part is, that’s not even close to where the rice craziness ends at Javan.

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There is not much to draw you into Habayit, a small Kosher restaurant tucked into the corner of a small strip mall on Pico near Bundy.  Their little rectangle of signage states, simply, “Kosher Restaurant 310-479-7173”; sharing space with other cleverly named establishments like “Coin Laundry” and “Food-Mart”.  I’d like to pretend that at some point I would have been lured in by the “FALAFEL” sign with an arrow hung high on a neighboring lightpost, but I was really there because back in May The Find got all gushy about the place– writing about their falafel as if it was the best that ever existed.

Truth be told, I love falafel but I’m not big on falafel platters.  For me falafel is meant to be eaten in sandwich form, and I was hoping Habayit would deliver.  Because you can have the greatest falafel in the world, and still have your falafel sandwich ruined by dry pita or poor layering.

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Living and/or working on the Westside has its obvious positives. You’re close to the beach. Santa Monica’s Farmers Market. Sang Yoon and Roy Choi have set up shop here. There’s great Indian food in Culver City. Japanese food fans have Sawtelle. Even Mexican food fans have Mariscos Chente, Monte Alban and Juquila. But Chinese food? Where the hell can you get some good Chinese food on the Westside? Can you even name one place?

The news that 101 Noodle Express has opened in the Westfield Culver City Mall is huge for San Gabriel Valley fans, no doubt. But that’s just noodle dishes and beef rolls. What about some straight up “Chinese” food? Enter Hop Woo BBQ & Seafood.

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When I first moved to L.A. last year Monte Alban popped up on a bunch of “food suggestion” emails I got from friends. Opinions about the place vary, and it often gets overshadowed by the far more popular Guelagetza in Koreatown, but most people agree that if you want anything resembling Oaxacan food on the Westside it’s pretty much your only option. Mole and clayudas are their specialties, and the best part is you can order anything off the regular menu for just $7 and it comes with a soda (seafood dishes are excluded.)

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When my friend Katie wrote about Tempura House back in October on Squid Ink, I was pretty intrigued. A 22 year old take out Japanese lunch counter, run by a married elderly Japanese couple, serving up authentic Japanese style bento boxes, all for under $8? Maybe intrigued is an understatement. It sounded downright awesome! Located on Sawtelle, a few blocks north of the Japanese intensive drag known as “Little Osaka”, Tempura House feels like a gem that is off the beaten path of an area that itself is considered by some to be off the beaten path. An island off an island.

As promised, I found Tempura House to be completely charming, totally homey, and most of all cheap. But not everything is great, and some stuff they serve is downright awful. But if you know how to navigate the menu, you can leave with a great lunch- and support a truly old school Sawtelle institution.

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There aren’t many things that are better than fresh baked bread, and it hardly gets fresher than sangak made from a real Persian bakery. Often referred to as “Iran’s national bread”, the first time I had sangak was at Attari Grill, where the small piece of flatbread came wrapped around a delicious koobideh kebab as part of lunch. But nothing can compare to seeing one of these four foot long surfboards of warm sour dough flatbread coming fresh out of a gigantic lazy susan’ish oven looking thing. There are no shortage of these bakeries in the valley (Asal Bakery in Woodland Hills is well worth the drive) but in the Midtown Lunch area between Downtown and Santa Monica? Not so much.

So I was super excited to hear that the (unfortunately named) Naan Hut, on Santa Monica Blvd in West L.A. had nothing to do with Indian bread… and was actually a real deal Persian sangak bakery, just like the places in the valley.

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