Midtown Lunch

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any crazier on Sawtelle in West LA, signage went up a few months ago announcing that Daikokuya would be opening just down the street from Tsujita, considered by many to be serving the best bowl of ramen in Los Angeles.  It’s enough to make ramen geeks squeal because while Tsujita is clearly serving the noodle bowl of the moment, Daikokuya’s ultra popular downtown location could be considered the ramenya that started it all here in Los Angeles.

A month ago the new West L.A. location of Daikokuya soft opened for dinner, but they didn’t start serving lunch until two days ago. And by day two the place is already packed. Check out the menu after the jump…

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Hart & the Hunter is one of my favorite restaurants in all of L.A., not just for their smoked trout, their ridiculous biscuits, and their addictive chicken cracklins. But also because you could get at least two of those three things during breakfast and lunch, even though it was pretty clear from the beginning that they were probably only serving food during the day to satisfy some kind of contract with their hotel landlords. Naturally the lunch menu also sported a few of their more popular salad offerings (brussels, cauliflower, pickled shrimp) and you could get their hangar steak as a salad’ish bowl. Certainly not the food that earned them a reputation as one of the coolest restaurants in the city, but good enough to get us hardcore fans to schedule lunch meetings and coffee meet ups there.

Well, just short of their one year anniversary, Hart & the Hunter has revamped their lunch menu and it now actually has a few things that might make the dinner crowd a bit jealous!

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Tsukemen from Tsujita Annex. Photo courtesy of Amy Scattergood

• TSUKEMEN This guide to dipping noodles has a few we missed back in 2011 [Squid Ink]
• CULVER CITY Smashburger has gone downhill [Mattatouille]
• HWOOD Fat Sal’s is now open on Highland [Eater]
• VENICE Pork Belly’s signature sandwich is simple but good [Food GPS]
• VENICE El Huarique makes one of the best ceviches in L.A. [Serious Eats]
• WEST LA A famous Japanese tonkatsu purveyor is coming to Sawtelle [Eater]

I try to be positive here on Midtown Lunch… and I freakin’ love this city.  The food is amazing, and there’s no better place to be a “Midtown Lunch’er”.    But as much as I love most of the food in L.A. (and will defend it to the death against any outsiders, or natives with an inferiority complex) there are some things about lunching in this town that really annoy me.  Here are 7 of them, LAist style, for your enjoyment…

1. There is so much about this photo that gets me super excited.  Finding a gang that I would truly want to be a member of?  Check. All you can eat? Check. Under $10?  Check!  The bad news?  The “order whatever you want off the menu (minus seafood dishes) for just $9.99” doesn’t start until 3pm.  Is it too late to get my dues back?

2. Is there some kind of electromagnetic field that exists between Downtown and Santa Monica that makes it impossible for Vietnamese restaurants to do the simplest things right. I can spot at least 5 things wrong with this bún.  Can you?  (Spoiler: it’s not the spring rolls.  They’re actually the best part about this new place…)

More haterade, plus the most controversial thing you’ve ever read about doughnuts, is after the jump…

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Hart & the Hunter. Photo by Rick Poon

This might surprise some people, but not all of my meals are eaten between Noon and 2pm and cost less than $10.  I also enjoy the great over $10 restaurants that Los Angeles has to offer, and to prove it here’s a piece I did for this month’s issue of Food & Wine Magazine that highlights 10 places to eat in L.A. right now. Enjoy!

Let me be the first to say thank you to Gyu Kaku for your years of service.  While your food has never been worth going out of the way for, your branch on La Cienega provided a fun option in Beverly Hills to people who like grilling their own meats and grilling their own smores.  Thank you, that is, but your services are no longer needed.  Here’s your engraved watch, enjoy your retirement.  Because now that Genwa has opened up their second location across the street, there is really no reason for anybody to ever go to Gyu Kaku again- unless you really are some kind of smores obsessed maniac.

Seeing as how Genwa’s first location is located on Miracle Mile, just outside Koreatown, and its decor and menu is decidedly inviting to white people,  it’s no surprise to see them expand into Beverly Hills.  But their quality meats and unreal variety of banchan make it a genuinely great option for Korean food lovers of all levels.  In other words, Beverly Hills is really lucky to have this place.

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I don’t know exactly when this happened but at some point in the last year NYC barbecue chef Adam Perry Lang (founder of Daisy May’s BBQ) quietly moved to Los Angeles! Apparently he’s got a lot of different ideas for potential permanent projects here in L.A., but our first taste of how lucky we are to have him here is a lunchtime bbq pop up that opened two weeks ago in the parking lot behind Jimmy Kimmel’s studio.  APL set up a smoker in the shadow of Jimmy Kimmel’s outdoor stage and is serving “Serious Barbecue” Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11am to 3pm.  Each day he only offers one option, but that option will change each week.  Last week it was beef ribs w/ Texas toast.

Check it out after the jump…

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