Midtown Lunch

There are few things in life better than a great food court, especially here in L.A. where co-workers’ taste can range from “fat IT guy who will eat anything” to “fat IT Guy who doesn’t eat meat or gluten”.  In other words, finding a place that is suitable to all of your friends is damn near impossible in this city, which makes food courts the best.  Everybody gets what they want, everybody is happy.  Plus, there is never a shortage of (my personal favorite) shitty Chinese food.  What I’m saying is, I love food courts. And chances are you love them too- unless, of course, you’re some kind of communist.

So when I heard that DTLA’s new food court inside Fig at 7th had opened I was pretty excited.  Food courts have been getting progressively better over the past few years, either by incubating interesting new gourmet concepts (like Century City) or bringing in delicious transplants from ethnic neighborhoods (like the Fox Hills Mall).  Fig + 7th seems to be doing a little bit of both.  But deciding what I wanted to eat proved a little bit easier than I expected.

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• TACOS Marisco Jalisco’s shrimp taco is the taco of the year [Great Taco Hunt]
• BRENTWOOD Curry House CoCo Ichibanya is coming soon to Wilshire [Grub Street]
• DTLA Ikemen is expanding to Little Tokyo [Eater]
• DTLA Grand Central Market is getting a massive overhaul [LAT]
• DTLA Bar Ama is open for lunch! [Grub Street]
• DTLA Uncle John’s Cafe makes a great wonton soup [The Minty]
• DTLA Umamicatessen’s b’fast sando might make me break by $10 rule [The Minty]
• ECHO PARK First look at the new Guisado’s [Grub Street]
• ECHO PARK TiGeorges is closing up shop [LADTN]
• HWOOD The 10 best things to eat in Thai Town [Squid Ink]
• HWOOD Jon Shook recommends Ruen Pair and Mario’s Peruvian [Squid Ink]
• HWOOD A look at every single hot dog on Pink’s menu [Serious Eats]
• KTOWN Castle BBQ now has a 2nd $10 ayce location [Grub Street]
• WEST LA Hannosuke makes JGold’s top 10 of 2012 list [LAT]

This time of year it’s natural, even for professional fatsos like myself, to be feeling a bit gross. So it’s become a custom to post a list of the healthiest Midtown Lunches I can bring myself to eat as a public serve to our readers looking to start off the year a bit healthier. Of course my idea of healthy differs a bit from the average Angeleno, but in my defense the title of the post isn’t “healthy” lunches. It’s healthiEST lunches, which on this website could be medically questionable. In other words, if avoiding carbs is your preferred method of getting healthy, you may want to avert your eyes. If, on the other hand, you consider carbs to be healthy by virtue of their not being fried, read on! This list is for you…

1. Bun from NongLA. Vietnamese food is one of those completely unique cuisines where my preferred dish also happens to be one of the healthier things you can order. Boiled noodles, grilled meat or shrimp, veggies, and nuac cham. That’s one small step removed from a salad in my book. The version at NongLA is not as good as what you can get driving to Westminster or the SGV, but it’s the best in West L.A. for sure. Sadly it’s next to impossible to order this dish without getting the fried spring roll. If you don’t tell anybody, I won’t. 2055 Sawtelle Blvd, West LA. 310-268-1881

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It was inevitable. Because even in the most Japanese of Japanese food courts, man cannot live on seafood and vegetables alone. In L.A., there has to be chicken. Because even though Hannosuke, the tempura specialist in West L.A.’s Mitsuwa Market, added a vegetable tempura bowl earlier in the year you knew the menu wasn’t going to be complete until chicken made an appearance. And sure enough there it was on my visit yesterday: chicken tempura. But the joke’s on you Los Angeles chicken lovers! Check out the big surprise after the jump…

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Between Koreatown, Thai Town, the South Bay, Westminster, and the SGV, Los Angeles has no shortage of hilariously unfortunate, lost in translation restaurant names.  Of course when you discover one such place you have two options: be an adult and try to make sense of what the owners could have possibly meant (“It must be pronounced Toh Bahng, right?”).  Or just spend your entire lunch making foot based happy ending jokes.  I chose the latter.

But the truth is, it wasn’t the potential comedy that drew me to Toe Bang, the popular late night drinking spot in the same Koreatown plaza as Ho Dong Baekjeong.  It was their too good to be true sounding lunch specials, which I had read about here. That, plus I wanted to see if I could get a foot massage with my spicy pork. (Wait… that  doesn’t sound right. Or does it?)

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RIP U-Sushi. We might be the only ones… but we’ll miss you.

• BEVERLY HILLS U-Sushi has closed [Eater]
• CULVER CITY A katsu specialist is coming to Washington next month [Grub St.]
• CULVER CITY Hello Cafe Creole! [Squid Ink]
• DTLA People are really excited about The Melt [Eater]
• DTLA Urbano Pizza Bar is moving [LAT]
• KTOWN Kalbi Burger has closed [Eater]
• SAMO Hole in the Wall Burger Joint is expanding [Eater]

Apparently the grand opening of ROC Star Dumpling happened over the weekend on Sawtelle, but they’ve actually been open and serving food for well over a week.  Last Monday they “soft opened” for lunch with a fairly decent sized menu of dumplings, appetizers, entrees, a rice dish, a noodle dish, and a bunch of vegetable dishes all priced from $7 to $16.  Apparently the chef used to work at The Slanted Door, and words like “elevated” “local” “sustainable” and “fresh” have been thrown around.  But most of us have just one question… When the soup dumpling craving hits, is this place going to save west-siders a trip to Din Tai Fung?

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