Midtown Lunch

Photo courtesy of Hanhonymous

If you’re reading this site, I’m guessing it means you like food.  But if you also like music you should be listening to the podcast I just started with Chuck P from KCRW.  This week’s episode features Mac McCaughan, the guitarist of Superchunk and one of the founders of Merge Records (the label behind Arcade Fire, Spoon, She & Him, and more).  He talks about getting food tips from Fugazi and Yo La Tengo, but the important part for fans of L.A. lunch is that he showed up to the studio with fish tacos and stingray ceviche from Ricky’s Fish Tacos- which we ended up talking about for the first 5 mins of the show.  From the looks of this post on Twitter it probably was just something he did special for a television taping, but may I be the first to it should become a regular menu item!

You can read about the podcast here, and download it from iTunes.

If you go by the insane number of new ramen places that have chosen the beginning of summer to open their doors, you’d think June, July, and August were prime ramen eating months.  And maybe they are for some?  But for me this is actually the one time of year I don’t really feel like slurping down a hot bowl of liquid pork fat, served underneath a glistening sheen of more pork fat.  Call it my version of the bikini diet.   That’s why I got so excited about the Naked Ramen at Tatsu, the new order-from-iPads ramen spot on Sawtelle.  All my favorite parts of ramen (the noodles, the pork, the scallions, the egg), replacing the hot broth with with breadcrumbs, lime juice, and a slightly sweet sesame soy sauce. It’s not cold, but it is still perfect for summer. I could eat this every day for the next 3 months.

Luckily I don’t have to!  Here are 5 more soup-less noodle dishes I’ve enjoyed over the past few weeks…

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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 much of the food in L.A. (and will defend it to the death against any outsiders, ornatives 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.  Alright Mendocino Farms… we gave you a bit of leeway when you called your admittedly delicious pork belly sandwich a banh mi.  But a cuban sandwich should probably not be on the same bread as your shrimp po’boy, or at the very least it should be pressed.  You have a panini press, use it.  That being said, adding plantain chips on top of the sandwich is genius.  Oh, we can’t stay at mad you Mendocino Farms!

2. Prediction: When the Los Angeles branch of Eataly finally opens, bloggers who get to eat there for free will love it.  Those who have to pay will be slightly less enthusiastic.

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Photo courtesy of Slice/Kelly Bone

• WEST LA SliceTruck finishes their slices with olive oil, parmesan and fresh basil [Slice]
• BEV HILLS U-Sushi rolls are $3 all day on Monday! [Squid Ink]
• DTLA The $13 bento at Oomasa is pretty good [The Minty]
• MID CITY God I wish this al pastor place was open for lunch [Squid Ink]
• MID CITY Golden State is opening a Bludso’s on La Brea!? [LA Times]
• WEST LA The Naked Ramen at Tatsu is like a modern Hiyashi Chuka [Squid Ink]

It has been my long held position, and the position of Midtown Lunch, that dipping something in batter and deep frying it will always improve the original item (hot dogs I’m looking at you.)  Sure, even I will draw the line at candy bars and sticks of butter- after all, I’m not a Republican.  But even the most progressive of crunchy, granola bar eating vegetarian liberals will have to admit that treating vegetables to a spa-like batter treatment, followed by a hot oil bath, is the most humane death you could give to something that grows out of the ground.

So, naturally, when Grub Street announced yesterday that Tokyo tempura specialist Hannousuke was now open in the Mitsuwa Marketplace I became as excited as a… well… a fat guy who likes things that are battered and deep fried.

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