Midtown Lunch

Last month Spice Table launched for dinner in Little Tokyo to a modest bit of hype.  Opened by a former Mozza sous chef, the Vietnamese/Singaporean inspired restaurant seems to share DNA with current popular new places like A-Frame, Lukshon, Night + Market, and Red Medicine, offering up a high quality, Asian-inspired menu in a hip Downtown environment.  The dinner menu, a smallish affair featuring noodle bowls, satay, vegetables and seafood dishes, was reasonable enough to give me hope that their long awaited lunch menu just might be within the ML price range (aka under $10).  So when Brand X announced on Friday that they had finally opened for lunch, I rushed right over.

And not only was everything under $10, from day one Spice Table is already one of the best lunches in Downtown L.A.

Read more »

Photo courtesy of Grub Street

• WEST L.A. Hoakkaido Seafood Buffet is coming to my hood!! [Grub Street]
• CULVER CITY Gloria’s carne adobada is great [CoC]
• DTLA Sarita’s has an off the menu basil pupusa [Squid Ink]
• HWOOD I still haven’t been to Ruen Pair! [Grub Street]
• KTOWN Jangchung-Dong Wong Jokbal has $10 lunch specials!?! [LAT]
• KTOWN Bon Chon vs Kyochon [Squid Ink]
• MID CITY Charlie’s burger is better than Phil’s [AHT
• MOBILE Papaya King is coming to Los Angeles [Eater]
• EVENT There are a few tix left for Good Food’s Global Street Food event next sunday [KCRW]
• EVENT The Grilled Cheese Invitational is this wekeend and the winning ‘wich will be sold at Mendocino Farms [Squid Ink]

When Brooklyn Water Bagel Company, which is partly owned by Larry King, opened its first west coast franchise in Beverly Hills last month a ton of red flags went up. First and most obvious is the Larry King thing. Seriously… that’s your selling point? (Can that guy’s dentures even cut through a real bagel?) Then there was the whole “Brooklyn water” thing, which anybody who has ever been to a New York style pizza place in L.A. should be familiar with. (Really? You pay to have water flown in from New York City to make that pizza? You’re an idiot.) Oh, but don’t worry. Brooklyn Water Bagel Company doesn’t use actual Brooklyn water. They’ve developed a “proprietary water treatment technology system” to create the ideal water for making bagels. (Idiots as well.)

And yet something about their nonsense worked. Maybe it was my one and only soul crushing experience at Noah’s, or the impending Passover holiday, but something willed me to go and check out the bagel that Larry King claims transported him back to Brooklyn with one bite.

Read more »

If you’ve been reading Midtown Lunch for awhile then you probably have figured out that I don’t necessarily love the standard sandwich as much as the average luncher.  For me to get excited about a sandwich it’s got to have the greatest meatloaf of all time in it, be stuffed with mozzarella sticks and onion rings, topped with string beans, and/or Pueblan string cheese. Give me a something I can work with here.  In other words, when presented with the choice between the greatest turkey sandwich of all time, and just decent Chinese food- I’m going to go Chinese.

Unless of course that sandwich uses waffles as its bread!  So when I read on Unemployed Eater that Bru’s Wiffle in Santa Monica was doing a special waffle breakfast sandwich, I was intrigued and ready to subscribe to their newsletter.

Read more »

As is customary on Midtown Lunch, every Tuesday we profile a random reader to get their recommendations for the best spots to lunch near their work. This week its Cristina, a publicist who has a question about ham.

Name: Cristina

Age: 31

Occupation: Owner of NoiseNY PR

Where in L.A. do you Work?: Our office is located in Los Feliz

Favorite Kind of Food: Italian

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Chinese

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch: Il Capriccio (1757 N Vermont Ave) – the turkey panini with pesto spread (fresh basil, pine nuts, olive oil, garlic) is bellissimo. Their pasta e fagioli soup is amazing if you come on Wednesday it’s their green day special. And if you take the bus, walk, ride your bike, or bring recyclables, you get 10-15% off your meal

Read more »

I fully admit to being surprised with how much I liked Wow Bento and Roll in DTLA (more than I expected to like it, anyway.)  But what’s even more shocking is the fact that they printed up a gigantor banner that quotes what I wrote!  They did leave out the “probably” that appeared in the original review (which takes a bit of the umph out of the whole proclamation) but considering the unattributed “#1 Fast Food Japanese Restaurant in Downtown L.A.” banner I noticed on my first visit, I can’t really be too shocked.

Thanks to Jill from Domaine L.A. for sending along the photo (the banner is hung up at the branch on Melrose).

Related:
Wow Bento & Roll’s Sashimi Salad is Far Less Scary Than I Expected

Not sure if you follow @foodisnewrock (my music/food side project) but over the weekend I went to my first Coachella and quickly realized something most Coachella vets are well aware of: Spicy Pie is pretty fucking awesome.  Sure, I did my due diligence by eating a corn dog, crab fries, Asian BBQ, fish tacos, shitty Thai food and an absolutely sick chocolate filled malasada (hawaiian doughnut), but next year I think I might just eat Spicy Pie for every meal. And considering it’s $7 a slice for their signature slice (jalapeno and pineapple) that’s saying a lot.

Maybe it was heat stroke, or the fact that the food at Coachella is mostly terrible and ridiculously over-priced, but Spicy Pie is easily the best option (provided you don’t count Kogi, which we can eat whenever we want).  I want another slice right now.  Only one problem… they only do festivals.  What up with that!?  We need a Spicy Pie in L.A.  It would easily hold its own against Vito’s or Joe’s or LaRocco’s in Culver City.  Can somebody make this happen?