Midtown Lunch

Oh, kooky fast food concepts imported from Korea!  I wish I knew what to think of you.  Sometimes you are so amazing you change the way we look at a classic food we thought we knew well (Kyochon anybody?).  Other times, your eccentricity is part of your charm (hello, School Food!)  But often you make us just step back and say “WTF?” (Isaac Toast, I still still don’t know what to make of you.)   So when Eater reported that Bibigo! was opening in Westwood Village last week, hoping to be the “”McDonald’s of bibimbap” I didn’t know what to think.  Claiming to be the McDonald’s of anything is not a plus in my book (it’s like saying you want to be the Taco Bell of Jamaican food.) And if you  in Koreatown across the street from, say, this place or this place or this place you’d have no need for Bibigo.  But if you work in Westwood, a fast food Korean rice bowl place sounds like a pretty great idea.

Check it out after the jump…

Read more »

The meatball sandwich from Bay Cities. Photo courtesy of Noah Galuten.

• SAMO/DTLA Bread gives Bay Cities the edge over Eastside Market’s meatball parm [Squid Ink]
• DTLA French macaron bakery Paulette’s is now open [Blogdowntown]
• DTLA Ciudad is becoming a Border Grill [LAist]
• KTOWN Two new Korean blood sausage places you need to try [LAT]
• MID CITY Paper or Plastik brings good coffee to Pico & Fairfax [Mattatouille]
• HOLLYWOOD Juicy Burger is decent for the price [AHT]
• WEHO You can get a big, quick lunch for $8 at Hunger Market Cafe [LAist]
• WESTWOOD Bibigo brings fast casual bibimbap to Westwood [Eater]

Last month I indulged my new-found craving for Thai boat noodles by embarking on an epic crawl across Hollywood’s Thai Town.  My goal? To help people determine which boat noodle soup was right for them based on personal taste.  The conclusion?  After 9 bowl of boat noodles, eaten at 5 different restaurants, in less than two weeks, I could conclusively say that… I probably wouldn’t need to eat boat noodles again for a long time!  Or so I thought. I’ve been finding it hard to stay away from Sapp Coffee Shop since then… the bare bones boat noodle spot on Hollywood Blvd. that was featured on No Reservations and comes highly recommended by The Guru.  And yet, it’s not the boat noodles that keep bringing me back (even though their version is arguably the best.)  It’s actually the rest of the stuff on the menu that has me going back to Sapp again and again.

Read more »

There’s been a lot of falafel talk on the site lately. Yesterdays Profiled Lunch’er, Rachael, asked for falafel recs in the comments, and last week’s Profiled Lunch’er, Julie, mentioned Pita Bar & Grill on Fairfax as her go-to falafel joint.  A fried chick pea ball craving was bound to follow.  My old stomping grounds was chock full of falafel (both Israeli and Lebanese mostly), but my exposure here in L.A. has been limited to a pretty bad version at Zankou.  (Stick to the chicken was the main takeaway from that lunch!)

Clearly it was time for a decent falafel lunch, so yesterday I took Lunch’er Julie’s advice and headed over to Pita Bar & Grill to check it out.

Read more »

As is customary on Midtown Lunch, every Tuesday we’ll profile a random reader to get their recommendations for the best spots to lunch near their work. This week it’s Rachael, a chick with a knife looking for the best falafel in L.A.

Name: Rachael

Occupation: I’m ½ of Chicks with Knives – we do lots of things but are known for our roaming supper club. We’re also launching PERISHABLE: A Pop-Up Pickle Shop this week. The first incarnation will be on Sept. 12th at Starry Kitchen. We’ll be selling pickles and doing a pickling demonstration. We’re super excited. It’s gonna be fun!

Where in L.A. do you Work?: Mid City

Favorite Kind of Food: For a specific dish, it’s a three way tie: Falafel, Fish Tacos or Moules-Frites. More generally, I just like to eat fresh, seasonal food.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Potatoes baked in foil. Shudder.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch: Ooh. Let’s see…I love the Moules-Frites at Comme Ca (8479 Melrose Ave, WeHo), Hungry Cat (1535 Vine St, Hollywood) and Café Stella (3932 W Sunset Blvd, Silver Lake). Fish tacos from Tacos Baja Ensenda (5385 Whittier Blvd, East L.A.), El Siete Mares (2729 E Cesar Chavez Ave, Boyle Heights), Cactus Mexican Food Number 2 (4370 Beverly Blvd, Hollywood) and of course Ricky’s Fish Tacos (1400 Virgil, Hollywood). (Though truth be told, Suzanne, the other “Chick” makes the best fish tacos imaginable.)

Read more »