Midtown Lunch

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 it’s Garrett, a freelance writer who pities the fool that doesn’t like Vietnamese food.

Name: Garrett

Age: 23

Occupation: Freelance Writer, Server

Where in L.A. do you Work?: Culver City / Miracle Mile

Favorite Kind of Food: Vietnamese

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Russian

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch: Probably Pioneer Fried Chicken (5970 W Olympic Blvd): home to both fried pickles, fried okra and fried mushrooms. Cemita Poblanas Truck on Pico and Fairfax: beef milanesa cemita, extra chipotle. Escuela Tacqueria (308 N Stanley Ave): pork belly taco and homemade agua frescas. Slow Fish (5406 Wilshire Blvd): Decent sushi, which can be made with black rice, as well as cheap lunch bowls. +1 for the Curry Udon. Hollywood Pies (333 S Boylston St): Excellent Chicago deep-dish pie (for LA at least), but they only do to-go or delivery after 4 p.m.

The “goto” lunch place you and your co-workers eat at too often? Whatever food truck happens to be parked on Wilshire: sometimes there are good ones, but sometimes you mistakenly opt for a piss-poor imitation-Kogi burrito.

Places you’ve discovered thanks to Midtown Lunch: Moo Moo Thai in Culver City: awesomely funky noodle soups (Yen Ta Fo!) on the Westside, of all places. Genki Grill (6355 Wilshire Blvd): easy-on-the-wallet rice bowls

The farthest place you’ll drive for lunch on a normal day? Officially: Pizzeria Mozza. Unofficially: a very long “lunch” spent driving up to Monterey Park for some XLB.

Dream job location (anywhere in the world), purely for lunch purposes, and why? New York City or Seattle, the first for the massive amount of ethnic restaurants, the second for its refreshingly laid-back food scene.

Anything you’d like to ask the Midtown Lunch readers? Top places in Chinatown for a nice bowl of pho? (Would some bun bo hue be too much to ask!?)

Got a recommendation for Garrett? Put it in the comments. And, as always, if you want to be next week’s Profiled: L.A. Lunch’er (or know somebody you’d want to nominate), email me- zach@midtownlunch.com.