Midtown Lunch

If you stalk my lunching on Instagram you likely noticed an uptick in the dumpling consumption over the past month.  It’s true, I love me some dim sum, pan fried potstickers, and, of course, xiaolongbao.  But I was also putting together this Dumpling Crawl of the San Gabriel Valley for Lucky’s Peach’s dumpling month.  It’s a bit more intense than the 2 Hour Taco Crawl of L.A. I put together a few years back, requiring a bit more planning and discipline.  Plus eating this many dumplings in 4 hours is a lot more punishing on your body than you would think. Not to mention the pain in your heart you might feel as you drive by Lunasia, Chengdu Taste, 101 Noodle Express, Shanghai Dumpling House, and Mama Lu’s without stopping. Or skipping places entirely that didn’t fit on the route (I’m looking at you, Kang Kang Food Court.)  But with 4 people (3 will leave you with too many dumplings to eat, 5 will make it harder to get a table and divide the dumplings) and a pocketful of cash (a lot of places don’t take credit cards) you can have an epic afternoon of dumpling eating that you won’t soon forget.

Any places I left out?  I’d love to hear about them in the comments.  You know… for Version 2.0.

Delicious Vinyl, the L.A. based record label that brought the world Tone Loc, Young MC, and The Pharcyde, just opened a pizza joint called Delicious Pizza on Adams Blvd, just east of Culver City. A joint project between Delicious Vinyl’s Mike Ross and Fred 62’s Fred Sutherland, the little pizza shop is not just fodder for our Food is the New Rock thesis, they’re also making some pretty great pizza.

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It’s no secret that I’m obsessed with food courts, a passion that dates back to my childhood.  So I was excited to hear the news that the famous chefs behind La Casita Mexicana in Bell have just opened a new food court concept called Flautas in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza mall.  Like 101 Noodle Express in the Fox Hills Mall or Loteria’s Torta Company in Fig At 7th, it’s just the latest development in a food court renaissance that has been sweeping through Southern California malls over the past few years.

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