Midtown Lunch

I still remember the first time I want to the Original L.A. Farmer’s Market.  The year was 1994 and I may or may not have just been a studio audience member of the Price is Right (sadly I didn’t get called to come on down.)  Getting to go to Los Angeles, and visit my cousin, was my High School graduation present and I remember thinking the Farmer’s Market was quite possibly the greatest food court I had ever been in.  Fast forward 17 years later, and the excitement has worn off a bit.  Most of the places are pretty mediocre, and even the decent ones are kind of pricey for what they are (I’m looking at you Loteria.)  Was it always that way? Probably.  The 18 year old me also thought that I would never find better clothing stores than the T-shirt shops on Hollywood Blvd.

And yet, it’s rare that you’ll find somebody willing to outright bash the Farmer’s Market food court.  The place is an institution, and for somebody who loves food courts it is hard not to get a little bit excited walking into that place on a beautiful day.  (And let’s face it, it beats eating at La Piazza.)   But I think the real reason most people have fond feelings about the Farmer’s Market is because everybody has their one go to dish.  The one thing they always order, every single time, without fail. After all, the number of options can be intimidating.  And it’s easy to get lost in that maze.  Going back again and again for the same thing is the easy solution for that.

My go to dish?  The Mee Indo Style at Singapore’s Banana Leaf.

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I have a feeling the area around Overland and Palms is going to be one of my new favorite spots to eat.  There is Sushi Central (which was featured on Bobby Flay’s Throwdown), Kogi’s Chego! is having their grand opening this week (although, sadly not for lunch yet), and of course there is Simpang Asia, one of the best Indonesian spots in the city.  It might be a coincidence, but it looks like the latter is preparing for their neighborhood’s moment in the sun. At the end of last month they moved into a newly renovated space formerly occupied by their “grocery store”, which has now moved into the generic looking convenience store next door to that.  The old Simpang Asia space is going to be converted into a larger kitchen to accommodate the larger restaurant.

If that means shorter wait times on Thursdays and Fridays during lunch (the place tended to fill up pretty quickly), I’m all for it!  As for the food, well if you’ve ever been you know it’s pretty freakin’ awesome.  Check out the new digs, plus plenty of banana leaf wrapped food porn after the jump.

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