SAMPLE THE BEST FOR LESS WITH 16 AFFORDABLE OPTIONS
BURRITOS, ROTIS, PIZZA, BAGELS AND CURRIES: THE DELICIOUSNESS DELIVERED AT THESE EATERIES FAR OUTWEIGHS ITS COST
IN A SEASON that tends to drain bank accounts, it’s an apt moment to highlight the most affordable restaurants from this year’s 101 Best Restaurants guide. The greatness of dining in Los Angeles is that a tlayuda stand can equal an omakase splurge in its yield of nuanced pleasure. Whether they serve burritos, rotis, pizza, bagels, bubbling tofu stews or curries, the deliciousness delivered at these 16 establishments far outweighs their cost.
APEY KADE
Among several places in the San Fernando Valley that serve Sri Lankan food — on the whole a cuisine that’s underrepresented in Los Angeles — Niza Hashim and Lalith Rodrigo’s Tarzana restaurant is a destination for its comprehensive and consistently delicious menu. Start with idiyappam, or string hoppers, made of thin rice-flour noodles steamed into pearly nests and served with kiri hodi, a golden spiced coconutmilk gravy; a salad of finely chopped greens; sambol; and chutney. For dine-in or takeout, call ahead an hour or two to request lamprais, pronounced lump-rice, a feast of chicken or beef curry with vegetables (or ask for it entirely vegetarian) and other sides warmed in a fragrant banana leaf.
● 19662 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana, (818) 609-7683, @apeykade
BRIDGETOWN ROTI
In a town where Caribbean cuisines often go overlooked in the zeitgeist sightlines, the excellence of Rashida Holmes’ Bajan cooking shows many of us what we’ve been missing. Her pop-up operates on weekends from the Crafted Kitchen commissary in the Arts District. Holmes fills the tidy bundles of the namesake rotis with her mom’s recipe for chicken curry, a patchwork of sweet potatoes and fried cauliflower or, best of all, soft, ropy hunks of goat meat she buys from Jimenez Family Farms. And the crust of her savory patties is improbably delicate, even when bulging with green curry shrimp or shredded oxtail meat with peppers.
● 672 S. Santa Fe Ave., Los Angeles, (747) 221-9026, bridgetownroti.com
COURAGE BAGELS
Arielle Skye began selling her compact, smokycrisp, Montreal-inspired bagels from the back of a bicycle nearly six years ago. She expanded to the Silver Lake farmers market, and then in October 2020 she and her nowhusband, Chris Moss, moved into the Virgil Village space previously occupied by Super Pan bakery. So Courage Bagels isn’t an overnight success story, but it has blossomed into an undeniable phenomenon. I’m ordering Winter in Sardinia — a sandwich layered with sardines, herbs, lemon and a literal fistful of capers — and also half of a purposely burnt bagel pounded with everything seasoning and draped with smoked salmon.
● 777 N. Virgil Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 828-9963, couragebagels.com
GRAND CENTRAL MARKET
There is no rush of sensation quite like entering the halls of downtown Los Angeles’ 105-year-old landmark, long a juncture of what the city has been, what it is becoming and what we’re hungry for right now. Follow one trail of neon signs for vegan tonkatsu at Ramen Hood, beef panang at Sticky Rice and a lengua taco from Roast to Go, which has been in operation since 1952. Turn nearby corners to find kimchi-braised pork belly at Shiku or a statuesque chicken katsu sando from Moon Rabbit. I have two habitual stops for manna to enjoy later: DTLA Cheese and Kitchen, for whatever the latest pungent rarity Lydia Clarke has in her case, and Nicole Rucker’s peerless Fat + Flour, for a slice of pie baked with fruit from the best farmers in California.
As to the future, I direct you to the southeast corner of the building and two of GCM’s newest tenants. Shiku, meaning “family” in Korean, comes from Baroo Canteen’s Kwang Uh and Mina Park. Their new project revolves around an everchanging selection of banchan and to-go meals like fried rice with spicy and citrusy “kimchi’d corn,” fried egg and potato chips. Next door to them is the freshly tiled stand for Fat and Flour, the pie shop (but also cookies!) from superstar baker Nicole Rucker.
● 317 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, (213) 687-4247, grandcentralmarket.com
IPOH KOPITIAM
Kenji Tang’s homage to the coffeehouse culture of his hometown Ipoh is one of the few lodestars for Malaysian cuisine in Los Angeles, and the crowds attest to the care evident in Tang’s cooking. I keep returning for the mulchy beef rendang, in which minced shallots and lemongrass pierce through as both textures and flavors; and the mellow groove of the creamy chicken curry with its high note of ground coriander. But there’s profundity in the simple things too: A cup of Malaysianstyle white coffee alongside toast sandwiched with kaya (coconut jam) conveys the restaurant’s truest spirit.
● 1411 S. Garfield Ave., Ste. 104, Alhambra, (626) 7034198, ipoh-kopitiam.com
JERUSALEM CHICKEN
After years of running the local deli chain Orleans & York, Sami and Maria Othman founded their fast-casual Palestinian restaurant in View ParkWindsor Hills in 2021. The menu’s masterpiece is arguably Siti’s original chicken stuffed with hashweh — rice enriched with beef, mushrooms and baharat, a spice blend that includes cumin, cardamom and black pepper. Go liberal with the condiments: tahini, toum (garlic sauce) and especially shatta, the chile sauces that burn equally bright in red or green versions.
● 4448 W. Slauson Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 903-6280, @jerusalem_chicken
MARISCOS JALISCO It’s more than 20 years now that Raul Ortega has been parking his white
lonchera at a curb along Olympic Boulevard in Boyle Heights, serving fish ceviches, octopus cocteles and the crowning dish he credits to his hometown of San Juan de los Lagos: tacos dorados de camarón. Corn tortillas clutch a mixture of spiced, chopped shrimp that’s nearly a paste; Ortega and his team don’t quite seal the tortilla, so in the fryer the filling sizzles around its edges. Then they slice avocado over the top and ladle on a thin red salsa with roughly minced onions and cilantro. The first bite is the textural equivalent of your life flashing before your eyes: It’s every possible experience all at once. Ortega operates three additional outposts, including a counter restaurant in Pomona, with the same menu, and a lonchera on the Westside.
● 3040 E. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 5286701, mariscos-jalisco .cafes-world.com
NORTHERN THAI FOOD CLUB
The strategy at “Nancy” Amphai Dunne’s 12-seat restaurant in Thai Town has always been to interact with her over the steam table, surveying the dishes inspired by the cooking of Chiang Rai, Thailand’s northernmost province. Point and choose sai ua, roughtextured pork sausages packed with minced lemongrass; gaeng kanoon, a soup of jackfruit, pork ribs and chaom, an herb that resembles dill and tastes almondy; and nam prik ong, a warm ground-pork dip with flavors that race with tomato and shrimp paste. Dunne recently introduced a separate menu of soupy rice porridge available during dinner hours. It’s comfort food with a sneak attack: The broth tingles with makhwaen seeds grown in Northern Thailand that have a similar but gentler spicynumbing effect as Sichuan peppercorns.
● 5301 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 378-5489, @northernthaifoodclub
PONCHO’S TLAYUDAS
When Alfonso “Poncho” Martinez’s Friday night pop-up in South L.A. returned in March after two long years, so too did one of the city’s defining dishes. Martinez grew up eating tlayudas grilled and folded by cooks in Oaxaca’s Central Valleys, where he was raised, so that’s how he prepares his as well. His masterwork is the tlayuda mixta with three meats: crumbled chorizo; tasajo, a thin cut of flank steak salt-cured for a few hours before grilling; and moronga, an herbed, delicate blood sausage made from a recipe that was a wedding gift to Martinez from the father of his wife and business partner, Odilia Romero. Warmed over mesquite, the tlayuda is astounding with its density of tastes and textures; you won’t forget your first bite, or your 100th.
● 4318 S. Main St., Los Angeles, (213) 399-4704, ponchostlayudas.com
LA PUPUSA URBAN EATERY
At their Pico-Union restaurant, Stephanie Figueroa and Juan Saravia take fundamentals of Salvadoran cooking and rework them affectionately, serving pupusas with eggs and salsa for mid-morning breakfast or smothering them with their versions of al pastor and guacamole or transforming chorizo into a smashburger. It’s their contribution to the L.A. culinary conversation, and their charm speaks volumes. At the heart of the menu are excellent pupusas, balanced in density and crackle-gush ratios, filled with traditional blends of cheese and refried beans or outside-the-box additions like pepperoni.
● 1051 W. Washington Blvd., #G, Los Angeles, (213) 749-4573, lapupusa urbana.com
QUARTER SHEETS PIZZA
Over the past year Aaron Lindell and Hannah Ziskin slowly moved their Glendale pizza-and-cake pop-up into a magnetically eccentric Echo Park space, selling takeout while building a pizza parlor that ended up looking like an early-’80s rec room. Maybe potatoes, pistachio pesto and cured lemon will crown one of Lindell’s pies, or perhaps there will be a meatball sub reimagined as a pizza, or sambal goreng tingling under a veil of mozzarella. A couple of slices for most appetites can easily make a meal. Ziskin dreams up fantasies like olive oil chiffon with tiers of bay leaf-vanilla custard, passion fruit curd and salted Chantilly. No one can guess what L.A.’s first couple of carbs will devise next, but I feel pulled to show up every week and find out.
● 1305 Portia St., Los Angeles, @quartersheets
ROCIO’S MEXICAN KITCHEN
“La diosa de los moles,” “mole queen,” “mother of moles”: Each of the nicknames that Rocío Camacho has earned over the years honors her command of laborious, symphonic moles. The menu at her Bell Gardens restaurant details a dozen of them. Some are tenets; others are fantasias. Her mole Oaxaqueño, its dozens of ingredients alchemized into a substance as glossy as fresh-churned earth, is as distinctive as an autograph. From there, dabble in her moles made with pistachio and mint or cranberry and rose. Come in the morning for chilaquiles blanketed in dusky-bright pipian rojo.
SMORGASBURG L.A. Smorgasburg L.A. is the city’s great incubator of culinary talent. We convene on Sundays in Row DTLA’s back lot to plug in, to mingle, to eat our faces off. The lineup of vendors revolves continually, guided by general manager Zach Brooks’ curatorial mastermind. This year some of my favorite pop-ups and food trucks showed up regularly. Friends and I would split up, order and reconvene to share pork belly breakfast burritos from Jonathan Perez’s Macheen, lamb barbacoa flautas from Steven Orozco Torres’ Los Dorados and Evil Cooks’ dessert flan tacos. There’s so much more to try.
● 777 S. Alameda St., Los Angeles, la.smorgasburg .com
SONORATOWN
Whenever I bite into one of Sonoratown’s tortillas, my brain flickers on like the downtown skyline at dusk. They are unions of Sonoran wheat and pork lard against which to judge all other flour tortillas. Savor it in the guise of a taco, quesadilla, caramelo, chimichanga — or, best of all, as the famous Burrito 2.0, swollen with pinto beans, mashed guacamole, Monterey Jack and sharply spicy chiltepin salsa. The meat of choice is costilla — a mix of boneless short rib and chuck robed in mesquite smoke. Teodoro Díaz Rodriguez Jr. and partner Jennifer Feltham, who rose to national prominence with their taqueria in DTLA’s Fashion District, opened a second location in MidCity. Same menu; same brilliance.
● 208 E. 8th St., Los Angeles, (213) 222-5071, sonora town.com
SURAWON TOFU HOUSE
When Sun Los Lee traveled to Korea to study traditional tofu-making, she landed on an unconventional technique: She found that using black soybeans gives bean curd a flavor that hints of sesame and peanuts. At her Koreatown restaurant, where small cauldrons of soondubu jjigae arrive boiling volcanically, choose between the typical white tofu or (my preference) the blacksoybean variation, both made in-house. It’s one of many customization options the menu presents, including additions of kimchi, oxtail, vegetables, oysters, intestines and an assorted mix of beef or pork with seafood. Among levels of heat, which range from “plain” to “extra spicy,” I find “spicy” to be pulse-quickening but not punishing. ● 2833 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 383-7317, @surawontofu
VILLA’S TACOS
Victor Villa and his crew form an efficient assembly line of tacos under tents set up outside Block Party bar in Highland Park. When I’m lifting one of the queso tacos out of a takeout container, I have an inkling of how an alien god might feel plucking a landmass right out of the ocean. This thing looks like a continent; curls of cheese have seized along its borders into a craggy coastline. The blue corn tortilla, pressed to order, forms thick, soft ground for layers of grilled chopped steak or chicken leg meat with onion, cilantro, crema, flurries of cotija and a cloud of guacamole. It’s unwieldy and overwhelmingly delicious, and it’s vital to splotch the top with salsa (there are at least seven) to tame the richness.
● 5052 York Blvd., Los Angeles, @villastacos losangeles
Call it Pizza Doe
> Kyle Lambert launched his pop-up and roving pizza truck, Bootleg Pizza, in 2019, serving thick, square-cut pan pies with crispy edges and regularly selling out each appearance. The concept’s short-lived MidCity bricks-and-mortar restaurant closed in 2021; ever since, Lambert has popped up only sporadically. In early 2023, Lambert plans to open a pizzeria in the former Cauliflower Pizza Kitchen space in Mar Vista, ideally in February, with the same pizza he’d been serving at Bootleg — under a new name. “It’ll be the exact same thing,” Lambert told The Times. “It’s just going to, unfortunately, have to have a new name because I got my name taken from me.” (He’s embroiled in a dispute with a former partner in the Pico location.) Owned and operated solely by Lambert, the new restaurant is set to offer whole pizzas, select slices and specials in the 750-square-foot space. With a focus on takeout, the menu will include past Bootleg Pizza flavors as well as new toppings. 11736 Washington Place, Los Angeles, instagram .com/bootlegpizza
Dan Modern grows
> A rapidly expanding dumpling specialist has opened its sixth L.A.-area location, bringing fresh soup dumplings, scallion pancakes, oxtail noodle soup, mapo tofu and other Chinese specialties to Woodland Hills. Dan Modern Chinese, which debuted in 2018 in Pasadena, is open in the Village complex attached to the shopping center. Its newest location, one of its largest yet, offers the chain’s signature xiao long bao in addition to other steamed or pan-fried dumplings; stir-fried vegetables and noodles; entrées such as shrimp with crab sauce; short rib fried rice; and pickled cucumbers with Sichuan peppercorn. A location in Long Beach’s 2nd & PCH shopping complex is expected to open in 2023. 250 CA-27, Suite 1595, Woodland Hills, (818) 835-9211, danmodernchinese.com
Best Bet? Sure thing
> Chef Jason Neroni is looking forward to finally opening Best Bet in early 2023, with a focus on multiple styles of wood-fired pizza, plus a rotisserie, appetizers and seasonal vegetables. While Best Bet is by no means a strictly Italian restaurant — riffing on the chef ’s love of Japanese food and on the French technique he acquired in restaurants such as Le Cirque — Neroni’s latest will spotlight three styles of pizza, fresh pastas, imported ingredients and other Italian dishes seen through the creative Californiacuisine lens that’s become a hallmark of his cooking at the Rose. The menu also will feature a rotisserie section, small bites such as green-garlic knots and dishes such as spaghetti verde with fresh crab, uni butter and jalapeño vinegar. The pizza styles will include fried pizza Montanara; Sicilian focacciastyle; what Neroni calls a cross between New York style and Neapolitan that requires three days of dough preparation; and most likely a calzone or two, with some pizzas available in sizes as big as 20 inches for large parties. The wine program will source from both California and Italy.
12565 Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, bestbetpizzeria.la
Toasting mentors
> The team behind El Segundo’s Jame Enoteca and Venice’s Ospi recently unveiled a new cocktail bar for drinks and late-night bites. John Thomas Bar, also called Jame Bar, is now open in an extension of the Enoteca space. It's serving cocktails named for beloved local chefs whom co-owner Jackson Kalb sees as mentors, such as the Jazz Singsanong, made with Thai-spiced cotton candy in an ode to the Jitlada chef-owner; the Negroni served from a golden fountain, named for Pizzana’s Daniele Uditi; and the basil-tincture spin on a margarita with salt air for Guelaguetza’s Bricia Lopez. The menu of bar snacks includes grilled cheese panini, chips with onion-and-fonduta dip, marinated olives, rosemary almonds and spicy bocconcini cheese. Fresh pasta, to be prepared at home, can be purchased from the counter as well. A new concept from the same team — Gemma, an Italian-American seafood restaurant — is planned to open in Brentwood in spring. 241 Main St., El Segundo, (310) 648-8554, eatjame.com
Third Street. The newest Sticky Rice, expected to open in April in the former Uli’s Gelato space, also takes over the adjacent footprint (formerly home to a gym), which will be repurposed into a dining room. That dining space will feature a long noodleshop-inspired counter, as well as a number of dishes unique to that location; co-owner Bryan Sharafkhah-Sharp says guests can expect seafood dishes, perhaps whole grilled fish. An express menu, inspired by rotating steam tables and designed for quick service, also is expected. 8044 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles, eatstickyrice.com
Goop du jour
> The culinary offshoot of Gwenyth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand has expanded into the South Bay with an outpost in El Segundo’s the Works Food Hall. Goop Kitchen, which launched in 2021 and maintains locations in Santa Monica and Studio City, specializes in gluten-free meals with options for vegan, vegetarian and other diets. The concept splits its offerings into three brands, all of which are served in El Segundo for pickup and delivery: Goop Kitchen, with salads, grain bowls, lettuce cups and summer rolls; Goop Rotisserie, which begins service at 2 p.m. daily and features organic roast chicken, whole cauliflower, sauces and sides; and Goop Superfina, which opens at 3 p.m. daily and serves gluten-free pizzas, pastas and sides such as turkey meatballs. Goop Kitchen serves El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and North Redondo for delivery. 710 S. Allied Way, El Segundo, (310) 954-1286, goopkitchen.com