Eating in Los Angeles

Few cities in the world offer such a wide range of delicious eating opportunities at all price levels. Even for the traveler looking for cheap or moderately-priced eateries, Los Angeles can provide healthy, indulgent, creative opportunities. Today, we’re just going to focus on the delicious (and perhaps a little indulgent) food choices. Healthy, shmealthy! We’re going on vacation!

For starters, there’s the world-famous In ‘N’ Out Burgers (various locations), serving the best fast-food hamburgers anywhere in charted space. The food is delicious and fast, and their secret menu is the worst kept secret since Watergate. I recommend the double-double, Animal Style. Order it just like that – hemming and hawing and using the wrong terminology will brand you as a tourist -- and prepare to be amazed at the flavor and the sudden spike in your cholesterol.

If you want a hearty Italian dinner and can get to Studio City, do yourself a favor and head to Miceli’s (3655 Cahuenga Blvd W). They aren’t particularly inexpensive, but the food is delicious, and the atmosphere is captivating. The service? Well, that’s a bit of a thing. See, Miceli’s hires opera singers as their waitstaff. On a recent trip, the food may have been delayed by five minutes, but it was worth it, since our waitress spent the time serenading our table, and myself in particular. Show me another restaurant where they make you fall in love. That’s even better than free bread. Save room for dessert. They make this chocolate chip cookie – baked to order – that will impact your life in such a way that you may start measuring time as “pre-cookie,” and “post-cookie.”

There are other delicious food options all over the city. Pink’s Hot Dogs (709 N. LaBrea Ave.) always has a line of 40 or 50 people waiting for their chance to enjoy a frank. Best dogs west of Chicago. For Chinese food, visit Kung Pao Kitty (6445 Hollywood Blvd.) and enjoy pretty much anything on the menu. For faster (but still delicious) Chinese, visit any of the Panda Express locations. Served cafeteria style, Panda Express still produces a quality product quickly and at a very reasonable price. I recommend a busy one (perhaps on Universal City Walk). You will still move through the line quickly, and the food will be fresher.

But even better than both of them is Thai Town (4809 Melrose Ave). A little off the standard path for tourists, they have the best Spicy Noodles in town (I like to add shrimp, but chicken is also a fine choice), with a recipe that adds heat and flavor at the same time without being overbearing.

If you’re a New Yorker who finds himself on the left coast, you can always get a taste of your home region with a visit to either Canter’s or Jerry’s Deli (various locations). If you crave a good Reuben and matzoh ball soup, you won’t be disappointed, and for a better traditional egg cream, you’re going to have to traverse 3000 miles and head back to the Big Apple.

But if you really want to get blown away, make your way to any of the three locations for Porto’s (3614 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank; 8233 Firestone Blvd., Downey; 315 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale), a Cuban restaurant and bakery designed to make you never want to eat anyplace else again. Everything they serve is universally awesome, from the Cuban Po’ Boy sandwiches to the soups served in bread bowls. Their coffee is rich and delicious – easily conquering any of the approximately 700 million Starbucks in town. And then there’s the potato balls… oh, the Porto’s Potato Balls. Each one is fried delicately, and houses a little treasure of spicy chorizo inside. If world peace were achievable, and the only ingredient missing was someone to eat Porto’s potato balls until the end of the universe to maintain the Universal Peace Machine, I would say, “I’m your man.” They also serve fresh-squeezed orange juice and cookies and pastries that are epic in flavor and design.

For breakfast, especially if you are in Studio City, drop by Jinky’s (14120 Ventura Blvd Ste AB, and two other locations which I haven’t tried, but which I am certain dominate their rivals and dispatch them with little trouble) and order yourself into a coma. Their pancakes and omelets will cripple you with options, and the hustly-bustly atmosphere will help you recover from the previous night’s festivities. Suffice it to say, however blurry Jinky’s sign looks as you enter, you will see it clear as a Santa Monica sunset when you’re done Du-par’s (12036 Ventura Blvd.) is also excellent, and offers breakfast 24 hours a day).

If you decided not to get dessert at Porto’s – and one must wonder why – fret not. There is another choice dessert destination for your trip: Sweet Lady Jane (8360 Melrose Avenue) makes dessert for the aficionado in all of us. Friends and colleagues look for excuses to serve dessert – meetings, parties, fender benders, you name it – just for the opportunity to visit Sweet Lady Jane to show off their confectionary acumen. I have it on unimpeachable authority that the strawberry shortbread is tops.

Sure, there’s something appealing about a hotel restaurant, or the familiar experiences from franchises. But when you are in a city like Los Angeles, and you want to indulge your appetites, there’s no reason to overspend. LA is designed to offer you plenty of gustatory greatness at a reasonable rate.