Related Recs

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strip mall cuisine

About a decade ago, in the halcyon years of the early 2010s, Los Angels underwent a culinary renaissance. The city transformed from a metropolitan area notorious for its deficit of high quality cuisine to one of the driving forces of a new American cooking. Restaurants like Animal and whatever Jose Centano was cooking pushed culinary culture forward, forefronting a masculine style of cooking focused on offal, fat, and a primeval savory richness. Suddenly the entire city was consuming foie gras, pig ear, and ox tail. Over the course of a decade, this style of cooking disseminated through the city, infiltrating every neighborhood and ethnic enclave. Japanese food featured hearts, livers, and pickled meats. Mexican cuisine fixated on tongue and stomach. Bacon and brussels sprouts could be found on every New American menu. Unfortunately, like all good things, this shift was not to signal a permanent change. Instagram reoriented cooking to feature aesthetics first, and ingredients second. The focal restaurants of this movement slowly lost favor and dissipated from business. The people, as with anything in our fast changing city, moved on. Los Angeles once more became a city of route, pedestrian cooking. So where to find exciting, unexpected flavors? The answer, as always, lies in the most unexpected of locations. Any exciting cooking this city has to offer can be found in the nooks and cranies of this metropolis's ethnic strip malls. Within these unassuming locations can be found the richness of a globalized culinary culture. In Koreatown one can stumble upon gopchang - delicately grilled cow intestines. The sidewalks and hovels of Thaitown feature the breadth of Northern Thailand and Laotian delicacies, which encompass everything from fermented crab to raw meat salads. Little Armenia is home to basturma, a specific varient of cured beef salami. The most delectable of sushi can be discovered in any neighborhood across the great swath of our city, with fish sourced from the San Pedro fish market, the busiest and freshest seafood depository outside of the many islands of Japan. Though the most prominent restaurants from its culinary heyday have since ceased to exist, Los Angeles is still a culinary capital of unparalleled breadth. One must simply know what neighborhoods bear fruit, and what unassuming storefronts are ripe for the plucking. The dingier the restaurant, the greater the prize, and the adventure one must take to get there only makes the meal all the more worthwhile.

@illithiddude

Nov 4, 2023

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Recs by neighborhood

Koreatown 🧖🏽‍♀️ Wi Spa 🍢 Dan Sung Sa 🎤 Brass Monkey ☕️ Cafe de Mama 🍛 Danbi 🎳 Shatto 39 Lanes 🎱 Koray Billiard Echo Park 🌮Angel’s Tacos Echo Park Lake 🍨 Fluffy McCloud’s 📚&🖼️ Heavy Manners Library 🍹Bar Flores NELA Lincoln Park 🎶 Lodge Room 🛍️ Rose Bowl Flea 🍔 Troy’s Burgers 🖼️ Guerrero Gallery 🛍️ St. Vincent Thrift Store Ascot Hills Park Los Feliz Barnsdall Art Park 🥖 Figaro Bistrot 📚 Skylight Books 🎥 Los Feliz 3 Little Tokyo 🍣 Sushi Gen 🛒 Nijiya Market 🍵 Cafe Dulce Chinatown 🥪 Philippe’s 🍷Café Triste 🍸General Lee’s 🎶&🕺🏽 Grand Star Jazz Club 🍖&🍷 Lasita Hollywood 🥞 Clark Street Diner Wattles Garden Park 🍔 Hollywood In-N-Out 📚 Counterpoint Records & Books Boyle Heights 🌮 Milpa Grille 🌯 El Tepeyac 🛍️ El Mercado on 1st St DTLA 🍱 Yuko Kitchen Vista Hermosa Park 💐 LA Flower Market 🛍️ Santee Alley 🖼️ ICA LA West Hollywood 🛍️ Out of the Closet (Furniture Store) 🎶&🥡 Genghis Cohen 🥡 Formosa Café 🛍️ Scout 🍺 Barney’s Beanery 🍸 Bar Lubitsch A little bit outside: Santa Paula Punch Bowls El Matador Beach Huntington Library Gardens Golf N’ Stuff

@peach

Apr 14, 2024

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best la things

🍸 Musso and Frank’s And the rest in no particular order of importance or geography: The Formosa in West Hollywood Skylight/Figaro combo in Los Feliz The Prince in Koreatown The In-N-Out by LAX Pampas Grill at Farmers Market Joan’s on Third Greystone Mansion Hollyhock House Driving PCH early morning Any beach in the early morning Getting out there and taking your turn at unprotected lefts after the light turns red (in general, people are okay with allowing two cars to do this) A general recommendation is to be very generous in your estimation of how long it takes to get places and how hard it will be to find parking. Assume the worst, then double it.

@timholtmusic

Apr 14, 2024

Top Recs from @nick-poe

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Boxy Cars

Car brands forgot how to make a beautiful car. What gives? The new tech is great functionally, but the forms suck, they are all too damn slick or showy or bubbly. I really can't find a modern car or truck that looks good. I don’t understand it. There are endless beautiful old cars. I especially love the boxy old jeep XJs (pre 2001), and old range rover classics (pre 1996). The best new car I’ve seen is the one new model of the Toyota Land Cruiser, you of course can’t get in the US. On a recent trip to Tokyo, I fell in love with the old sedan taxis, mainly the Toyota Century (pre 2017), incredible. I’d love to design a car one day.

@nick-poe

Mar 7, 2025

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All Trails

Turns out nature is cool. Especially with a big dog who loves to swim and smell dirt. Every summer I find great little hidden swimming holes and hikes and stuff not on google. It’s really well designed too. Go find a hole and take a hike. 

@nick-poe

Mar 7, 2025

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Planet 9

I love outer space, and am fascinated by evidence of a new planet in our solar system, currently referred to as Planet 9. Astronomers measured patterns of gravitational wake, describing the path of a planet that is about ve times the mass of Earth, with an orbit of about 10,000 years. The first photograph of this planet is expected later this year, 2025, when a new telescope called Vera Rubin goes online in Chile. Once there is a photo of the planet, it can be officially named, added to wikipedia, and printed on kid's lunchboxes worldwide. Far out! 

@nick-poe

Mar 7, 2025

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