Do the Continental

Polka

At Polka -- as, I imagine, in most Polish families -- the cooking is honest, incredibly inexpensive, fresh and homely, based on good meat, fresh vegetables and lots of gravy. To start, there's a bowl of lettuce salad, a bit of shredded red cabbage and grated carrot added for flavor. Then come the entrées: soft, juicy boiled kielbasa, heady with garlic, served with mushroom-spiked mashed potatoes and a little pot of mustard; kotlet, oniony pork loin, crisp and covered with fresh broiled mushrooms; gulasz, a brown, plainish beef stew, hearty if bland; pierogi, the large, floppy kind, stuffed with ground beef and flavored with something like pie spice; and golabki, cabbage stuffed with a similar mixture. Dessert is pretty much limited to little goblets of chocolate pudding topped with swirls of canned whipped cream. Try the Polka tea, flavored with a dash of rum, instead. 4112 Verdugo Road, Glendale; (323) 255-7887. Open Wed.­Sun., 11 a.m.­9 p.m. Prix fixe dinner $6.99, lunch $4.99. No alcohol. Lot parking. Cash only.

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Bay Cities

1517 Lincoln Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Category: Restaurant > Deli

Region: Santa Monica

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Papa Cristo's Catering & Greek Taverna

2771 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90006

Category: Restaurant > Greek

Region: Mid-Wilshire/ Hancock Park

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Philippe the Original

1001 N. Alameda St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: Downtown

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Polka Polish Restaurant

4112 Verdugo Road
Los Angeles, CA 90065

Category: Restaurant > European

Region: Northeast L.A.

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Red Lion Tavern

2366 Glendale Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90039

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Northeast L.A.

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• John Bull
• Papa Cristo
• Parma
• Meat
• Eating Out

The Red Lion Tavern

The Red Lion may not be the most refined restaurant in Los Angeles, but it has always been a good place for a beer and a wurst: knackwurst, bratwurst, weisswurst, bockwurst, German-style wieners, also the tasty smoked pork chops called Kassler rippchen and the jiggly pork shank called eisbein. Early in the evening, there's usually a scattering of native Germans at the bar, though lately they've been outnumbered by arty Silver Lake dudes and the kind of shaggy music-scene guys who always know where to find the best suds in any neighborhood. The Red Lion serves Bitburger on tap, but the beer to get is the relatively uncommon Franziskaner Weissbier, tart as limeade, refreshing with a slice of lemon on a hot summer night. The popular sausage platter is kind of spectacular-looking -- a giant plate covered with bratwurst and knackwurst, cut into chunks -- but oddly enough in this palace of meat, the best dish may be the fish dish called rollmops: cool, silvery slabs of marinated herring, cleanly fishy, so heavily vinegared you can choke a little on the fumes if you take too big a first bite. The herring comes with a great pile of something close to the perfect potatoes, fried crisp in bacon grease and dotted with wilted onions -- just the sort of platter for which liter-size beer mugs were invented. 2366 Glendale Blvd., Silver Lake; (323) 662-5337. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Dinner for two, food only, $16­$22. Full bar. Takeout. Lot parking. AE, Disc., DC, MC, V.