Slow Food

I have relied on investigation and advice to navigate my course, and yet my final stew experience is the result of being lost. I am driving along Pico just west of downtown, looking for a dimly recalled fabric store, when I see a tiny storefront and a steady stream of people walking in and out. El Parianis a big hangar of a place, decorated with murals of Mexico and Central America and, inexplicably, an old oil portrait of George Washington in Mason regalia. The restaurant is filled with families, little kids in Catholic-school uniforms and workers on lunch break, and they’re all eating the same thing: goat. I order the goat stew called birria, watch the cook slice from a huge hank of roasted kid, plunk the strips into a bowl and hand them off to a waitress, who dips into a yard-high, boiling stockpot and ladles on the goat broth. I have not been in El Parian five minutes when I am hunkered over the bowl, inhaling the musk of the broth, working through the meat’s many textures: fibrous here, tender there, striplets of fat and tiny bones to chew on. I ponder the little plate of garnishes: sprigs of cilantro, chopped onion, lemon wedges, vinegary chile sauce. I add them all. Now the stew sings; it is sprightly and tangy, hot and meaty, gamy and sweet. The warm corn tortillas are the best I’ve had in L.A., and no wonder, as I can hear and see them being slapped onto the griddle in the open kitchen.

I sit back and finish my Tecate, thinking what a find El Parian’s stew is: the sort of dish that L.A. offers in abundance, for the looking.

Location Info

Map

Ciudad

445 S. Figueroa St.
Los Angeles, CA 90071

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Downtown

Photos

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Guelaguetza Restaurant

3337 W. 8th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90005-2434

Category: Restaurant > Mexican

Region: Mid-Wilshire/ Hancock Park

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• Nyala
• Anne Fishbein
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Ciudad, 445 S. Figueroa St.; (213) 486-5171.

El Parian, 1528 W. Pico Blvd.; (213) 386-7361.

Far Niente, 204½ N. Brand Blvd., Glendale; (818) 242-3835.

Guelaguetza, 3337½ W. Eighth St.; (213) 427-0601.

The Kitchen, 4348 Fountain Ave., Silver Lake; (323) 664-3663.

Nyala, 1076 S. Fairfax Ave.; (323) 936-5918.

Palm Thai, 5273 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; (323) 462-5073.

Polka, 4112 Verdugo Road; (323) 255-7887.

Saladang Song, 383 S. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena; (626) 793-5200.

Tam O’ Shanter Inn, 2980 Los Feliz Blvd.; (323) 664-0228.