Culver City/Venice/Marina del Rey/Westchester
LA99 Metro Café. At first glance, Metro Café might be one of the least promising restaurants in Los Angeles, a faux-’50s diner attached to a stucco chain motel. But the strange, fragrant dishes everybody seems to be eating bear little resemblance to the food listed on the menu. Metro Café is basically an informal Serbian restaurant disguised as an American diner, or at least an American diner that sometimes serves a Serbian dish or two: white-bean soup, flavored with ham imported from a Santa Monica deli; spareribs grilled with lots of garlic; or a grilled trout, nothing fancy, plopped on a bed of garlicky greens. If the owners are feeling charitable, there may be crepes for dessert, special, secret crepes stuffed with Nutella and raspberry jam. 11188 Washington Place, Culver City, (310) 559-6821. Breakfast and lunch 7 a.m.–3 p.m. Dinner Tues.–Sat. 6–10 p.m. No alcohol. Parking in Travelodge lot. MC, V. Serbian. JG $
The Shack. The Shack is a manly place, a place that hosts Jaegergirl promotions, a place where a man can watch the Lakers and drink a Rusty Nail. The Shack is also an archetypal beach hamburger dive, the kind of vaguely nautical-looking place where most of the clientele seem to treat the food as something to soak up the beer: cheesesteaks, chiliburgers, fries. The basic unit of exchange at The Shack is something called the Shack Burger, a quarter-pound of charred ground beef and a Louisiana sausage crammed together in a bun. The Shack Burger seems repellent on the surface, and it will seem repellent an hour after you eat one, but like your favorite punk rock song, a Shack Burger is three minutes of pure greatness, all grease and smoke and snap. 2518 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 449-1171. Also at 185 Culver Blvd., Playa del Rey, (310) 823-6222. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Full bar. Takeout. AE, D, V. American. JG ¢Âb
Santa Monica/Brentwood
LA99 Cora’s Coffee Shoppe. After decades in service as a prototypically grungy beach dive, Cora’s was chopped and channeled by Bruce Marder into a vision of what its former customers feared most: a pretty patio café fueled by well-made frittatas, truly spicy tacos given a not-inappropriate expensive-restaurant gloss, goopy $12 hamburgers made with ground Kobe-style beef, and astonishingly good house-made caramel ice cream. There goes the neighborhood. 1802 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 451-9562. Thurs.–Sat. 7 a.m.–9 p.m., Sun.–Wed. 7 a.m.–2:45 p.m. No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. AE, MC, V. American. JG $b
Ye Olde King’s Head. Until the recent gastropub revolution, the food at most pubs in England may have fully justified everything ever muttered in a dark moment about British food. The King’s Head, a dank, overcrowded expat hangout near the Santa Monica Promenade, is no gastropub, but it does serve some of the best beer in town, which is to say the hand-drawn drafts of Real Ale that never seem to make it anywhere else. The food is, unfortunately, all too authentic, pasties and bangers and such, but the fish and chips are everything you could wish for, sweet fillets of North Sea cod, enrobed in light batter and fried to a delicate crunch. 116 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 451-1402. Mon.–Thurs., 10 a.m.–10 p.m., Fri. 10 a.m.–mid., Sat. 8 a.m.–mid., Sun. 8 a.m.–10 p.m. Full bar open daily until 2 a.m. Takeout. Street parking. AE, MC, V. JG $$Â?b
La Fondue Bourguignonne. La Fondue is the ’70s on a stick, a Three’s Company restaurant set come to living, breathing life: dark wood and gleaming copper; jugs of California “burgundy” siphoned into carafes; tape loops of classical music that repeat so often, you begin to suspect they are recorded on 8-track. If you have ever eaten fondue, you probably know the drill. A waiter brings out a chafing dish filled with bubbling melted Gruyère, and you dunk stale hunks of baguette into the stuff, inhaling sweetly alcoholic fumes from the cherry brandy and white wine that are always incorporated into the mixture, occasionally pausing to munch on a pickle or to take a swig of wine. For dessert? Chocolate fondue, of course. 13359 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, (818) 788-8680. Dinner nightly 5:30–10 p.m. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. Fondue. JG $$
LA99 Krua Thai. Like any respectable Thai joint in this part of Los Angeles, Krua Thai features a sign outside boasting of the Best Noodles in Town, but unlike the rest of them, Krua Thai has a pretty fair title to the claim. In a city where great Thai noodle shops are all that keep some of us going some days, when the anguish of a sick cat or a Laker collapse can be eased, at least a little, by the knowledge of a great bowl of boat noodles, Krua Thai’s pad Thai and pad kee mao and rad na and pad see ew may be the very best of all. 13130 Sherman Way, N. Hlywd., (818) 759-7998. Also at 935 S. Glendora Ave., West Covina, (626) 480-0116. Open daily 11 a.m.–3:30 a.m. No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. All major credit cards accepted. Thai. JG $b[?
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2012 - Food & Drink
