Where to Eat Now

Thirty-five new entires to the list

Comments (0) By Jonathan Gold Tuesday, Feb 6 2007

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Tiger Lily Is it a restaurant? Is it a lounge? Is it a place to pose by the bar in a pair of artfully ripped Rogans, nursing a glass of Viognier and a skewer of vegetable shashlik while you wait for prime time at Shag? Will you ever find the actual squid for all the fried batter in the Mangalore calamari? Tiger Lily is the latest in a long, long series of Hollywood small-plates restaurants whose dramatic design perhaps outweighs the cuisine. In this case, a dramatic cavern, lit like a seraglio scene at the L.A. Opera, where it is possible to dine on the amusing snack foods of all Asian nations, from Indian samosas to Sri Lankan vegetarian curry plates, fermented-bean-flavored osso buco to tempura soft-shell crab, spring rolls to tandoori skewers, goat-cheese wontons to sweet sausage sandwiches supposedly inspired by Macao. The owner, Sumant Parda, has been at East India Grill for half of forever, and his chef, Edward Brik, has a long résum?é that includes Spago; the sleek, approachable, oversweet dishes are what Californians have grown to expect from pan-Asian cuisine. 1739 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz, (323) 661-5900. Open daily 5 p.m.–2 a.m. Full bar. Valet parking. All major CC. Asian. JG$$[Â?

uWink Media Bistro If you have ever dreamed of dining in a media womb, uWink Media Bistro, in one of the endless Warner Center malls, may be your idea of a perfect restaurant. Every flat surface is a video screen, and every resonant space echoes like the inside of Carson Daly’s speaker cabinet; the waiters have the affect of mute R2-D2 robots; and every table is equipped with a bank of touch screens on which you order your drinks, request a cobb salad served without egg, and play video games ranging from traditional shoot-’em-ups to Simpsons quizzes to rounds of Truth or Dare. UWink, the invention of Pong czar Nolan Bushnell, is a perfect destination for the grown-up Atari generation, a Grey Goose–serving, short-rib-flinging, full-service, sit-down restaurant where the customers don’t even have to summon the social skills required to order a crispy-chicken sandwich from a radio-operated clown. A 5-year-old could scarcely imagine a cooler restaurant. Then the food arrives — sushi rolls deep-fried inside egg-roll skins, build-your-own burgers, pulled-pork sliders, skirt-steak pizza drenched in balsamic — and you remember: Nolan Bushnell was also the visionary behind Chuck E. Cheese. 6100 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Woodland Hills, (818) 992-1100, uwink.com. Sun.–Thurs. 11 a.m.–mid., Fri.–Sat. 11 a.m.–2 a.m. Full bar. Parking lot. All major CC. Entrees $9–$20. American. JG$b?

BLD: A most useful restaurant. (Photos by Anne Fishbein)

Danube: Last Bulgarian food for 2,400 miles

Location Info

Map

Bin 8945 Wine Bar & Bistro

8945 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: West Hollywood

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Vertical Wine Bistro Probably the swankest wine bar in Old Town Pasadena, this high-design joint juts from a hidden courtyard on Raymond’s restaurant row, all subdued lighting and gleaming surfaces and hidden corners. You will never, never feel out of place in an LBD or a pinstriped Thom Browne suit here, or lack for well-heeled admirers. But Vertical is more ambitious than that: It aspires to be nothing less than the Pasadena equivalent of A.O.C., with zillions of wines available by the taste, the glass, the bottle and the flight — three side-by-side Williams Selyem pinot noirs, for example, or New Zealand sauvignon blancs, or Argentine malbecs. Sara Levine, who opened the foodie-beloved Opus, is the chef here, and beyond the wine, Vertical is a showcase of artisanal cheeses and cured meats, Serrano-ham-wrapped fig poppers and meaty, grape-friendly small dishes like pulled pork with prunes and polenta, and duck confit with chestnuts. If you would rather look into the depths of a Barolo-braised brisket than into the eyes of an attractive stranger, at Vertical it can always be arranged. 70 N. Raymond Ave., upstairs, Pasadena, (626) 795-3999, verticalwinebistro.com. Sun. 4–11 p.m., Tues.–Thurs. 5–11 p.m., Fri.–Sat. 4 p.m.–1 a.m. Beer, wine. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. Entrees $10–$18.JG$$bÂ?

Yatai Asian Tapas Bar The similarity between the Spanish tapas bar and the Japanese izakaya has been long noted — both are places where the cooking is subsidiary to the drinking, where immoderate consumption is both encouraged and facilitated, and where the portions are just big enough to get you through to the next glass. Yatai, a pleasantly sleek patio restaurant tucked away off the Sunset Strip, is a Japanese izakaya pretending to be an American joint pretending to be an izakaya, if you know what I mean, although the putative concept is Asian street food. (The only “street foods” you’ll find here are the sticks of satay and the deep-fried Japanese potato balls stuffed with bits of octopus tentacle.) The customers, most of whom seem to be Japanese-speaking hipsters, groove on the Indonesian gado-gado, the chicken dumplings with Thai curry, the samosas and the gooey, apple-spiked “Korean-style” sashimi as much as they do on the soy-paper sushi rolls and tempura. Yatai has the usual shortlist of soju cocktails and Pacific Rim wines, but there is also a nicely edited selection of cold sakes. I liked the Tomoju, which had a faint but distinct aftertaste of the wax lips you probably used to chew on as a kid. 8535 Sunset Blvd., W. Hlywd., (310) 289-0030. Tues.–Thurs. noon–3 p.m. & 5:30–11 p.m., Fri.–Sat. 5:30–mid., Sun. 5:30–10:30 p.m. Full bar. Parking lot. AE, MC, V. Asian. Entrees $12–$30. JG$$b[?