Where to Eat Now

Café Toros Brazilian cooking is incredibly diverse, ranging from the jungly cassava-based cooking of Minas Gerais and the spicy tropical seafood dishes of Bahia to the cosmopolitan restaurants in skyscraper-choked São Paulo. Still, if you were to take a survey of Brazilian restaurants in Los Angeles, you would be challenged to find a single restaurant that specialized in something other than sizzling portions of sausage, rib-eye and rump. Café Toros, then, may be the most unassuming Brazilian restaurant in town, a bare storefront in a Westside mini-mall. The kingdom of Jose E.F. Salgado, it is a bastion of Brazilian home cooking, a center of homey stews, garlicky beans and baked pork ribs. Especially good is the moqueca, a Bahian-style fish stew with coconut milk; the house roast chicken, cooked with tomatoes and onions; and a strange, bittersweet roast chicken made with dark Brazilian beer. Café Toros is as far from the grand, carnivorous excesses of Green Field or Fogo de Chao as it is possible to get. But to the young Brazilians who crowd into the place on weekends, Salgado’s place tastes like home. 3300 Overland Ave., W.L.A, (310) 838-8586. Open daily 10 a.m.–6 p.m. No alcohol. Lot parking. Cash only. Lunch for two, food only, $12–$20.JGHL

Fu Rai Bo Fu Rai Bo doesn’t just specialize in chicken, but in spicy skewered teba sake chicken wings; not a whole wing, but that spindly middle segment of wing in which a couple of bones form sort of a frame protecting a sweet, if minuscule, oblate ellipse of meat. They’re made for deep-frying the way a chicken breast is for grilling, deeply absorbing Fu Rai Bo’s tart, spicy marinade, greaseless and practically all brittle, crunchy skin. After the chef has dusted them with various white powders and heaped them on plates alongside scoops of shredded cabbage and mayo-intensive chicken salad, you could gnaw through a million of these wings, sucking out the meat, while your teeth seek out hidden crunchy bits. 2068 Sawtelle Blvd., W.L.A., (310) 444-1432. Lunch daily 11:30 a.m.–2 p.m. Dinner Mon.–Thurs. 5:30 p.m.-11 p.m., Fri.–Sun. 5:30 p.m.–11 :45 p.m. Lot parking. Take-out. Beer and wine. MC, V. JG $$b

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Palms Thai Restaurant

5900 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Category: Music Venues

Region: Hollywood

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El Cholo

1121 S. Western Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90006

Category: Restaurant > Mexican

Region: Mid-Wilshire/ Hancock Park

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More About

• Michael Wilson
• Arnie Morton
• Culver City
• Main Dish Recipes
• Meat

Beverly Hills and vicinity

AB?Enoteca Drago In New York City, Italian wine bars are multiplying like mosquitoes. In Los Angeles, the most serious Italian wine bar is probably the posh Enoteca Drago, an outpost of Celestino Drago’s pasta-driven empire, where you can chase a plate of prosciutto, a mess of baby octopods, or even the elusive lardo — cured pig fat in the style of northwestern Tuscany, melted onto a slab of fried bread — with a glass of crisp Verdicchiofrom the Marches. Some of the wines are served in flights — sets of small pours arranged by grape or by region. Enoteca Drago does function as a full restaurant, although it is occasionally hard to remember this when you’re floating in the middle of a Brunello reverie, but you will also find great pasta with pesto and one of the few proper versions of spaghetti carbonara in town. 410 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 786-8236. Open Mon.–Sat. 11:30 a.m.–11 p.m., Sun. 11:30 a.m.–10 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, DC, MC, V. Entrées. $13.50–$18. Italian. JG ILN

Mariposa Not to be confused with the bar on the fourth floor of Neiman-Marcus or the tiny crowded café next to the ladies’ ready-to-wear, Mariposa is an actual sit-down restaurant in the basement, tucked in a cove off Housewares, filled with grand dames and queens of every gender. The showstopper at this pricey cave is the glorious popover, nearly the size of a cabbage, crunchy and buttery on the outside, moist, eggy, even custardy within. Only slightly upstaged, the $24 lobster cobb salad turns in a fine performance, the lobster sweet, tender and heaped on in profusion. 9700 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 550-5900. Closed Sunday. Mon.–Sat. 11 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Extended lunch menu ends at 3 p.m. AE, MC, V. MH I

Santa Monica/Brentwood

Bay Cities The Italian deli Bay Cities makes a decent turkey sandwich, a loud, greasy meatball sandwich and a very respectable hero, but the sandwich of choice here is a monster sub, straight outta Brooklyn, called “The Godmother,” which includes a slice of every Italian cold cut on Earth. Fully dressed with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, mustard and a few squirts of a garlicky vinaigrette, a Godmother feeds a couple of people at least; the guys behind the counter will look at you quizzically if they suspect you’re planning to eat a whole one yourself. 1517 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 395-8279. Tues.–Sat. 9 a.m.–7 p.m., Sun. till 6 p.m. Beer, wine and liquor for takeout only. Lot parking. MC, V. Sandwiches $2–$15. Italian Deli. JG GL

Violet A pleasant, mainstream bistro, Violet has all the appropriate buzzwords on its menu: the harissa aioli, the braised veal cheeks, the rare ahi tuna with wasabi mashed potatoes, but it is also possible to drop in after a show at McCabe’s up the block for a caesar salad, a decent pepper steak, or a dish of very nice macaroni and cheese made with Gruyère, slivered leeks and chunked-up Serrano ham; or to stop by at lunchtime for a cheeseburger or a sandwich of that same Spanish ham turbocharged with sliced manchego cheese and breathtaking amounts of fresh garlic. Violet is a little restaurant that cares. 3221 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 453-9113 or www.­violetrestaurant.com. Lunch Tues.–Fri. 11:30 a.m.–2 p.m., dinner Tues.–Fri. 6–10 p.m., Sat.–Sun. 5:30–10 p.m. Beer and wine. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. Dinner for two, food only, $44–$66. California cuisine. JG I