Downtown Los Angeles
E3rd Steakhouse E3rd, which looks as if it were assembled by Michael Mann’s art director, is nominally a steak house, a designy, halogen-intensive joint from the guys who run the loungy Korean-cum-Japanese Zip Fusion Sushi restaurants, but their signature beef and pork cuts are marinated to a candylike density, the mashed potatoes are enriched with spicy kimchi, and the jalapeño peppers come stuffed with tuna and glopped with sticky eel sauce — it’s a modern izakaya with training wheels, a user-friendly cocktail lounge with sleek cross-cultural eats. 734 E. Third St., dwntwn., (213) 680-3003. Lunch Mon.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Dinner daily 5-11 p.m. (late-night menu 11 p.m.-1 a.m.). Full bar. Valet parking. All major CC. Asian Steak House. JG INK
Silver Lake/Los Feliz/Echo Park
AD?Canelé In Bordelaise dialect, a canele is a dense, fluted cylinder of pudding edged with crisp beeswax. In Atwater Village, Canele can feel a lot like an ongoing dinner party that just happens to tolerate strangers at its tables, with oddly minimalist décor, menus illegibly scrawled onto chalkboards, and friendly but puzzled waitresses who aren’t quite sure why you’ve stumbled into their domain. It works the farmers-market-driven urban rustic side of new Los Angeles cooking: the Provençal onion tart pissaladière, an austere green salad with crème fraîche; rare roast lamb with Israeli couscous, beef bourguignon, an honest flan. This is cooking worthy of the good china. 3219 Glendale Blvd., Atwater Village, (323) 666-7133. Tues.–Sat. 5:30–10:30 p.m., Sun. 5–10 p.m. Beer and wine. Street parking. AE, MC, V. French.JGHLM
Hollywood/Melrose/La Brea/Fairfax
El Coyote Many restaurants resemble this place — from the cheap margaritas, to the “Mexican pizza” available in the ever-crowded bar, to the walls decorated with broken mirrors, to the wire-mesh-enclosed patio with its plastic smog-dusted foliage and visiting local sparrows, to the guacamole dinners, to the ersatz tostadas — but I could pick an El Coyote combination plate blindfolded out of 100 others, and most of the regulars could, too. 7312 Beverly Blvd., L.A., (323) 939-2255. Lunch and dinner Sun.–Thurs. 11 a.m.–10 p.m., Fri.–Sat. 11 a.m.–11 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. Dinner for two, food only, $18–$25. MC, V. Mexican. JG HLN
ADB?Jar Any place in town can serve you a grilled T-bone, but Suzanne Tracht’s snazzy steak house is strictly postmodernsville, man, chefly riffs on the strip steak and the porterhouse, the hash brown and the French fry that may or may not incorporate every last pea tendril and star-anise infusion in the Asian-fusion playbook, if that happens to be your desire. Some people we know have never even tried the steak here — the braised pork belly, the glorious pot roast and the duck fried rice are just too compelling. 8225 Beverly Blvd., L.A., (323) 655-6566. Mon.–Thurs. 5:30–10 p.m., Fri.–Sat. 5:30–11 p.m., Sun. 5:30–9:30 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V. California American. JG INK
Miceli’s Did Miceli’s invent Hollywood’s idea of what an Italian restaurant should be, or did Hollywood invent Miceli’s? Owned by the same family since 1949, Miceli’s is an ancient, baroque pizzeria in the heart of Hollywood, all red candle globes, checked tablecloths and ceilings encrusted with Chianti flasks. As romantic as a bohemian Audrey Hepburn fantasy, it could stand in for the restaurant in the famous spaghetti-eating scene in Lady and the Tramp. 1646 N. Las Palmas Ave., Hlywd., (323) 466-3438 or micelisrestaurant.com. Mon.–Thurs. 11:30 a.m.–11 p.m., Fri. 11:30 a.m.–mid., Sat.–Sun. 4 p.m.–mid. Full bar. Parking lot. All major CC. Italian. JG HLN
Mid-Wilshire/Koreatown/Central Los Angeles
AD?A-WonJust south of L.A.’s oldest Thai-restaurant neighborhood, tucked away in a mini-mall where the Lexuses pack together as tightly as grains of rice in a bowl, A-Won is one of Koreatown’s oldest sushi restaurants. Marinated sea cucumber and the habit of eating sashimi with raw garlic have their fans, but the great Korean contribution to the world’s sushi kitchen is probably hwe dup bap, a raw-fish salad leavened with dried seaweed and flavored with chile paste. Good hwe dup bap — and A-Won’s is very good — is as alive and vivid and evanescent as a wildflower, the taste of the spring’s first asparagus, or the throwaway phrase in a Lily Allen song that breaks your heart. 913½ S. Vermont Ave., L.A., (213) 389-6764. Mon.–Sat. 11 a.m.–11 p.m.; Sun. 4–11 p.m. AE, MC, V. Beer and soju. Guarded lot parking. Korean sushi. JG HLK
Nyala The central fact of Ethiopian cuisine is injera, the sour, pale, platter-size pancake that acts as plate, utensil, condiment and bread, and also as an ingredient in about half the stews. At the vegetarian-friendly Nyala, there is a fine version of the chicken stew doro wot, thick with hot spice and glistening with butter. 1076 S. Fairfax Ave., L.A., (323) 936-5918. Mon.–Sun. 11:30 a.m.–10:30 p.m. Full bar. Street parking. AE, CB, DC, MC, V. Entrées $7–$12. Ethiopian. JG HK
West Hollywood/La Cienega
