Where to Eat Now: New to the List

Comments (0) By Jonathan Gold Wednesday, Feb 6 2008

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C&O Trattoria The Slow Food guys would be horrified. I'm sort of surprised myself. But I am begrudgingly fond of the C&O Trattoria by the Venice Pier, a vast, beachy warren of tented patios teeming with families, beach dwellers, college kids and everybody else trying to squeeze the maximum amount of fun from a minimum amount of money. The house Chianti, which you draw yourself from coolers set around the perimeter of each dining room, is served on the honor system, and is drinkable. Most of your calories will be consumed in the form of so-called "killer garlic rolls," which arrive hot at your table at approximately 30-second intervals. Appetizers and pastas are big enough to share; if you chip in a couple bucks extra for the "gargantuan" portion, they're big enough to share with a lot of people. And although sauces tend to be on the creamy side, the quality of the cooking is higher than you would imagine it would be at a place that is obviously more about mass feeding than fine dining — linguine with lobster that doesn't taste like something out of a drum; Sicilian chicken salad that is at least as much chicken as salad; and vast platters of overfried calamari that disappear as quickly as pistachio nuts. 31 Washington Blvd., Marina Del Rey, (310) 823-9491. Mon.-Thurs. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri. 8 a.m.-11 p.m., Sat. 8 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun. 8 a.m-10 p.m. Beer, wine. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. Italian.

East Los Angeles/Highland Park

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Orochon Ramen

123 S. Onizuka St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Category: Restaurant > Japanese

Region: Downtown

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Pitfire Pizza Company

108 W. Second St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Category: Restaurant > Pizza

Region: Downtown

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Antojitos del D.F. (Las Palmas)In the past dozen years or so, L.A. has become a world center of regional Mexican cuisine. Still, for some reason, restaurants serving the food of the Distrito Federal, the region encompassing Mexico City, have been rare around here until recently. Blasting down East Olympic the other day, looking for a taqueria to replace a favorite Guadalajaran joint that had recently become part of a mediocre chain, I ran across a restaurant advertising Antojitos del D.F. in 2-foot-high letters. Is the restaurant actually called Antojitos del D.F.? I don't know. The credit-card receipts read Las Palmas, and the waitresses tend to answer with a shrug. But antojitos del D.F. are what it serves: leathery quesadillas folded over a stew of squash blossoms thickened with melted cheese; huge, plate-flat huaraches stuffed with puréed beans and topped with cream, shredded lettuce, fresh cheese, and salty, carbonized nubs of marinated pork; and the crisp chorizo sandwiches called pambazos. Although the tacos and sopes tended not to be up to the level of the rest of the food, at least the tortillas were made to order. 4003 E. Olympic Blvd., L.A., (323) 264-4944. Mon.-Fri. 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 8 a.m.-9 p.m. Beer and wine. Street parking. MC, V. Mexican.

Cemitas Poblanas Elvirita #1 Restaurante Elvirita is a small double storefront just up the hill from El Mercado and across the street from a big cemetery. A decade or so ago, the original Cemitas Poblanas, a café in the same location, was probably the first Puebla-style restaurant in Los Angeles, the first place specifically devoted to cemitas, perhaps the greatest of Mexico's sandwiches. These are the best I've ever tasted — careful, lush compositions of crisp milanesa and quesillo; juicy carnitas and quesillo; head cheese and quesillo; and, in one memorable instance, quesillo and quesillo, punctuated with avocado and chipotles. There is the Poblano specialty called taco arabe, carbonized nubs of pork (perversely enough for an Arab taco) dressed with chipotle salsa and rolled like shwarma into a flour tortilla standing in for the pita. And there are giant quesadillas stuffed with the black, musky fungus huitlacoche. You can combine the two most famous Puebla dishes in cemitas de mole: sandwiches stuffed with shredded chicken in a spicy, pitch-black mole Poblano — as perfect as it is possible to imagine a sandwich to be. 3010 E. First St., L.A., (323) 881-0428. Open daily 10 a.m.-9 p.m. No alcohol. Street parking. Cash only. Mexican.

Las NuevasThis popular sandwich shop in the Calle Primero district of East L.A. makes a classic torta, neither the overstuffed luxury torta you find at places like Super Torta or Doña Rosa, nor the chile-sogged torta ahogado that has just made its way into Los Angeles from Guadalajara, but a lean, spare construction of a well-toasted roll, a sliver of avocado, a bit of cheese perhaps and a layer of meat. For an extra buck or two, as is customary at torta joints, you can get the sandwich à la Cubana, which is to say layered with ham and cheese. On a 100-degree afternoon in the profoundly un-air-conditioned restaurant, Las Nuevas feels exactly right: the scowling Eastside hipster behind the counter and the glowing beauty who cooks; the sweaty bottle of Peñafiel plucked from a tub of ice; the crisp sandwich that leaps into immortality with a dab of the house-made chipotle salsa — this is East Los Angeles at the height of summer. The cinnamon-dusted banana shakes are pretty magnificent too. 3701 E. First St., E.L.A., (323) 264-0678. Open daily 7 a.m.-7 p.m. No alcohol. Street parking. Cash only. Mexican.