Jonathan Gold’s 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants

Kagaya
Shabu shabu is vessel cooking reduced to its inevitable minimum, transparents of prime beef swished through bubbling broth for a second or two, just until the pink becomes frosted with white. You can find shabu shabu restaurants now in half the suburbs in the county. But when the dish is done correctly — and if the quality of the meat and vegetables is as high as it is at Little Tokyo’s superb (and expensive) Kagaya — the texture is extraordinary, almost liquid, and the concentrated, sour flavor of really good beef becomes vivid. It is tempting to order the wagyu beef, but stick with the regular prime: Unless you have the skills of a master, the expensive fat will melt away, and you will be left with chewy goldfish nets of flesh. 418 E. Second St., dwntwn., (213) 617-1016. Tue.-Sat., 6-10:30 p.m., Sun., 6-10 p.m. Closed Mon. Wine, beer, sake. Lot parking. DC, MC, V.

Kiriko
Kiriko may still be L.A.’s great, undiscovered sushi bar, and Ken Namba’s traditional yet creative sashimi surpasses most of what is sold, at three times the price: The traveling Japanes gourmands tend to pass the Kiriko address to one another like a secret. Namba smokes fresh Copper River salmon over smoldering cherry wood, slices it thick and wraps it around spears of ripe mango: The sashimi is soft and luscious, salty and sweet, penetratingly smoky yet delicate — one of the most magnificent mouthfuls of food imaginable. There is Spanish mackerel dressed with grated ginger and ponzu, and mackerel as rich as ripe Brie. The sea bream pulled out of Japan’s Inland Sea is almost gooey in its extreme freshness, dusted with the zest of a yuzu, served with a small dish of salt grated to order from a pink, quartzlike stone. One of the gifts of a great sushi chef is nonchalance, and Namba has it to spare — the ability to appear casual, unhurried, processing the food for an entire restaurant while looking as serene and unbothered as Fred Astaire. 11301 Olympic Blvd., No. 102, W.L.A., (310) 478-7769. Lunch Tues.-Fri., noon-2:15 p.m.; dinner Tues.-Sun., 6-10 p.m. Beer, wine. Parking lot. AE, MC, V.

Robert Rodriguez

Anne Fishbein

Riva

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Angeli Caffe

7274 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90046

Category: Restaurant > Italian

Region: Hollywood

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Angelini Osteria

7313 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Category: Restaurant > Italian

Region: Melrose/ Beverly/ Fairfax

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Kobawoo
In Manhattan, David Chang became famous for his version of bossam, a combo platter of steamed pork belly and ultraspicy turnip kimchi, and maybe oysters, all of which you assemble into a sort of taco. If you should find yourself in the East Village with $200 in your pocket and an entourage to feed, we can’t recommend Ssam Bar enough. But if you’re in L.A., you may as well hit up the Koreatown bossam specialist Kobawoo, a polished, respectable destination restaurant with some of the best food in Koreatown at prices almost unbelievably low. The restaurant has a decent version of samgyetang, a soothing chicken-in-the-pot stuffed with ginseng and sticky rice; and very good pig’s feet, boiled and pressed into a terrine. The home-style pindaeduk, mung-bean pancakes, are a big draw — the pancakes are ethereal beneath their veneer of crunch, melting almost instantly in the mouth, like a sort of intriguingly flavored polenta. And the house bossam is an elegant preparation, which, like so many other Korean dishes, seems almost custom-designed to accompany a bottle of soju. 698 S. Vermont Ave., L.A., (213) 389-7300. Daily, 11-10 p.m. Valet, lot parking.

* Kogi
A rumble of exhaust, a sweet puff of barbecue smoke, a rain-slicked parking lot, deserted 10 minutes previously and now home to 300 iPhone owners — the Kogi truck is a new paradigm of a restaurant: an art-directed, Mexican-style take on Korean street food. Kogi tacos, stuffed with grilled short ribs, spicy pork or marinated tofu, are cheap, unbelievably delicious and unmistakably L.A.; it is food that makes you feel plugged into the rhythms of the city. You keep track of Kogi’s whereabouts on a frequently updated Twitter feed. Roy Choi, who was executive chef at the Beverly Hilton, is constantly coming up with specials, and the regulars keep coming back to try things like kimchi quesadillas; Kogi dogs; or steamed pork belly wrapped around leaves of dandelion and the Korean herb gaenip. Ask any Korean: Fresh gaenip is the key to happiness. Track current location of truck at kogibbq.com or twitter.com/kogibbq. No alcohol, but often alcohol-adjacent. Takeout only. Cash only.

Krua Thai
If you hear of any real estate deals in North Hollywood, let us know. Because we’d really like to move a little closer to Krua Thai, a noodle shop whose pad kee mao and boat noodles keep rocking until the wee small hours. “Best Pad Thai in Los Angeles,’’ says the legend on the menu, and in a city where great Thai noodle shops are all that keep some of us going some days, Krua Thai has a pretty fair title to the claim. It could be the Thai equivalent of a delicatessen like Canter’s: cheerful, fast, popular across ethnic lines, and open very, very late. 13130 Sherman Way, N. Hlywd., (818) 759-7998. Open daily 11 a.m.-3:30 a.m. No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. All major credit cards accepted. Also at 935 S. Glendora Ave., W. Covina, (626) 480-0116.