The waiter comes over, rubs the hot grill with a lump of beef suet. He flinches back, as the melted fat explodes into a rush of blue flame. He lays meat on the grill as tenderly as you might put a kitten to bed, which almost makes sense — at more than $30 for an order of sliced Kobe-style beef and near that for short ribs, this is the most expensive Korean barbecue in town. Park’s Tokyo-X crossbred pork belly may be the best pig in Koreatown. And while the quality of the meat is a least a tick or two higher than at other high-end barbecue places, the restaurant does not hold back on the array of panchan, the little egg pancakes, puréed squash, tiny fish, kimchi, spicy roots, broccoli, and a half-dozen other things that are the measure of a Korean restaurant. 955 S. Vermont Ave., Koreatown, (213) 380-1717, parksbbq.com. Open daily 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Beer, soju. Valet parking. MC, V.
Robert Rodriguez
Anne Fishbein
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Phillips Barbecue
We go to other barbecue pits, really we do. Some of them are even quite good. But it is hard to visit the pit-of-the-month, to gnaw on a small end or gnarled bit of brisket without being tempted to stop by Phillips on the way home. Crusted with black and deeply smoky, the spareribs at Phillips Barbecue are rich and crisp and juicy, not too lean. Beef ribs, almost as big around as beer cans, are beefy as rib roasts beneath their coat of char, tasty even without the sauce. They are the only ribs that can compete on equal terms with the best from Kansas City or Bessemer, Alabama. And the extra-hot sauce, so crowded with whole dried chiles that the ribs occasionally look as if they have been embellished with Byzantine mosaics, is exhilarating. Tucked into a mini-mall between a liquor store and the local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, the original Phillips might be a little hard to find, although if you keep your window open, you should be able to sniff it out from a half-mile away. But the newest location, in the well-scrubbed chalet-style Crenshaw building, which until recently housed the well-regarded Leo’s Bar-B-Q, is only a couple of blocks south of the 10 freeway. 4307 Leimert Blvd., L.A., (323) 292-7613. Mon., 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Tues.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-mid., Sun., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Also at 2619 S. Crenshaw Blvd., L.A., (323) 731-4772. Tues.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. And at 1517 Centinela Ave., L.A., (310) 412-7135. No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. Cash only.
* Pho Minh
Noodle-intensive Garvey Avenue in South El Monte is the new ground zero of the pho cult in Los Angeles, home to nearly a dozen places serving the delicious Vietnamese soup. When the wind is right, you can imagine that the fumes coming from the muffler repair shops have overtones of fish sauce and cinnamon. But even in this neighborhood, where every bowl of pho could be the best one you have ever tasted, the austere pho bac at Pho Minh is without peer. Its limpid, long-cooked broth, sprinkled with slivered fresh ginger, is delicate but compelling enough to make the usual add-ins of basil, lime and fresh-sliced chile seem almost unnecessary; the noodles are widish and slightly soft. The bowl is enriched with a battered hunk of filet mignon that looks as if it had just lost a razor fight — the slight, muddy tang of its blood comes through as an added ingredient in the broth. This is deeply old-fashioned pho, the stuff that was probably ubiquitous before jazz-age Saigon pleasure-seekers tweaked the recipe, and although there’s lots of pleasure in the pho dac biet, the pho equivalent of an everything bagel, it seems almost vulgar in comparison. 9646 Garvey Ave., No. 108, South El Monte, (626) 448-8807, phominhvietnameserestaurant.com. Mon-Thurs., 8 a.m.-8 p.m., Fri.-Sun., 8 a.m.-9 p.m. No alcohol. Lot parking. Cash only.
Pollos a la Brasa
The first thing you notice about Pollo a la Brasa is the wood smoke, great billowing drafts that perfume downwind noodle shops and coffee bars. Inside, an assembly line of workers is impaling one chicken after another onto thick steel skewers, jamming them into a vast, flame-licked apparatus, hacking the soon-cooked birds into parts and tossing them onto piles of French fries. The smoky, crisp-skinned chicken here, marinated in Andean herbs, sizzled over a hot wood fire and served with the incendiary Peruvian concoction aji, is what happens when you cross a chicken with a smoldering hardwood log. Peruvian cooking is the most varied in South America, but in Spanish-speaking communities, the word Peruvian on a restaurant sign is a code word for chickens like these. 764 S. Western Ave., L.A., (213) 382-4090. Wed.-Mon., 11 a.m.-10 p.m. No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. MC, V.
Providence
At this point in his career, Michael Cimarusti has the chef thing down cold, poised when he addresses environmental forums and genial on TV, the first in town to embrace the new cocktailian movement and an advocate for the coherence of L.A. cuisine. He wears his two Michelin stars well — his is among the best kitchens in Los Angeles — and if you’ve recently come into a small inheritance, a sum invested in Providence’s tasting menu will pay higher dividends than it would in the stock market. The fish-intensive menu changes frequently here, but Cimarusti has been going through an infatuation with Japanese fish lately, things like kampachi with miso and green grapes or tai with puréed peas and bacon, and when local spot prawns are in season, the tartare is superb, perhaps served with buttery leaves of brik pastry. The dessert tasting menu of pastry chef Adrian Vasquez is a five-course degustation that is demanding and ambitious enough to command the attention of an entire evening, a universe of puréed avocado and hot cider foam. 5955 Melrose Ave., Hancock Park, (323) 460-4170. Mon.-Fri., 6-10 p.m., Sat., 5:30-10 p.m., Sun., 5:30-9 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V.
