99 Things to Eat in L.A. Before You Die

Korean sushi has its fascinations — its live-fish fixations, the emphasis on strong-tasting invertebrates like sea squirt and fresh sea cucumber, and the delightful custom of including sliced hot chiles, raw garlic and kkaennip alongside the customary wasabi and soy. But peasant that I am, I can never tear myself away from the ever-fascinating al bap, a big bowl of sushi rice frosted with a half-dozen different kinds of fish eggs, laid out in contrasting streaks radiating from a plop of creamy sea-urchin roe at the center of the bowl like rays from the sun. You can mix them together, gild them with the raw chicken–egg yolk that shares its bowl, or savor them egg by egg by egg until you are done. A-Won, 913½ S. Vermont Ave., Koreatown. (213) 389-6764.

Southern California is blessed with superlative homegrown fruits and vegetables, but local meat is much harder to buy. It's not economically viable to raise cattle on expensive land. Brandt isn't precisely local — the ranch is down south of the Salton Sea — but it's closer than pretty much anything else, and the quality of the organic, sustainably raised beef is exceptional, especially the braising cuts. Oddly, Brandt beef is much easier to find in New York City than it is here, but you'll find a small, nicely curated selection in the meat case of HOWS supermarkets. brandtbeef.com.

PHOTO BY ANNE FISHBEIN

PHOTO BY ANNE FISHBEIN

Border Grill's green corn tamales

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Casa Bianca Pizza Pie

1650 Colorado Blvd.
Eagle Rock, CA 90041

Category: Restaurant > Italian

Region: Northeast L.A.

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Because sometimes you want coffee from that three-hectare, 1,730-meter, southwest-facing, tree-shaded, granitic-soiled, Cup of Distinction finca, and sometimes you just want something that's going to jolt you back to life in the morning. Monkey and Son's colossal Krakatoa coffee, a muscular blend of African and Sumatran beans strong enough to put hair on a bald ape's chest, is organic, Fair Trade–certified and locally roasted, all of that save-the-planet stuff, but the flavor roars out of your cup like an early Stooges record. Beans sold at Surfas, and through monkeyandson.com.

You will encounter many schools of thought when it comes to these tacos, some of which call for coarsely mashed spuds, others for herbs, and still others for a wallop of chorizo. But all pale before El Atacor #11's tacos de papa: thin corn tortillas folded around gooey spoonfuls of puree and fried to an indelicate, shattering crunch. The barely seasoned potatoes ooze out of the tacos with the deliberate grace of molten lava. The glorious stink of hot grease and toasted corn subsumes any subtle, earthy hint of potato, and guacamole-drenched tacos de papas evaporate so quickly from the table that you understand why they come 10 to an order. El Atacor #11, 2622 N. Figueroa St., L.A. (323) 441-8477.

What the owners of Rajdhani like to call Gujarati dim sum might more properly be called a bottomless vegetarian thali, the cooking of the central Indian province overwhelming you with labyrinths of flavor and a profusion of perfumes, a 10-course combination platter constantly refilled in all of its components. After 45 minutes, your plate will look like a slightly messier version of the plate you started with. But even as your buttons start to pop, you will find yourself unable to stop begging for khandvi, tart, fermented-batter crepes smeared with lentils and coiled into tubes. The concept of too much khandvi does not exist in any language. Rajdhani, 18525 Pioneer Blvd., Artesia. (562) 402-9102.

When you glance at a 1940s edition of Duncan Hines' Adventures in Good Eating, the important national restaurant guide of the time, Los Angeles looks to be the most chicken-obsessed metropolis in the universe — almost one-third of the listed restaurants are devoted to the specialty. But the fried chicken that the city is dreaming about at the minute comes from a Parisian haute-cuisine dude who probably couldn't tell you the difference between the chickens fried in Iowa and the chickens fried in Mississippi, but sets a crust like a Jesus-loving Alabama housewife with a bit of the devil in her soul. Brined, impossibly juicy, laced with strong herbs, Ludovic Lefebvre's fried chicken is pretty close to the godhead, whether fried Basque-style in duck fat, served with Oaxacan mole or served to 2,000 people waiting in line at a food festival on a winter afternoon. Find the latest incarnation of Lefebvre's pop-up restaurant, LudoBites, at ludolefebvre.com.

There are those who would complain that Lawry's uses indifferent meat, that the experience is corporatized, and that the dining room is thronged with visitors from the beef-deprived regions of Europe and Asia. I maintain that they are missing the point. Because with careful lighting, appropriate pomp and the silver cart, that slice of beef becomes the single-most glamorous dish in the world, the beef of kings and queens with creamed spinach on the side. If Los Angeles has taught us anything, it is this: Sometimes we don't want to see the man behind the curtain. Lawry's, 100 N. La Cienega Blvd., Beverly Hills. (310) 652-2827.

Prime rib, it must be said, is mostly a come-on, a loss-leader at butcher counters, a bland expanse of underflavored flesh anchoring hotel buffets. It can also be a fairly precise description of one of the fattiest, tenderest, most delicious parts of a USDA Prime steer, and that's what you find at Campanile: rubbed with salt, passed over the fire by one of the most skillful grill guys in the galaxy, and served with perfect cannelini beans and a mess of sautéed bitter greens. Forget your bourbon-soaked steak houses: If you want to earn your infarction, this is the place to start. Campanile, 624 S. La Brea Ave., L.A. (323) 938-1447.