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

Mexican cuisine is rich in hangover cures, first among them, of course, being menudo. But for transplants from central Mexico, birria is nearly a sacrament, a meditation in the key of chile, meat and cloves, young goat roasted and stewed and simmered until the tough-minded billy collapses into a soft, gelatinous sigh. It is nearly as easy now to find birria in Los Angeles as it is in the dish's hometown of Guadalajara, where it is seen as a bit old-fashioned but woozy Sunday mornings tend to find me at El Parian downtown, where the tortillas are thick and fresh; the chile-smeared rib meat is crisp on its bones; and the consommé sings with garlic, spice and a strong, goaty essence. It's almost shocking in a restaurant just a few blocks from the Convention Center. El Parian, 1528 W. Pico Blvd., L.A. (213) 386-7361.

If you grew up in Los Angeles, you may remember the year damp baguettes at Westside dinner parties began to be replaced by flour-dusted rounds of sourdough that befuddled hostesses foolish enough to attack them with a nonserrated knife. These loaves of natural-starter bread, the crucial product from Nancy Silverton's La Brea Bakery, had profoundly crackly crusts, deep brown, speckled with fermentation bubbles, with dense, chewy, moist interiors with the vaguely tart quality of fresh cheese. Twenty years later, La Brea's rounds of country white, which you can buy at almost any supermarket, can seem almost banal, at least to the local/sustainable crowd. But the fact remains: It is still among the best breads in America, the bread that changed the game. La Brea Bakery, 624 S. La Brea Ave., L.A. (323) 939-6813.

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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It's a hot dog. It's on a stick. It's fried in cornmeal batter and served by pretty college girls who wear tall, multicolored caps. If you are an Angeleno of a certain age, a mere whiff of a Hot Dog on a Stick is enough to transport you back to Santa Monica of the 1960s, when you probably ate your skewered weenie on your way to ride the Sea Serpent at the old P.O.P. (That's Pacific Ocean Park to you grommits.) As a regional hot dog style, Hot Dog on a Stick may be outranked by Nathan's Famous in Coney Island, but even New York City has nothing to compare with the sight of a short-skirted Hot Dog on a Stick employee pumping up a tankful of lemonade. Hot Dog on a Stick, various locations including Muscle Beach, Glendale Galleria and Westside Pavilion.

Encounters with this magnificent fish once seemed so important in the early days of California cuisine — it was the size of the shark from Jaws, it was fried crisp, and it was the emblematic dish of Wolfgang Puck's Chinois, which in turn was the emblematic restaurant of Asian-fusion crossover cooking. It came — it comes — with a citrusy ponzu sauce, which at the time we didn't think weird in a Chinese-style preparation. Several generations of cooks have become incredibly weary of cooking the thing, which seems to dominate any menu it touches, but at the time, it seemed so modern! So daring! So ... 1983! In retrospect, of course, it was just a fried fish but a really good one. It remains the perfect centerpiece to a Chinois meal. Chinois, 2709 Main St., Santa Monica. (310) 392-9025.

McDonald's, I am occasionally ashamed to admit, was born not too far from here; the double-decker Big Boy grew up in Burbank. But Los Angeles was also the birthplace of the great, lettuce-intensive lunch-counter hamburger: a drippy, paper-jacketed sandwich where the thin stratum of beef serves almost as a condiment. The lunch-counter burger is the burger that inflames desires in Karachi teenagers and young Masai tribesmen. Will you find a better example than the Hickoryburger at the Apple Pan, a funky, onion-scented 1940s Los Angeles lunchroom that happens still to be serving in 2010? Not likely. Apple Pan, 10801 W. Pico Blvd., L.A. (310) 475-3585.

There are some unbelievably bad bagels in Los Angeles. And to be honest, if it's your first visit to Historic Filipinotown Brooklyn Bagel Bakery, you are going to expect to eat one of them. The shabbiness and bare lighting are okay — that, you expect — and it's kind of cool that the person who takes your order probably wandered over from another part of the plant. But the glass cases are stuffed with pizza bagels, strawberry bagels and banana-nut bagels, among other atrocities, and the regular bagels are as puffed up as what you see in supermarkets. Still, there in the corner, illuminated as if from within, are the hearth-baked bagels, which is to say, dense, chewy, taut-skinned bagels, tinged with crispness but not crisp, properly boiled before baking — real bagels. It is interesting to contemplate the idea that "properly done'' is just one of a dozen flavors here, like cinnamon-raisin or jalapeño-cheese, but it is better than having it not be an option at all. Brooklyn Bagel Bakery, 2217 Beverly Blvd., L.A. (213) 413-4114.