A bowl of soon tofu looks less like food than a special effect, a heaving, bright-red mass in a superheated cauldron that spits like a lake of volcanic lava, and broadcasts a fine, red mist of chile and broth that tints anything within six inches of the bowl a pale, lustrous pink. If you saw soon tofu in a dark alley, you'd run. A soft, freshly made bean curd served in a bowl with broth, soon tofu is one of the wonders of the Korean culinary world. Get it with clams. Beverly Soon Tofu Restaurant, 2717 W. Olympic Blvd., L.A. (213) 380-1113.
Pho Minh's Pho Bac
Don't get me wrong — there's something cool, almost punk-rock about the snappy, MSG-juiced phos in town, Vietnamese beef-noodle soups that slap you across the face and command you to guzzle ice water. The pho bac at Pho Minh is different: a limpid, full-flavored, long-cooked broth, sprinkled with slivered fresh ginger and fortified with a delicious hunk of meat that looks something like a filet mignon that has just lost a bad razor fight. The broth is deeply scented with Vietnamese cinnamon, which is the best in the world, or at least that's what the guy at Penzeys says when he's charging me an extra buck for it. The pho dac biet is great, too, although it seems almost vulgar in comparison. Pho Minh, 9646 E. Garvey Ave., No. 108, South El Monte. (626) 448-8807.
Bigmista's Pig Candy
PHOTO BY ANNE FISHBEIN
PHOTO BY ANNE FISHBEIN
Border Grill's green corn tamales
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If pigs had their way, pig candy would be made out of chocolate — better yet, out of chocolate positioned in a trough right in front of them. But for better or worse, pig candy is the vernacular name for a snack made out of smoky, thick-cut bacon baked with lots and lots of brown sugar until it transforms itself into demonically fragrant slabs that bear more than a passing resemblance to pork-belly terrine. You want some of this stuff. Really you do. And if you should happen to be in Atwater on a Sunday morning, you should probably swing by the barbecue concession 'round the back, because Bigmista and Mrs. Mista will set you up with the best. Bigmista, Sun. at Atwater farmers market; Tues. & Sat. at Torrance farmers market; Thurs. at El Segundo farmers market. Menus, hours and preordering info at bigmista.com.
Euro Pane's Egg Salad Sandwich
You will find as many schools of egg salad–sandwich craft as you will brands of wax paper in which to wrap them. But the only one that matters is the agrestic, back-to-nature school, which is to say gooey-centered soft-boiled eggs chopped as coarsely as possible, bound with a minimal amount of freshly mounted olive-oil mayonnaise, loosely piled onto sourdough and sprinkled with the number of snipped herbs that one thinks prudent. In these things, as in so many others, we look to Europane. Euro Pane, 950 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. (818) 577-1828.
Mandarin House's cha chiang mein
If you've ever been to a Chinese elementary school carnival or supermarket opening, you've seen hand-pulled noodles, the kind made by some old guy who slams a length of dough a couple of times on a counter, performs a few calisthenic movements and ends up with an armload of spaghetti. Hand-pulled noodles are immeasurably better than the machine-made kind: stretchy yet supple, irregularly shaped, veritable magnets for sauce. For some reason, the vast majority of L.A. chefs skilled in noodle-pulling seem to own Chinese restaurants aimed at a Korean clientele, and perhaps the best of these is Mandarin House, right in the heart of Koreatown. The kung pao shrimp at Mandarin House may be pedestrian, but the cha chiang mein, hand-pulled noodles in a dense, black sauce of fermented beans and pork, is out of this world. Mandarin House, 3074 W. Eighth St., Koreatown. (213) 386-8976.
Little Dom's Oyster Po' Boy
New Orleans has given so much to the world. And right up there with Dixieland jazz, Professor Longhair and the early novels of Walker Percy may stand the oyster loaf, which is basically fried oysters slipped into a buttered length of French bread. Though Casamento's in uptown New Orleans remains my personal benchmark for the sandwich, I admit a grudging admiration for Brandon Boudet's less-restrained version, at the Italian-Creole Little Dom's: fried, freshly shucked mollusks piled onto crunchy toasted focaccia with tomatoes, a crumpled sheet of the smoked Italian bacon called speck and a peppery remoulade. Little Dom's, 2128 Hillhurst Ave., Los Feliz. (323) 661-0055.
Street-Vendor Cheese Enchiladas
Why is Los Angeles the best place to eat on the planet? Because on a random East L.A. street corner, a woman behind a rickety card table can be cooking the best cheese enchiladas you've ever tasted in your life: prefab tortillas fried way too hard with way too much oil, dunked in too much chile and given another industrial sear. They're chewy and crunchy, spicy and smoky, smeared with a bit too much cream, and are absolutely amazing. Then you'll never see her again. Except when you do. No address, but she seems to operate about one block from the vendors who tweet as @BreedStScene. Maybe you'll get lucky.
A-Won's Al Bap
