A Movable Beast: L.A. Weekly's 99 Essential Restaurants

Gjelina
We don't want to sound like a relationship columnist or anything, but if you happen to be on a third date with someone you like, and you happen to be on the Westside, and you happen to have just had a great cocktail at Copa d'Oro or someplace, the patio at Gjelina, out back around the firepit, among the cable TV stars, is probably a pretty good place to close. There are rustic French wines if you're leaning that way and IPAs on tap if you're not; a decent Piemontese steak and superthin pizzas topped with things like beet greens and taleggio; and roasted hen of the woods mushrooms on toast. The market fixations are as extreme as they are at Rustic Canyon or Wilshire, but nobody is going to lecture you about the terroir of the romanesco or the provenance of the black lentils. The chef, Travis Lett, is handsome enough to freelance as a model, but he tends to stay in the kitchen with his wood-roasted sunchokes, braised chickpeas with yogurt and saffron risotto with crab. 1429 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice. (310) 450-1429, gjelina.com. Open Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-mid.; Sat.-Sun., 9 a.m.-mid. Beer and wine. City lot behind restaurant. All major CC. Location map here.

Golden Deli
We first discovered Golden Deli a million years ago when we took on the task of eating at every restaurant on San Gabriel's Las Tunas Drive. While most of the rest of them have faded into memory (Wasn't there a German gasthaus around here someplace?), the siren call of its cha gio, the best fried Vietnamese spring rolls in the observable universe, continues to reverberate — usually on Wednesdays, when the restaurant is closed, but that's a different story. Golden Deli may be as iconic as the San Gabriel Mission at this point, a noodle shop whose imitators have spawned imitators, a mini-mall citadel of banh hoi, bun thit and pho so popular that its customers wait up to an hour in the parking lot for a spot at one of the sticky, cramped tables. If you want beer, you'll have to visit one of the competitors down the street. 815 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel. (626) 308-0803, goldendelirestaurant.com. Mon.-Tues., Thurs. 9:30 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri. 9:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Sat. 9 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun. 9 a.m.-9:30 p.m. No alcohol. Lot parking. All major CC. Entrées: $4.25-$7.95. Location map here.

PHOTO BY ANNE FISHBEIN

Campanile's sauteed trenne

PHOTO BY ANNE FISHBEIN

Leo Bulgarini, gelato impresario

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Zelo Gourmet Pizzeria

328 E. Foothill Blvd.
Arcadia, CA 91006

Category: Restaurant > Italian

Region: Foothill Cities

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Golden State
All restaurants, especially those powered by Scoops gelato and oceans of Craftsman ale, can inspire dissent. At Golden State, the arguments tend to focus on the cheeseburgers: whether they are the very best in this part of Los Angeles, or merely among the top five. The appearance of the cheeseburger in question, a vast, bloody lump of aged Harris Ranch beef and Fiscalini cheddar, tends to put the debate to rest, at least until it's time for another beer. The café's conceit is that everything comes from California, including the beer, which is less about fairy-dusted broccoli sprouts than it is about hot dogs from Let's Be Frank and sausages from Huntington Meats. The beer float is practically a sacrament, a scoop of splendid brown-bread ice cream from the cult gelateria Scoops, moistened gently with Old Rasputin Imperial Stout. Golden State, in the vanguard of the new beer-bar movement, may exist to serve ultrahopped, superboutique suds, but as a new institution in this heavily Jewish area, and a favorite of every kid within miles, what it sells is really evolved chazzerai. 426 N. Fairfax Ave., L.A. (323) 782-8331, thegoldenstatecafe.com. Open Tues.-Sun., noon-10 p.m. Beer and wine. Street parking. MC, V. Sandwiches $9-$10. Location map here.

Golden Triangle
You can find other Burmese restaurants in Los Angeles now, even some good ones. It has never been easier to lose yourself in a bowl of the garbanzo-flour-thickened catfish chowder moh hing ga. But Golden Triangle, an unexpectedly authentic Asian restaurant in Uptown Whittier, is still the best place in the Southland to experience the exotic cooking of Burma: alive with citrus and ginger and the musk of fermented shrimp paste, nutty with roasted mung beans and toasted coconut, crunchy with peanuts and fried garlic. The ginger salad is enchanting, biting shreds of the rhizome tossed with coconut, fried garlic, fried yellow peas peanuts and sesame seeds, like a dreamy Burmese prototype of a cocktail-party snack. The restaurant specializes in moh hing ga, the biryani-style rice dish called dun buk htaminh, and lap pad thoke, a salad made with pickled tea leaves that have the consistency of stewed collard greens and the caffeine kick of a double espresso. 7011 S. Greenleaf Ave., Whittier. (562) 945-6778. Open daily 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Beer and wine. Street and public lot parking. All major CC. Location map here.

Good Girl Dinette
Tucked into a storefront below an old Masonic lodge, in the pierced navel of the Highland Park art scene, Good Girl Dinette is so groovy that it hurts to think about it sometimes, a queercentric, family-friendly, vegan-tolerant storefront with a menu of Vietnamese-American comfort food. It's run by Diep Tran, who used to work at Blue Hen and whose family owns the Pho 79 chain of Vietnamese noodle shops. The neighborhood is obsessed with her biscuit-topped, curried-chicken pot pie, which tastes like something a homesick emigree might have made in Iowa in 1936.