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

Nickel Diner
We can see past the Maple Glaze Bacon Doughnut, really we can. I mean we like it, but we don't like it, like it. OK, that's a lie: We do. Especially when we have a bourbon in our hands, which isn't usually possible, being as the Nickel Diner doesn't have a liquor license. We'd have to smuggle the doughnut into the King Eddy or something, and the doughnut wouldn't last a minute in there. That doughnut is a lovely thing, paved with crushed bacon and glistening with what Dr. Dean Ornish might interpret as pure evil. We're getting paranoid just thinking about it. Anyway, we love the Nickel: untouched 1950s wall mural, floor lamps glued to the ceiling and a menu of the pancakes and fried eggs and overcooked bacon without which there would be rebellion in the streets, not to mention the hash made with spicy pulled pork shoulder instead of canned corned beef. They don't serve hash at the King Eddy — or at the Varnish, for that matter. So if you're around at supper time, stop by the Nickel. The stack of fried catfish with corn pancakes and pecans is worth the trip. 524 S. Main St., dwntwn. (213) 623-8301, nickeldiner.com. Tues.-Sun., 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Tues.-Sat., 6-11 p.m. No alcohol. Takeout. Street parking only (or nearby paid lot). MC, V.  Location map here.

Oinkster
If Oinkster weren't a diner, it could be the premise of a reality show, a fancy-restaurant chef converting an old burger stand to gleaming midcentury-modern loveliness, and serving streamlined takes on the burgers, pastrami and chicken already emblazoned on the sign. "Slow fast food," proclaims the sign outside: smoky Carolina-style pulled-pork sandwiches, chopped salad and fast-food-style Angus beef hamburgers with sweet house-made catsup. Andre Guerrero roasts chickens on a creaky rotisserie and smokes his own pastrami. Would you be willing to pay a couple dollars extra to experience artisanal soda pop, purplish Fosselman's-based ube milkshakes and other fast food with a chefly edge? Guerrero bets that you are. With all of the above, of course, it is necessary to have an order of Belgian fries, fried twice to leave them light and hot, their fluffy potato essence encased in a stiff, perfectly golden capsule of crunch. 2005 Colorado Blvd., Eagle Rock. (323) 255-OINK, theoinkster.com. Open Sun.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m. AE, D, MC, V. No alcohol. Takeout. 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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101 Noodle Express
The beef roll — oh yes, the beef roll — a steroidal composition, straight out of Shandong, of fried Chinese pancakes, cilantro and great fistfuls of thinly sliced meat wetted with sweet bean sauce and formed into Chinese burritos the size of softball bats. A proper beef roll may be big enough to feed a family of four, but it's also oddly delicate; it may taste of crisped pastry and clean oil, but also projects the muscular minerality of the braised meat. The specialty of 101 Noodle Express, housed in a narrow storefront, is a wrinkly thing called Dezhou chicken, a slow-cooked bird with the odd skin color of John Boehner. The pumpkin-shrimp dumplings, the cold noodles with cucumber and bean sauce, and the cold Shandong chicken, hacked into random parts and arranged over what seems like equal parts cucumber and garlic, are not sad. But a meal at 101 Noodle without a beef roll is as unthinkable as a lunch at Langer's without pastrami. 1408 E. Valley Blvd. Alhambra. (626) 300-8654. Location map here.

Orris
Orris is the great marriage between California casual and the Japanese izakaya, a place to drop in for a beaker of daiginjo sake and a plate or two of smoked scallops garnished with salmon roe, seared tuna with sweet onion marmalade, or even what amounts to lamb sashimi. Its location, convenient to the Nuart and the manga-intensive shopping strip anchored by the Giant Robot complex, couldn't be better, and the small wine list is swell. 2006 Sawtelle Blvd., W.L.A. (310) 268-2212, orrisrestaurant.com. Dinner Tues.-Thurs., 6-9:30 p.m., Fri., 6-10 p.m., Sat. 5:30-10:30 p.m., Sun. 5:30-9 p.m. Beer, wine and sake. Lot parking (valet Wed.-Sat.). AE, D, MC, V. Location map here.

Palate Food + Wine
Does Palate still do its Offal Wednesdays? I think it may have stopped. Because after you cycle through bone marrow with kimchi and fried quail eggs, or brain ravioli with ricotta and sage, or sweetbreads with wild nettles, or split-pea soup with pig's ear croutons, you start to get into the squishy bits that may not go so well with a bottle of old Savigny-les-Beaune. Octavio Becerra, the chef who plays the ringleader of the multifaceted Palate complex, may be loco enough to serve tacos made from goat meat long-simmered in pig fat, but he knows the proper accompaniment is probably a cold can of Tecate.

A relaxed, butter-yellow space in Glendale's car-dealer district, Palate is a fever dream of a restaurant, a dining room flowing into a cocktail lounge, a wine bar, laboratories for curing meats and aging cheeses, and a well-curated wine shop that serves as a venue for some of the world's best DJs on Sunday afternoons. Palate, which occupies the ground floor of a huge wine-storage building, is intensely personal, and an evening there can feel a lot like stopping by a friend's house and having him show you some cool things he just picked up: lamb from the eccentric Sonoma farmer Don Watson; butter churned from scratch; some black-market cardoons. The menu is tiny, and seems even shorter than it looks — Becerra's best dishes are almost deceptively simple, built around an array of precisely seasonal produce. 933 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale. (818) 662-9463, palatefoodwine.com. Mon.-Sat., 5:30-10 p.m., Sun, 5-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat., noon-2:30 p.m. Full bar. Valet (and plentiful street) parking. AE, MC, V. Location map here.