LA Weekly

Downtown Los Angeles

E3rd Steakhouse E3rd, which looks as if it were assembled by Michael Mann’s art director, is nominally a steak house, a designy, halogen-intensive joint from the guys who run the loungy Korean-cum-Japanese Zip Fusion Sushi restaurants, but their signature beef and pork cuts are marinated to a candylike density, the mashed potatoes are enriched with spicy kimchi, and the jalapeño peppers come stuffed with tuna and glopped with sticky eel sauce — it’s a modern izakaya with training wheels, a user-friendly cocktail lounge with sleek cross-cultural eats. 734 E. Third St., dwntwn., (213) 680-3003. Lunch Mon.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Dinner daily 5-11 p.m. (late-night menu 11 p.m.-1 a.m.). Full bar. Valet parking. All major CC. Asian Steak House. JG

Silver Lake/Los Feliz/Echo Park

Canelé In Bordelaise dialect, a canele is a dense, fluted cylinder of pudding edged with crisp beeswax. In Atwater Village, Canele can feel a lot like an ongoing dinner party that just happens to tolerate strangers at its tables, with oddly minimalist décor, menus illegibly scrawled onto chalkboards, and friendly but puzzled waitresses who aren’t quite sure why you’ve stumbled into their domain. It works the farmers-market-driven urban rustic side of new Los Angeles cooking: the Provençal onion tart ­pissaladière, an austere green salad with crème fraîche; rare roast lamb with Israeli couscous, beef bourguignon, an honest flan. This is cooking worthy of the good china. 3219 Glendale Blvd., Atwater Village, (323) 666-7133. Tues.–Sat. 5:30–10:30 p.m., Sun. 5–10 p.m. Beer and wine. Street parking. AE, MC, V. French. JG

Hollywood/Melrose/La Brea/Fairfax

El Coyote Many restaurants resemble this place — from the cheap margaritas, to the “Mexican pizza” available in the ever-crowded bar, to the walls decorated with broken mirrors, to the wire-mesh-enclosed patio with its plastic smog-dusted foliage and visiting local sparrows, to the guacamole dinners, to the ersatz tostadas — but I could pick an El Coyote combination plate blindfolded out of 100 others, and most of the regulars could, too. 7312 Beverly Blvd., L.A., (323) 939-2255. Lunch and dinner Sun.–Thurs. 11 a.m.–10 p.m., Fri.–Sat. 11 a.m.–11 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. Dinner for two, food only, $18–$25. MC, V. Mexican. JG

Jar Any place in town can serve you a grilled T-bone, but Suzanne Tracht’s snazzy steak house is strictly post­modernsville, man, chefly riffs on the strip steak and the porterhouse, the hash brown and the French fry that may or may not incorporate every last pea tendril and star-anise infusion in the Asian-fusion playbook, if that happens to be your desire. Some people we know have never even tried the steak here — the braised pork belly, the glorious pot roast and the duck fried rice are just too compelling. 8225 Beverly Blvd., L.A., (323) 655-6566. Mon.–Thurs. 5:30–10 p.m., Fri.–Sat. 5:30–11 p.m., Sun. 5:30–9:30 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V. California American. JG

Miceli’s Did Miceli’s invent Hollywood’s idea of what an Italian restaurant should be, or did Hollywood invent Miceli’s? Owned by the same family since 1949, Miceli’s is an ancient, baroque pizzeria in the heart of Hollywood, all red candle globes, checked tablecloths and ceilings encrusted with Chianti flasks. As romantic as a bohemian Audrey Hepburn fantasy, it could stand in for the restaurant in the famous spaghetti-eating scene in Lady and the Tramp. 1646 N. Las Palmas Ave., Hlywd., (323) 466-3438 or micelisrestaurant.com. Mon.–Thurs. 11:30 a.m.–11 p.m., Fri. 11:30 a.m.–mid., Sat.–Sun. 4 p.m.–mid. Full bar. Parking lot. All major CC. Italian. JG

Mid-Wilshire/Koreatown/Central Los Angeles

A-Won Just south of L.A.’s oldest Thai-restaurant neighborhood, tucked away in a mini-mall where the Lexuses pack together as tightly as grains of rice in a bowl, A-Won is one of Koreatown’s oldest sushi restaurants. Marinated sea cucumber and the habit of eating sashimi with raw garlic have their fans, but the great Korean contribution to the world’s sushi kitchen is probably hwe dup bap, a raw-fish salad leavened with dried seaweed and flavored with chile paste. Good hwe dup bap — and A-Won’s is very good — is as alive and vivid and evanescent as a wildflower, the taste of the spring’s first asparagus, or the throwaway phrase in a Lily Allen song that breaks your heart. 913½ S. Vermont Ave., L.A., (213) 389-6764. Mon.–Sat. 11 a.m.–11 p.m.; Sun. 4–11 p.m. AE, MC, V. Beer and soju. Guarded lot parking. Korean sushi. JG

Nyala The central fact of Ethiopian cuisine is injera, the sour, pale, platter-size pancake that acts as plate, utensil, condiment and bread, and also as an ingredient in about half the stews. At the vegetarian-friendly Nyala, there is a fine version of the chicken stew doro wot, thick with hot spice and glistening with butter. 1076 S. Fairfax Ave., L.A., (323) 936-5918. Mon.–Sun. 11:30 a.m.–10:30 p.m. Full bar. Street parking. AE, CB, DC, MC, V. Entrées $7–$12. Ethiopian. JG

West Hollywood/La Cienega

Orso The West Coast branch of New York’s Orso has fully embraced Southern California’s resemblance to the Italian countryside; the high-walled garden bursts with Mediterranean plants and grasses. The wood-paneled interior has its own rustic, candlelit romantic allure — and a cozy bar. If, for some reason, celebrities enhance your appetite, you can often spot a film star of some ilk on the Orso premises. To our mind, the fresh Italian cooking — grilled trout with cockles, seasonal risottos — is incentive enough. 8706 W. Third St., L.A., (310) 274-7144. Lunch and dinner daily 11:45 a.m.–11 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. Entrées $18–$27. Italian. MH

Westwood/West L.A./Century City

Indo Café The cooking here is sort of an intelligently gentrified, Muslim-accented greatest-hits version of pan-Indonesian cuisine, with curries of all sorts. Mellow Javanese-style chicken soup is slightly soured with lemon grass. Martabak telur, a scramble of meat, eggs and herbs, is a terrific sort of Indonesian borek, an exotically spiced version of something you’d expect to find at a North African restaurant. And Indo Café may be the only Southland restaurant to serve the fried mashed-potato fritter called perkedel that is pretty good on its own, but which almost explodes with flavor when you daub it with a bit of Indo Café’s fiery chile condiments. 10428 W. National Blvd., W.L.A., (310) 815-1290. Open Mon.–Thurs. 11:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m., Fri.–Sun. 11:30 a.m.–10 p.m. for lunch and dinner. No alcohol. Street parking. Indonesian. JG