My Favorite Los Angeles Restaurants, Part II

Sanamluang Cafe is my favorite restaurant in my old stomping ground of Thai Town in east Hollywood, narrowly edging out Ruen Pair (despite the latter's stir-fried morning glory with garlic, soothing soups, and an extraordinary dish of crispy ground pork with wrinkled black olives) and far and away above Palm Thai (pretty good food, but best known for live performances by the Thai Elvis) and some place whose name I can never remember, but sold excellent Thai sweets out of a store front. Thai sweets are gelatinous and frequently fluorescent creations of coconut, taro, custard, banana, and beans, and were a taste that I tried to get many friends to acquire, but only a few ever did.

Sanamluang Cafe is in a down-at-the-heels tiny strip mall, and has zero atmosphere but a great menu. Its deservedly famous dish of General's Noodles, which can be served dry but is better in soup, consists of a huge knot of fiercely garlicked thin noodles, a generous scattering of crumbled ground pork and green onions, chunks of skin-on duck, slices of barbecued pork, and a shrimp or two. I also like the barbecued pork over rice, which consists of deep-fried belly pork, barbecued pork, Chinese sweet sausage, and a slice of hard-boiled egg over rice, with a brilliant pink sweet sauce dumped over the whole and a tangy vinegar-and soy based sauce for dipping. The roast duck, fried leek dumplings, and chicken in sweet soy are excellent as well, as is the Thai iced coffee. Anything with "fish maw" in the description should be avoided unless you are absolutely positive that it's a dish you already like. Prices are cheap, portions are large, and the service is harried but friendly.

Empress Pavilion is an old dim sum restaurant in the heart of Chinatown, conveniently located in a plaze with two anime shops and a Chinese herbal remedy store. It's not as fashionable as it once was, but is still hugely crowded unless you come on off-hours. Waiters push carts of dim sum through the enormous, airy eating area, and if you don't speak Chinese, you can just point to what you want. Some dishes are traditional, or have become so (barbecued pork buns, egg custard tarts, sticky rice in lotus leaves, chicken feet, bell pepper halves stuffed with ground shrimp); others seem to be Empress Pavilion inventions (shrimp wrapped in nori). Everything is excellent, and prices work out to ten to fifteen dollars per person, depending on how much you stuff yourself... though all bets are off if you order live seafood.

Furaibo is my favorite izakaya, or Japanese pub: the perfect place to go after evening training. Order some beer or sake and a selection of appetizer-sized dishes: tender strips of grilled beef, a bowl of soothing rice soup with seaweed and salmon, salt-grilled mackerel, miso-grilled cod, green garlic shoots with bacon, and their specialty, chicken wings, flash-fried to a spicy crisp exterior and a juicy interior. After dinner, you can walk to one of the five places on the block that sells forty flavors of smoothies, icies, teas, and juices, with or without chewy black tapioca pearls.

My Favorite Los Angeles Restaurants, Part II

Sanamluang Cafe is my favorite restaurant in my old stomping ground of Thai Town in east Hollywood, narrowly edging out Ruen Pair (despite the latter's stir-fried morning glory with garlic, soothing soups, and an extraordinary dish of crispy ground pork with wrinkled black olives) and far and away above Palm Thai (pretty good food, but best known for live performances by the Thai Elvis) and some place whose name I can never remember, but sold excellent Thai sweets out of a store front. Thai sweets are gelatinous and frequently fluorescent creations of coconut, taro, custard, banana, and beans, and were a taste that I tried to get many friends to acquire, but only a few ever did.

Sanamluang Cafe is in a down-at-the-heels tiny strip mall, and has zero atmosphere but a great menu. Its deservedly famous dish of General's Noodles, which can be served dry but is better in soup, consists of a huge knot of fiercely garlicked thin noodles, a generous scattering of crumbled ground pork and green onions, chunks of skin-on duck, slices of barbecued pork, and a shrimp or two. I also like the barbecued pork over rice, which consists of deep-fried belly pork, barbecued pork, Chinese sweet sausage, and a slice of hard-boiled egg over rice, with a brilliant pink sweet sauce dumped over the whole and a tangy vinegar-and soy based sauce for dipping. The roast duck, fried leek dumplings, and chicken in sweet soy are excellent as well, as is the Thai iced coffee. Anything with "fish maw" in the description should be avoided unless you are absolutely positive that it's a dish you already like. Prices are cheap, portions are large, and the service is harried but friendly.

Empress Pavilion is an old dim sum restaurant in the heart of Chinatown, conveniently located in a plaze with two anime shops and a Chinese herbal remedy store. It's not as fashionable as it once was, but is still hugely crowded unless you come on off-hours. Waiters push carts of dim sum through the enormous, airy eating area, and if you don't speak Chinese, you can just point to what you want. Some dishes are traditional, or have become so (barbecued pork buns, egg custard tarts, sticky rice in lotus leaves, chicken feet, bell pepper halves stuffed with ground shrimp); others seem to be Empress Pavilion inventions (shrimp wrapped in nori). Everything is excellent, and prices work out to ten to fifteen dollars per person, depending on how much you stuff yourself... though all bets are off if you order live seafood.

Furaibo is my favorite izakaya, or Japanese pub: the perfect place to go after evening training. Order some beer or sake and a selection of appetizer-sized dishes: tender strips of grilled beef, a bowl of soothing rice soup with seaweed and salmon, salt-grilled mackerel, miso-grilled cod, green garlic shoots with bacon, and their specialty, chicken wings, flash-fried to a spicy crisp exterior and a juicy interior. After dinner, you can walk to one of the five places on the block that sells forty flavors of smoothies, icies, teas, and juices, with or without chewy black tapioca pearls.