Latest news with #EaterSouthernCalifornia
Eater
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Eater
The Best Dishes Eater Editors Ate This Week: June 23
Skip to main content Current eater city: Los Angeles The editors at Eater LA dine out several times a week, if not per day, which means we're always encountering standout dishes that deserve time in the limelight. Here's the very best of everything the team has eaten this week. Beachside snacking usually conjures memories of hot dogs slathered with ketchup and a dusting of sand, or a tart lemonade and a corndog from Hot Dog on a Stick. However, on a recent trip to the beach, I stopped by one of Perry's Cafe's outposts, a mini-chain with locations spanning the Santa Monica coastline. After a few hours in the sun, I wanted something a little more filling than the usual basket of fries, and took a chance on the California Beach Bowl with mahi mahi. My choice was quickly affirmed when the bowl came out piled with Mexican rice, black beans, pico de gallo, guacamole, and two strips of grilled fish. The bowl far exceeded my expectations: the fish was well-cooked and the seasoning was well-balanced throughout. Plus, Perry's Cafe also serves beer, margaritas, and more drinks that can be sipped in one of the restaurant's lounge chairs. 930 CA-1, Santa Monica, CA 90403. — Rebecca Roland, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Cento Raw Bar almost defies description. The restaurant's interior looks like the inside of a mermaid's cave come to life: the plaster-adorned walls have a wavy, scalloped molding that offers a 3-D effect; creamy oval sconces give the light of an anglerfish; a patch of fluorescent blue-and-green floor tiling evokes bioluminescence; teeny, spiny white chairs have a conch-like spiral on their backs. The food menu, though small, is no less fantastical—lush, buttery raw bar preparations come on pastel plates with Polly Pocket-sized cutlery. Not to be missed, of course, is the seafood tower, propped on a modular green glass serving stand with oysters on the half shell, uni, Peruvian scallops, crab legs, and fatty lobster claws. Less obvious as an order is the tuna crudo, which Cento makes stand out from others in the sea of endless tuna crudo in Los Angeles by piling the tender sliced fish with gazpacho grated tomatoes and perilla leaves. This isn't a neighborhood restaurant, more than it is an art installation. Come ready to be engaged through all senses. 4919 W. Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90016. — Nicole Adlman, Eater cities manager As a lover of savory and salty foods, I typically refrain from sweets. I find most uncomfortably sugary, especially confectionary coffee drinks. However, Southern California continues to open fantastic bakeries that are dialing back refined sugars and letting the other ingredients shine. Case in point, San & Wolves Bakeshop in Long Beach. It's a neighborhood stop on Fourth Street slightly east of Redondo Avenue in a compact room with a few seats out front. Staff will help guide you through the display case, which is filled with Filipino-flavored and plant-based treats, including ube pan de coco, cornbread bibingkas, and ube malasadas —a raised yeast doughnut filled with ube jam, prepared as a weekend specialty item. I fell in love with the black sesame bun, which looks very much like a traditional cinnamon roll, but with owner Kym Estrada's black sesame paste. San & Wolves specializes in executing baked goods with excellent consistency. You'll never know that anything on the premises is made without butter or milk. After securing an order (get at least four goodies) from this charming space, along with a cup of coffee and this standout of a roll, you're off to a solid start or break on any given day. 3900 E. 4th Street, Long Beach, CA, 90814 — Mona Holmes, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Raphael Lunetta's tenure at Marelle has been mostly under the radar, a sleek but toned-down restaurant along Santa Monica's busy Ocean Avenue. With distant views of the beach, the Sandbourne hotel restaurant eases into weekends with a sprawling indoor-outdoor space. Long white curtains sway, and a DJ pulses out tunes as the sun sets, a fine place to tuck into Lunetta's unabashedly California cooking. The menu oozes with seasonal produce at its prime, like a stone fruit salad with arugula, endive, and ricotta salat or a leg of charred Spanish octopus laced in a savory chorizo veloute and dragon's beard greens. The lamb loin comes right out of the Jiraffe playbook, Lunetta's long-closed Santa Monica restaurant, which served a pan-roasted lamb loin with vegetable lasagna and yellowfin potato samosas in the mid-'90s. Now Lunetta serves the tender loin strips, cooked to a wonderfully juicy medium rare, with a refined ratatouille, plump spring peas, and slender roasted carrots. The dish itself felt marvelously out of season, like an early spring entree that somehow made it to the end of June because of our state's long growing season. The Pacific Coast doesn't quite conjure the south of France like this dish does, but I appreciate the juxtaposition. An ocean view adds the best kind of synergetic seasoning. 1740 Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90401. — Matthew Kang, lead editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest See More:
Eater
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Eater
The Best Dishes Eater Editors Ate This Week: June 16
Skip to main content Current eater city: Los Angeles The editors at Eater LA dine out several times a week, if not per day, which means we're always encountering standout dishes that deserve time in the limelight. Here's the very best of everything the team has eaten this week. It's hard to fathom the unspeakable devastation that the community of Altadena experienced from the Eaton Fire, but a brief drive around the neighborhood shows many plots of land cleared and hopefully ready to rebuild. This is a community that needs a response from Los Angeles at large, and it seems some people have heard the call. On a recent Sunday, I stopped in to this charming and rather excellent Thai restaurant from seasoned operator David Tewasart (Sticky Rice), which offers a sleek front dining room and a faux-weathered back dining room that feels plucked right out of a stylish Bangkok back alley. The fare is fantastic and incredibly well-portioned: crab fried rice came studded with big chunks of sweet, tender crab while the fluffy rice gains an even fry from the wok. I took about three-fourths of the rest home and enjoyed it over a few days. By the time my son and I were done with lunch, the place was positively packed with people, a sign that this community is ready to bounce back. 2470 Lake Avenue, Altadena, CA. — Matthew Kang, lead editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Santa Monica's Pasjoli is back in a big way. Chef Dave Beran's French restaurant recently hit pause for two weeks to update its dining room and transform its menu from prix fixe to a la carte. Now, the restaurant feels less geared to only special occasions and more like a neighborhood bistro with popular dishes borrowed from the bar menu, like the burger, alongside approachable classics like steak frites, roast chicken, and a baguette topped with ham and cheese. The French onion souplette, a miniature version of the iconic dish, is an indulgent iteration with more cheese than soup. A thick, bubbly, floater of cheese sits on top, obscuring the sweet braised onions immersed in a rich vegetable broth just beneath. Instead of the bread being baked into the soup, two tiny breadsticks sit on the side for dipping. The soup comes in a small ceramic pot, which comes out hot to the touch. Beran has curated the ideal lineup of tiny vessels for the restaurant, whether it be a tiny soup pot or a small glass chalice for the chicken cordon bleu wings. Save room for the excellent sundae, drizzled with a sweet and salty duck fat caramel. 2732 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90405. — Rebecca Roland, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Throughout the summer, Budonoki is doing a collaboration series with Los Angeles restaurants. First up was Pijja Palace, which was quite a way to kick off the series. The creative cooking of the two restaurants just made sense together, especially in dishes like the saag paneer katsu curry, and, of course, a malai take on the famous Budo-gnocchi. The katsu came on a bed of rich green saag, with slices of paneer breaded and fried until crispy. It's upsetting that the dish was only available for a night — it is something I will crave regularly. While sometimes collaborations fall short of the original menu, Budonoki seems to have the method down. Previously, the restaurant has welcomed Soban, Mini Kabob, and into its kitchen. I'm looking forward to seeing what the team does next. 654 Virgil Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90004. — Rebecca Roland, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest When I heard that Koreatown restaurant Here's Looking at You would close permanently on June 13, I booked a reservation to dine there immediately, only to later find out that our entire team booked a table for weeks after what was supposed to be my goodbye meal. HLAY's departure is one of those Los Angeles losses that will tug on my heartstrings for a while because of what it meant as a true community restaurant in a highly competitive market. Over the years, I've spoken to operators who believe that a 50-person room is the ideal headcount for a restaurant, and I agree. The intimacy that you get with a tight group of servers, bartenders, and expediters is palpable. But with the kitchen, you get specialty dishes that evoke joy, like the deep-fried frog legs. Perhaps founders Lien Ta and chef Jonathan Whitener (R.I.P.) had this in mind when opening HLAY a decade ago, but it certainly delivered. My tender frog legs were beautifully battered before landing in the fryer, flavored with HLAY's wonderful salsa negra, scallions, lime, and chiles. It's a dish I'll eternally miss, along with the pink grapefruit tart and heirloom tomato bagna cauda salad with lap cheong Chinese sausage. These dishes feel comfortable and easy in a city like LA. And we won't forget them. 3901 West Sixth Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90020. — Mona Holmes, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest See More:
