LA Weekly - Calendar Restaurant Listings - Asian - The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles

Beacon marks the triumphant return to form of Kazuto Matsusaka, who was chef for almost a decade at Wolfgang Puck's Chinois in the '80s. His current versions of miso-marinated cod, vegetable nabemono and grilled shisito peppers are all fine. Grilled-chicken skewers are powerfully flavored with the herb shiso and the tiny Japanese apricot called ume. You'd probably never find anything like Matsusaka's salad of perfectly ripe avocado dressed with toasted sesame seeds and minced scallions in Tokyo, but the salad follows classical principles, and it is luscious. The hanger steak with wasabi is so successful, the searing tang of the horseradish doing something wonderful to the tart, carbonized flavor of grilled meat, that you might wonder why nobody thought of the combination until now. (310) 838-7500. Lunch Mon.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., dinner Tues.-Wed. and Sun. 5:30-9 p.m., Thurs.-Sat. 5:30-10 p.m. Beer and wine. Lot parking. AE, MC, V. Lunch for two, food only, $18-$35. Dinner for two $30-$60. (Jonathan Gold)

3280 Helms Ave., Los Angeles, CA, (310) 838-7500

Bin 8945

West Hollywood

We have all become familiar with the idea of the Italianate wine bar in the past year or so, intimate, themed places with a few dozen inexpensive wines, nibbles of meat and cheese, and a cheery, relaxed vibe. Bin 8945, in the raging heart of Boystown, is the other kind of wine bar, a showcase for wine more than a center of conviviality, with a serious Asian/Caribbean menu and a wine list that is expensive but dotted with values for those few of you willing to pop $120 or more for a bottle of rare or antique wine to go with your fried green tomatoes. There are twists in the cooking you might not expect from a restaurant where the food is supposed to be incidental to the wine. Open nightly, 5 p.m.–2 a.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. Asian/Caribbean. (Jonathan Gold)
Entrees $26–$29

8945 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, CA, (310) 550-8945

Bu San

Bu San. Korean-style raw sea cucumber is like nothing you’ve ever tasted before, and Korean-style sashimi, which you wrap in a lettuce leaf with raw garlic, sliced chiles and bean paste, is a revelation. The chefs are fond of converting live fish from the tanks into a meal’s worth of demonstrably fresh sashimi. Raw squid, luxuriously creamy, with a small bit of crunch at the center, only tastes alive. Although almost alarmingly so. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Beer and wine. Lot parking. MC, V. Entrées $25-$30. Korean. (Jonathan Gold) $$

203 N. Western Ave., Los Angeles, CA, (323) 871-0703

Capital Seafood

Monterey Park

Capital Seafood (not to be confused with New Capital Seafood) serves traditional dim sum, carts laden with spare ribs steamed with black beans and baked buns stuffed with chicken; floppy rice noodles wrapped around beef and pan-fried dumplings that happen to be filled with snow-pea leaves and shrimp; fried sticky-rice capsules and northern-style soup dumplings that are better than they have any right to be in a dim sum house. You will assuredly find all the steamed shrimp dumplings, the baked barbecued pork buns and the boiled Chinese broccoli of any decent dim sum restaurant, but Capital seems to specialize in the exotica of the dim sum kitchen — the squishy, fragrant, slightly unusual things that might be daunting if they were served in huge quantities, but seem just right in the two-bite portions that come off the dim sum cart: Jell-O-soft beef tendon tinted neon-orange with chile; steamed shrimp cake stuffed into rounds of powerfully astringent bitter melon; slippery slivers of cattle tripe, two or three different types per bowlful, cooked in a mild yellow curry. Capital also makes a specialty of dessert. The moss-green jellies, the hot tofu with syrup, the mango pudding and the coconut gelatin studded with black beans are superb. But the real tour de force is probably the crock of hot, sweet almond milk baked underneath golden domes of pastry, like the creation of a demented Sinophilic French chef. Boiled sea cucumber will never have universal appeal, but almond milk en croute may come pretty close. Open daily, 9 a.m.–10 p.m.; dim sum 9 a.m.–3 p.m. daily. Beer and wine. Lot parking. MC, V. JG

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755 W. Garvey Ave., Monterey Park, CA, (626) 282-3318

Changâ€™s Garden

Arcadia

The spareribs steamed in lotus leaves at Changâ€™s Garden â€” with pounded-rice flour and a little rice wine â€” are magnificent things, little essays on the virtues of long-cooked pork. There is a very nice simmered beef and tripe in chile oil, and splendid fresh Chinese bacon with garlic and chile. Vegetable dishes tend to be pretty good too. Try the pudding-like slabs of Japanese eggplant cooked down with garlic and chile or the cubes of tofu dusted with flour and fried until the inside becomes molten. Open daily, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. MC, V. Beer and wine. Lot parking. Chinese. (Jonathan Gold)Dinner for two, food only, $24â€“$38

627 W. Duarte Road, Arcadia, CA, (626) 445-0606

China Islamic Restaurant

Rosemead

Like other Muslim restaurants, China Islamic has a minor specialty in lamb, sliced thin and quickly fried with green onions, garlic and crunchy bits of fresh ginger; fried with the thick, resilient homemade noodles called “dough slice chow mein”; served in a cloying “sa cha” sauce. Lamb stew warm pot is served seething in a clay vessel, with thick, murky broth, cellophane noodles, cabbage, and the most extraordinary lamb, red-cooked on the bone, chopstick-tender and pungent with soy and star anise. , Rosemead, (626) 288-4246. Lunch 11 a.m.-3 p.m., dinner 5-9:30 p.m. No alcohol. Lot parking. Dinner for two, food only, $16-$25. MC, V. Chinese. JG

7727 E. Garvey Ave., Rosemead, CA, (626) 288-4246

Chosun Galbi

For decades, Woo Lae Oak on Western was the favorite Korean restaurant of people who didn’t like Korean food all that much, a fancy place where they could convince themselves that galbi wasn’t too different from an ordinary steak dinner. Now that the Koreatown Woo Lae Oak is on hiatus, the conservative Koreatown choice is probably Chosun Galbi, a pleasant restaurant with the patio-side glamour of a Beverly Hills garden party: granite tables, gorgeous waitresses, and expensive, well-marbled meat that glows as pinkly as a Tintoretto cherub. Don’t miss the chewy cold buckwheat noodles with marinated stingray. And make sure to throw some shrimp on the barbie, too — the pricey little beasties crisp up like a dream. 3330 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 734-3330. Open seven days for lunch and dinner 11:30 a.m-10:30 p.m. MC, V, AE. Full bar. Valet parking. (Jonathan Gold) $Â‡

3330 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, (323) 734-3330

Dai Ho Kitchen

Temple City

Dai Ho Kitchen’s spicy beef noodle soup is an angry red brew spiked with chopped herbs, golf ball-sized chunks of long-simmered meat and noodles — slithery, linguine-thick noodles, disarmingly soft, that like all the best pasta seem to have mastered the trick of appearing almost alive. The house-special cold appetizer of spicy tripe, pressed tofu and sliced pork shank is delicious. But Dai Ho’s version of the beef noodle soup is on a plane of its own, a dense, stinky taste of Valhalla. Lunch Tues.-Sun. 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.; dinner, takeout only. No alcohol. Lot parking. Cash only. Lunch for two, food only, $11-$18. Chinese. (Jonathan Gold)

9148 Las Tunas Dr., Temple City, CA, (626) 291-2295

Din Tai Fung

Arcadia

It took Din Tai Fung to transform the soup dumpling — thin-walled spheroids filled with pork, seasonings and teaspoonfuls of jellied broth — into high-tech industry. The soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung are incontrovertibly engineered to be the state of the art, elastic, ultrathin wrappers bulging with the steamy weight of the soup within, served 10 to an order in bullet-shaped aluminum steamers that look like relics of the Taiwanese ’50s. Pick them up carefully, garnish simply with a shred or two of fresh ginger and a few sparing drops of black vinegar, and inhale. Lunch and dinner daily 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5-9:30 p.m. No alcohol. Lot parking. Takeout. MC, V. Lunch for two, food only, $8-$14. Chinese. (Jonathan Gold)

1108 S. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia, CA, (626) 574-7068

888 Seafood Restaurant

Rosemead

A good place to start is the Chiu Chow cold plate: symmetrically arranged slices of tender steamed geoduck clam, aspic-rimmed pork terrine, crunchy strands of jellyfish, cold halved shrimp in a sweet, citrus-based sauce. Or try a soup of whole perch gently poached in the heat of broth, sharp with the flavor of Chinese celery and herbs, made complexly tart with sour plum, or an astonishing dish of Chiu Chow-style braised goose. The epic dim sum breakfasts are locally esteemed. (626) 573-1888. Lunch and dinner seven days 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Full bar. Lot parking. Dinner for two, food only, $20-$30. MC, V. Chinese. (Jonathan Gold)

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8450 Valley Blvd., Rosemead, CA

Fu Rai Bo

Fu Rai Bo doesn’t just specialize in chicken, but in spicy skewered teba sake chicken wings; not a whole wing, but that spindly middle segment of wing in which a couple of bones form sort of a frame protecting a sweet, if minuscule, oblate ellipse of meat. They’re made for deep-frying the way a chicken breast is for grilling, deeply absorbing Fu Rai Bo’s tart, spicy marinade, greaseless and practically all brittle, crunchy skin. After the chef has dusted them with various white powders and heaped them on plates alongside scoops of shredded cabbage and mayo-intensive chicken salad, you could gnaw through a million of these wings, sucking out the meat, while your teeth seek out hidden crunchy bits. Lunch daily 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Dinner Mon.-Thurs. 5:30 p.m.- 11 p.m., Fri.-Sun. 5:30 p.m.-11 :45 p.m. Lot parking. Take-out. Beer and wine. MC, V. (Jonathan Gold)

2068 Sawtelle Blvd., West Los Angeles, CA, (310) 444-1432

GaJa

Lomita

Okonomiyaki may be the homeliest food in creation, a squat, unlovely, vaguely circular mess of batter, cabbage and egg, slicked with a tarry black substance made from ketchup and Worcestershire sauce, inscribed with mayonnaise, and dusted with curls of shaved dried bonito that shudder and writhe on top of the pancake like a thousand pencil shavings come to gruesome life. When you are presented with your first okonomiyaki, you don’t know whether to kill it or to eat it. GaJa puts a certain amount of effort into its identity as an izakaya, a snack-intensive Japanese pub, but it is probably the premier okonomiyaki specialist in town right now. They’ll cook okonomiyaki for you in the kitchen, but most diners opt to sizzle up their own on tabletop griddles, stirring and smashing and flipping and searing. With any luck, you’ll have dinner. Lunch Tues.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m.; dinner Tues.-Thurs. 6-11 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5:30 p.m.-mid., Sun. 5 p.m.-10 p.m. MC, V. Beer, wine and soju. Lot parking. Takeout. Dinner for two, food only, $19-$32. Japanese. (Jonathan Gold)

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2383 Lomita Blvd., Suite 102, Lomita, CA, (310) 534-0153 www.gajaokonomiyaki.com

Giang Nan

Monterey Park

There are those among us indifferent to the pleasures of the Chinese dessert, the candied snow-frog ovary, the sugared haw, the bowl of sugary kidney-bean soup that often follows a Chinese meal. But beyond the mango cream and black-rice porridge and unspeakably exotic tong shui made with pearl dust and tortoise shell are the unlovely confections known as sweet-rice balls, marble-size spheres of pounded rice stuffed with payloads of ground peanuts, black sesame or toasted seeds. As served at Giang Nan, a Shanghai-style restaurant in Monterey Park, these rice balls are orbs of pure, gooey texture, a miraculous, dense substance that seems only a molecular bond or two from collapsing into liquid, that modulates into little bursts of pure, sweet flavor as it oozes down your throat. You may have had decent sweet-rice balls before — Japanese mochi is a somewhat cruder take on the form — but the ones at Giang Nan, floating in a warm, tangy broth flavored with rice-wine lees the restaurant specially imports from Shanghai, are so much better that they might as well be from a different galaxy, where glutinous rice tastes better than apple pie. It has everything you could want in a modest East Chinese restaurant— a dish of pork, firm tofu and bamboo shoots, for instance, cut into precise matchsticks and stir-fried in less oil than it would take to lubricate a gnat’s bicycle, tastes of the pure, fresh flavors of its own mild ingredients, nothing more. But the soup dumplings, with or without crab, are impeccable, the bean curd with ham is delicious, and the Shanghai spring rolls are nothing short of amazing, almost liquid under their shattering golden skins. Lunch Tues.–Sun. 11 a.m.–3 p.m., dinner Tues.–Sun. 5–10 p.m. No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. MC, V. Dinner for two, food only, $14–$25. JG

306 N. Garfield Ave., No. A-12, Monterey Park, CA, (626) 573-3421

gr/eats

The standard crack about Giant Robot, even before the publication became actually beautiful and spawned an extensive bicoastal network of film festivals, art galleries, Internet sites and its own art galleries and shops, was that it actually functioned better as a toy store than it did as a magazine. Now, gr/eats is the culinary outpost of Giant Robot empire. This small, chic café is furnished with Eames shell chairs and the sort of harsh, glowing light one expects to find in Prada boutiques. The music kind of rocks, mostly the kind of indie stuff you hear from musicians whose passions extend equally to Neil Diamond and Neil Young. The densely packed hamburgers are made with Angus beef, and the mango-garnished fish tacos are pretty good. A platter of French fries includes crunchy banana shavings and squishy sweet-potato fries along with the usual shoestring potatoes; an occasional special of fried tofu comes hip-deep in a dashi-based sauce that will be familiar to anybody who has ever eaten a single dinner in a Japanese-American home. The food at gr/eats is re-contextualized Asian-American home cooking: bland Thai shrimp curry and Japanese omelet rice; a mild Salvadoran seafood stew served over a yellow rice “paella” and slightly clumsy Vietnamese spring rolls wrapped in rice paper; a quite decent pan-seared Chilean sea bass drizzled with Asian pesto and squishy, salty, fried tofu “meatballs” painted with an orangey sweet-and-sour sauce. Open daily noon–3 p.m. and 5:30–10 p.m. No alcohol. Lot parking. MC, V. Lunch or dinner for two, food only, $15–$25. JG

2050 Sawtelle Blvd., West Los Angeles, CA, (310) 478-3242 www.gr-eats.com.

Hak Heang.

Long Beach

In the Little Phnom Penh neighborhood of Long Beach is Hak Heang — all glowing neon, elaborate live-seafood tanks and yawning seas of tables, waitresses whipping around the room with endless streams of Tsingtao, fried fish and sputtering skewers of Cambodian shish kebab. The anchovy beef, a small, marinated steak grilled medium rare, sliced thin, and served with a relish of shaved raw eggplant, fermented fish, garlic and a little vinegar, is a rare Cambodian dish that would make almost as much sense at a country restaurant in southern Piemonte as it would along the banks of the Tônlé Sap. Breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days 8 a.m.-9 p.m. Full bar. Lot parking. Takeout. Cash only. Dinner for two, $18-$28. Cambodian. (Jonathan Gold) ¢

2041 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, CA, (562) 434-0296

Hamjipark

Hamjipark. This sticky-table dive down on Pico does a rather spectacular version of pork-neck soup, simmered until the meat has turned almost to jelly and thickened with a brick-red purée of chiles — if you weren’t nursing a hair-of-the-dog shot of soju, you might almost mistake it for a Oaxacan mole colorado. The crunchy, sticky grilled pork ribs are not sad to eat either. Hamjipark has a gentrified branch up near the Chapman Market, with the ambiance of an outer-arrondissement sidewalk café, but on Sunday morning, when the roof of your mouth is a killing floor, the grungier Pico restaurant is where you want to be. (Jonathan Gold) $

3407 W. Sixth St., Los Angeles, CA, (213) 365-8773

Heavy Noodling

Monterey Park

A hundred generations of Chinese chefs have probably regarded this restaurant’s specialty with horror — thick, clumsy, utterly delicious noodles that run somewhere between spaetzle and pappardelle, self-consciously rustic things that taste of themselves whether immersed in a deep, anise-scented beef broth or sautéed with what must be the authentic antecedent of mu shu pork. But the shaved-dough pasta — the Chinese name of the place is Shanxi Knife-Cut Noodle — has that good, dense bite you find more often in Bologna than you do in Monterey Park. Open daily 11 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5-9:30 p.m. Lunch and dinner daily. No alcohol. Lot parking in rear. Cash only. Entrées $6-$12. Chinese. (Jonathan Gold)

153 E. Garvey Ave., Monterey Park, CA, (626) 307-9583

Hi Thai Noodle

Hollywood

Both a collegiate hangout and a serious noodle shop, Hi Thai is a bright, noisy shotgun marriage between a fast-food restaurant and a high-style café. The menu is basic, a few different noodle dishes from the Bangkok street-food playbook assembled a few different ways; but this is a pretty good place to experience the offhanded excellence of real Thai cooking: vivid flavors, fresh ingredients and luscious textures, put together with something like love. Lunch and dinner seven days 24 hours. No alcohol. Street parking. MC, V. Lunch or dinner for two, food only, $10-$14. Thai. (Jonathan Gold)

5229 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA, (323) 46-4415

Hoan Kiem

Chinatown

After gallery openings on nearby Chung King Road, a certain percentage of the art crowd drifts down to this one-dish restaurant, a specialist in pho ga, Vietnamese chicken-noodle soup. When you order, or rather nod, the massive bowl of soup is on your table in about 15 seconds, yellow and chickeny, seasoned with nothing more elaborate than a sprig or two of cilantro and a handful of chopped scallions, with soft rice noodles cooked about a hundred steps past al dente into near gelatinousness, soup that makes the meager offerings of Junior’s or Nate ’n’ Al’s seem like so many bouillon cubes dissolved in tepid tap water. Open for lunch and dinner daily. No alcohol. Validated lot parking. Cash only. Lunch or dinner for two, food only, $10. Vietnamese. (Jonathan Gold) ¢

727 N. Broadway # 130, Chinatown, CA, (213) 617-3650

Hong Kong Low Deli

Chinatown

Open in time for early breakfast, Chinatown’s Hong Kong Low Deli serves what dim sum used to be back when everybody called them “teacakes,” i.e., dumplings without the parboiled geoduck and jellyfish salad. Baked bao, browned and hot and brushed with sticky syrup, are filled with barbecued pork in a sweet, garlicky sauce. Turnoverlike pies are made of flaky pastry, egg-washed to a deep, burnished gold, stuffed with chicken stew, barbecued pork or a truly fine pungent mince of curried beef. Lunch and dinner seven days 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. No alcohol. Takeout only. Cash only. Food for two, $3-$5. Chinese. (Jonathan Gold)Food for two, $3-$5.

408 Bamboo Lane, Chinatown, CA, (213) 680-9827

The Hump

Santa Monica

This little crow’s-nest sushi bar, named for a difficult Himalayan airway, sits atop Typhoon at the Santa Monica airport. Eat kampachi sashimi off Mineo Mizuno’s ceramics and watch the planes pop on and off the runway. Much of the fish comes directly from the famous Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, and the chefs can go as simple or sophisticated as you like. Try the chopped Tataki-style sashimi. Lunch Mon.-Fri. noon-2 p.m., dinner seven nights 6-10:30 p.m. Full bar. Lot parking. AE, DC, MC, V. Entrées $35-$150. Japanese. (Michelle Huneven)

3221 Donald Douglas Loop South, Third Floor, Santa Monica, CA, (310) 313-0977

Indo Cafe

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, thick with slippery glass noodles, garnished with handfuls of musky-tasting toasted betel-nut chips. Martabak telur, a scramble of meat, eggs and herbs folded into something like filo dough and fried, 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, stuffed mashed-potato fritter called perkedel, crisp-edged and fine, 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. Open Mon.–Thurs. 11:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m., Fri.–Sun. 11:30 a.m.–10 p.m. for lunch and dinner. D, MC, V. No alcohol. Takeout. Street parking. (Jonathan Gold)

10428 W. National Blvd., West Los Angeles, CA, (310) 815-1290

Ita-Cho

Ita-Cho inspires long lines on the weekends for its village-style Japanese cuisine. The food comes out on a series of little plates that can be shared by everyone; and, hey, if someone bogarts the sautéed miso-soaked eggplant, or marinated black cod, just order more. The kitchen and service staff are so swift, you’ll hardly notice the wait, and the prices aren’t punishing. Tues.-Sat. 6:30-10:15 p.m. Beer and sake. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. $20-$50. Japanese. (Michelle Huneven)

7311 W. Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, (323) 938-9009

Janty Noodle

West Covina

The food court may not seem a likely site for a culinary epiphany — you could look through every Smart & Final in the county without coming across plastic spoons as cheap and flimsy as the tableware here — but if you were to get your hands on an order of mie medan at Janty Noodle you might be inclined to disagree. Janty Noodle is the Hong Kong Plaza’s specialist in Indonesian-style Chinese mie, dense, crinkly mats of egg noodles steamed with a little oil, some bean sprouts and a wad of fresh greens, then served with a few grams of chicken, piles of sliced mushrooms, or paper-thin shavings of barbecued pork and a peppery crumble of sautéed chicken in the version called mie medan, which is a pretty basic bowl of food but has the exact gummy texture and the exact sharply ripe funk of a dish you might find in a Southeast Asian hawker center around breakfast time. A foam container of clear broth is served alongside in case you feel like moistening the noodles; plates of utterly forgettable Indonesian fritters and fried won tons are available too. Open Tues.–Sun. 10:30 a.m–8 p.m. No alcohol. Takeout. Cash only. Lunch for two, food only, $10. JG

Hong Kong Plaza Food Court, 989 S. Glendora Ave., No. 14, West Covina, CA, (626) 480-1808

Jinju Gomtang

In Seoul, there is reputedly a Hangover Alley, a narrow downtown street lined on both sides with restaurants dedicated to the art of the curative tonics known collectively as gomtang. In Koreatown, this 24-hour café is devoted to pale-bone broths garnished with oxtail or sliced brisket, as bland as oatmeal and twice as soothing. But the real specialty of the place, a soup you might consider having for lunch even if you weren’t on the wrong side of a bottle of soju, is the spicy haejanguk, a pottage of cabbage, chiles, scallions, garlic in a funky-fresh cow-part broth, garnished with little clots of blood and ready to come alive with the addition of a little sea salt and a lot of the restaurant’s house-made chile paste. Open daily, 24 hours. Full bar. Lot parking. AE, MC, V. Korean. (Jonathan Gold)

3377 Wilshire Blvd., No. 100, Los Angeles, CA, (213) 383-6789

Jollibee

Why do we love Jollibee? Is it the happy plastic mascot outside that looks like Big Boy crossed with an apple maggot? Could it be the goopy cheeseburgers, the fried chicken or the violet, boba-laden milkshakes made with the purple yam called ube? Might it be the palabok fiesta, squishy rice noodles glazed with shrimp, ground pork and fluffy fried-fish powder? Or is it just the sheer happiness involved in ordering Chickenjoy, Jolly Spaghetti and Yumburgers with cheese, which sound like formulations from the mind of George Orwell or Terry Southern? The fast-food chain, which has 500-odd outlets in the Philippines, has been resident in Cerritos for years, but the shiny, new outlet on Beverly near Vermont is its first freestanding foray into L.A. proper. You can get your ube shakes from the drive-through window. And Jollibee throws instructional Tagalog DVDs in with its kids’ meals instead of plastic Disney characters. What more could you want? Open daily 8 a.m.–10 p.m. No alcohol. Parking lot. AE, MC, V. American. (Jonathan Gold)

3821 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, (323) 906-8617

K.P.â€™s Deli

Silver Lake

We have always found the Vietnamese sandwiches, banh mi, at Buu-Dien in Chinatown to be better than good, even at the present historical moment, a time when the best places in Rosemead and Santa Ana feature house-made charcuterie, house-pickled condiments and hot baguettes that are practically baked to order. Buu-Dien’s delicate sandwiches have deep soul, also a funky liver paste that is pretty irresistible. But K.P.’s Deli in Silver Lake, a spare takeout joint tucked into what looks like the back of a travel agency, is a sandwich shop of a different order: Owner Khuong Pham, who spent years running giant commercial kitchens, also serves banh mi, but supersized to Philadelphia-hoagie proportions, massive portions of shredded chicken, sweetened beef or even tofu, crammed with cilantro, Vietnamese pickled vegetables and plenty of sliced chiles into muscular, crusty baguettes. It must be the culmination of a trencherman’s dream, banh mi as robust as a meatball hero; and although the sandwiches are about triple the price of their suave Rosemead brethren, it must be noted that most of them are still $6 or $7 a shot — even the mighty, charcuterie-stuffed banh mi dac biet, which K.P.’s has inelegantly dubbed the Kold Kut. Mon.–Fri. 11 a.m.–8 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m.–6 p.m. No alcohol. Takeout. Parking lot. AE, D, MC, V. JG

2616 Hyperion Ave., Silver Lake, CA, (323) 913-1818

Kani Mura

Kani Mura comes off as a little obsessive, a restaurant devoted to all things crab, from steamed crab to crab cakes, soft-shell crabs to crabs sautéed in the kind of Continental garlic-butter sauce you may never have experienced outside the context of a red-leather booth. It is pleasant to be confronted with the condition known as Too Much Crab, to pry cylinders of snowy meat from their expertly incised shells with long, narrow spoons, to season them with the rather tart ponzu sauce, to experience the calm of shellfish-fueled satori. Open Mon.-Sat. 5:30-10:30 p.m. AE, MC, V. Beer and wine. Lot parking $2.50. Dinner for two, food only, $35-$50. (Jonathan Gold)Dinner for two, food only, $35-$50.

456 E. Second St., Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, CA, (213) 617-1008

Kim Chuy

The basic deal at this noodle shop is, of course, the noodles: slippery rice noodles or firmer, square-cut egg noodles, submerged in broth, garnished with things like boiled duck legs and sliced pork. At Kim Chuy, the special noodles include duck and shrimp, squid and cuttlefish, and four kinds of fish cake; also floppy, herb-spiked won ton. The Chiu Chow beef-stew noodles come with melting shanks of tendon and hunks of long-simmered chuck. Chiu Chow spiced beef noodles come in a gritty, spicy demicurry, almost crunchy with ground nuts (another missing link between Chiu Chow cooking and Thai). Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily, 8 a.m.-8 p.m. No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. Food for two, $8-$10. Cash or AE, MC, V. (Jonathan Gold)Food for two, $8-$10.

727 N. Broadway, No. 103, Los Angeles, CA, (213) 687-7215

Kiriko