Famous locals love to eat in Los Angeles: cheeseburgers and French fries, tacos, hot dog with chili and cheese, pastrami sandwich, ice cream sandwich, French sauce sandwich, California roll, Cobb salad. Nowhere else in the United States will you find the concentration and magnitude of ramen dishes like in Los Angeles. West Los Angeles. And the nearby Tsujita annex is largely due to its rapid transformation (although it's not the first to offer abundant bowls of noodles and broth in Sawtelle).
Their tsukemen bowls of thick, overloaded pork noodles have become the new platonic ideal of what a great plate of perfect ramen should be. First, there is the claim of Pasadena as the creator of the cheeseburger. According to legend, The Rite Spot restaurant put a piece of American cheese in a hamburger for the first time, forever changing the way we think about hamburgers. As if that weren't enough, we have our own Southern California style, with thin slices of grilled meat, American cheese, a dash of Thousand Islands dressing, and plenty of lettuce.
You'll find the height of hamburger minimalism at places like Apple Pan, Pie N' Burger and Capitol Burger on Pico. If you want more than a dozen glass items to pick up before the office, the City of Los Angeles has Nickel Diner in downtown, Florida? Dried fruits on 3rd Street, the iconic Randy's Donuts in Inglewood and the Donut Man in Glendora. Even better? In a nutshell, Jim Nakano's very Donut Man, Jim Nakano's fresh seasonal strawberry treats are unmatched by any other American donut. One bite, and all of a sudden, the lines of Dominique Ansel's cronuts seem downright ridiculous.
It's almost unfair how well Los Angeles is handling the French fall. We may not own Philadelphia's Italian sausage sandwich or cheese steak, but when it comes to bread, beef, and so on, there's no better city. The idea of fresh seafood presented with glutinous rice pads doesn't belong to California, but we've done a great job popularizing this Japanese delicacy. Sushi rolls, although avoided by many purists, first gained popularity in the United States in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s, thanks to the burgeoning center of Little Tokyo that housed a restaurant known as Kawafuku.
Since then, sushi of all kinds has spread relentlessly, moving first like the tides where the freshest fish is found and, finally, moving inland to arid deserts such as Las Vegas and Phoenix. Mexican food is a big part of Los Angeles, because it's so close to Mexico. You'll find a wide variety of Mexican dishes, but tacos take the lead. From posh Mexican restaurants to food trucks and food stalls, tacos are everywhere in Los Angeles.
And if you get inspired and want to make your own, buy a tortilla press, some corn or wheat flour and your favorite taco fillings. Thai food has spread to many different parts of Los Angeles over time. Immigrant chefs have adapted dishes to suit the tastes of a new country, and other young chefs have been inventing new inventions as second-generation Thai-Americans. Everything from the most traditional dishes to the most recent inventions is offered, and not just in Koreatown.
Korean food is now part of mainstream cuisine in Los Angeles, and there's even some Korean-Mexican fusion showing up in more and more restaurants. From dim sum to Sichuan peppercorns, there's just about any type of Chinese food you could want. Some regional cuisines represented in Los Angeles include Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Guangxi, Beijing, Taiwan, Wuhan, Shaanxi, Yunnan, Chongqing, Hong Kong, Sichuan, Tianjin, Hunan, Xinjiang, Shanxi, Zhejiang, Liaoning, and Shenyang. McDonald's started in Los Angeles, when the brothers devised a way to sell as many hamburgers as quickly as possible (hence “fast food”).
The In-N-Out mega-chain also began in Los Angeles in 1948 in the San Gabriel Valley. Some people say that French sauce was invented at a Chinatown restaurant called Philippe's to make a dish with stale rolls. Other people insist that the sandwich was created at Cole's (a former train station that is now a trendy restaurant) for a customer with dental problems. Donuts are an important part of California's culture, and particularly in Los Angeles.
Donuts arrived in California from Cambodian immigrants, and the first store opened in 1975 by Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy, called Christy's Donuts. Ngoy helped hundreds of other Cambodian families manage their own independent donut shops. From the stickiness of an iconic strawberry donut to mozzarella covered pork ribs, we've compiled a list of foods to try in Los Angeles that will not only wake up your inner foodie, but will take you back for a few seconds (and then thirds). You might be forgiven for thinking that Los Angeles is all about fame and fortune, but in fact, Los Angeles isn't so much about finding a star as it is about the delicious and culturally diverse dining options available everywhere.
Everyone knows that if you want the best Korean food in Los Angeles, then you go to Mister Bossam's, and if you want to try his special dish, you order pork ribs with cheese. Consider this summary a friendly public service announcement to support the trustworthy establishments that have fueled Los Angeles over the years. Perfectly packed like the best wood-fired pizzas, these tasty slices are not only worthy of being among the best dishes to try in Los Angeles, but they're also one of its best-kept secrets. Los Angeles has a wide variety of foods, with lots of upscale restaurants and health-conscious diners with money to spend.
As if taco trucks weren't enough, Los Angeles has managed to capture the market with the best tacos, mobile or not. This place, a must see for its enormous variety of waffle sandwiches, will make your palate start dancing with the idea of devouring the best southern food in Los Angeles. By their count, there are more than two dozen distinctly regional Chinese food styles represented in Los Angeles County. Fried chicken, covered or not, at Dulan's Soul Food Kitchen in Inglewood is often cited as one of the best examples of comfort food and comfort food in Los Angeles.
It's hard to think of the best dishes in Otafuku, easily one of the best traditional Japanese restaurants in the Los Angeles area, but soba, made on site and served with 100 percent buckwheat noodles in limited quantities every day, always satisfies. Dry-aged whole fish is a trending dish in Los Angeles, thanks in large part to Del Valle's seafood restaurant, The Joint. While there's no shortage of great taco trucks in Los Angeles, Mariscos Jaliscos might be the most loved of all thanks to Raúl Ortega and his crispy shrimp tacos. .
