Surviving the seven deadly sins at Anjin

PHOTO by RICK POON
Dining at Anjin is a practice of patience, a lesson in how to temper your hunger while you wait at a place so perpetually packed that it logs hour-long lines 10 minutes after opening. But every eater at Anjin knows this. Some decide to kick around [...]

Paradise bridges Rainbow Row’s bar gap

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Even if you’ve never eaten at Paradise, chances are you can probably describe the place—a brick box that stands out in mid-’90s Miami style, with checkered tiles and metal planters and neon lights pulling your eyes away from the road. The restaurant/bar needs to stand out, though, [...]

Sliding past the sushi bar at Koi

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Scoot up to the sushi bar at Koi and you begin a familiar ritual: figure out the day’s freshest fish, order a couple cuts and then snap your chopsticks apart, shaving away splinters until the things are whittled down to dull little spears. It’s a second-nature [...]

K.C. Branaghan’s gets Irish food right

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Often lost among comfort cuisine that’s perhaps easier to come by (your baked mac and cheeses, chicken fried rices, Meat Lover’s Pizzas and the like), Irish meals work best when you’ve got nothing left in you—no fight and no food, though a pint of Guinness is surely [...]

Falling for Vegi Wokery’s meatless meat

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
It’s not exactly culinary subterfuge, but nothing at Vegi Wokery is quite what it seems. That’s because nearly all of the restaurant’s dishes can be snuck inside a pair of quotation marks—the “chicken” isn’t chicken, the “fish” isn’t even from the sea. But it all makes sense [...]

Baja Fish perfects the fragile fish taco

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Like so many ocean-adjacent restaurants before it, San Pedro’s Baja Fish is positively nautical: tables, stools and walls washed over in varying shades of sea-borne blue, every corner covered in aquatic paraphernalia, glossy groups of fish, scaly mirrors and sculptures and gaping sets of shark jaws. [...]

Café Ambrosia adds even more veggie delights

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Stuck right in the middle of Broadway, Café Ambrosia is a well-kept local secret, a hidden garden filled with unexpected Mediterranean delights. In the mornings and afternoons, it’s a lush, sunny place serving mimosas and hibiscuses (buy one and get each subsequent one for 50 percent [...]

Pâtes Fraîches pushes past the red sauce set

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Circle a block or two in the East Village and you’re bound to pass by at least a few empty windows. It starts slowly, but it’s a vacant trend that grows at each turn, corner shops and cafes blocked out by butcher paper and leasing [...]

Beyond fusion with Kotosh’s transcontinental tastes

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Kotosh seems like it is a world away, located a stuttering drive down PCH past tangles of pipes and smokestacks and into those worn-down blocks beyond the 710. But that’s only half the trip. The rest finishes up in Lomita, where palms shoot up from nearly every [...]

La Parolaccia’s expansion means you now have even more reasons to visit

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Bread sticks at Ecco’s. Minestrone at Brogino’s. House salad (and suckers!) at Domenico’s. Tequila chicken at Pasta al Dente. If you were to trace my years growing up in Long Beach like a progressive dinner through some of the city’s best—and, [...]