Some favorites

India Sweets and Spices (3126 Los Feliz Blvd. Los Angeles)
India Sweets and Spices, with its spacious, cafeteriaesque setting and visually unappetizing steam table is the closest I can get these days to Pudahara Bus Station, which was the closest I've gotten yet to India. Pudahara Bus Station isn't actually in India, it's in Malaysia. And for all I know, besides the many Indian-Malays that pass through the station, the host of food stands selling street food, and the suffocatingly hot air vents that dried my hair as soon as I walked in at 7 AM in route to a coastal Malaysian city, Pudahara may be nothing like India. Either way, I like to think it is, at least until I finally go to India. And I guess I like to think that India Sweets and Spices, with an ambiance based more on florescent lights than exotic murals and piped in sitar tracks, captures something closer to the daily experience of the Indian underclass than any posh Indian restaurant could hope to.

Located on the eastern fringes of Los Feliz, part of ISS functions as an Indian market which, by itself, is worth a trip, if nothing else than to walk the aisles and marvel at a selection of foods you obviously won't find at Trader Joe's. When you're finished shopping, cross over to the restaurant side and offer a gaze at the panoramic menu that looms over the counter.

If you're like me, rather indecisive, the kind of person that will opt for omakase or a waiter's recommendation over the agony of actually making a decision, you may find the most comfort in one of the set meals. The most expensive of the three, listing at a whopping $6.99, arrives in an elementary school-style sectioned tray and contains a simple salad (made a bit more complex with the addition of that ever so reliable and ubiquitous green sauce), a generous portion of rice, a selection of pickles that could fulfill one's sodium intake for a couple of days, two types of bread, a small serving of slightly sour yogurt, your choice of two of the entree items, ranging from a fairly tasty palak paneer, a competent dal, and a deceptively wonderful, subtly spice vegetarian combination to two or three other choices of the day, a samosa almost devoid of grease and a mango lassi. If you're still hungry, try one of the dosais. Or just head back to the market side. (B+)

El Huarachito (3010 N Broadway Los Angeles)
Mexican greasy spoon on Broadway. The kind of sunny, urban, well-trafficked spot that you're quite sure, upon the first look inside, local Mexican families approve of. Framed culturescapes of Mexico adorn the walls and they might be called tacky if they weren't so unbelievably right. Tacos arrive with the regular garnish of cilantro and tiny, diced onions on smog colored tortillas. Plates are pretty standard, but a nice lunch nonetheless. (B)

Foo Foo Tei (15018 Clark Ave. Hacienda Heights)
Foo Foo Tei is located on a cold palisade of concrete walls and sparse vegetation. It's one of the ugliest streets I've seen since my day stranded in Needles, CA. Somehow it just happens to contain two of my favorite restaurants in LA. If you get to Foo Foo Tei a bit early you might beat the crowds. If not, get ready to wait awhile. Inside, florescent lights and wooden paddles displaying the ramen selections function partially as ambiance, but the real aesthetic is provided by the parade of Japanese Americans-businesspeople and families on weekdays, baseball players, families, and couples on the weekends-huddled over giant steaming bowls of ramen. Aside from the noodles they come for simple dishes of grilled salmon, mackerel and squid, bowls of rice and eel, fried tofu, all waiting to be dressed with massive amounts of the chopped garlic that sits on each table. (A)

Soumarelo (1090 N Allen Pasadena)

Can you really objectively write about a place you visit as much out of some sort of largely baseless love for the owner as much as you visit for the food? Soumarello is such a place. You casually mention to the owner that you’ve heard good things about the soup. Five minutes later there is soup on your table. You spy a large plate that looks interesting heading for a table of five who appear to know how to order. “It’s not on the menu but I can make it for you…right now,” he says. In the end, though, the owner could be a complete monster and Soumarello would still be worth the visit. What do they serve at Soumarello? Whole chickens, as delicate as snowflakes, waiting to be deconstructed and dipped into tiny cups of potent garlic paste. Fragrant rice. Sandwiches filled with crisp falafel and just the right amount of taziki sauce, pickled vegetables and lettuce. Steamy, perfectly savory, chickpea soup. Everything is nice. I will say that I still prefer the mutabal at Zankou. (A-)

Ciro’s (705 N Evergreen Ave. Los Angeles)

Ciro’s appears as I suspect it looked twenty, maybe thirty years ago: wood-paneled walls with generic beer signs placed with no philosophy for design. Comfortable wrap-around booths, perhaps meant for a post burrito slumber, sit next to square tables. A jukebox with East LA favorites rests in a corner. It feels somewhat like a cross between your friend’s basement and a bar from a dive from a Peckinpah film that hasn’t yet been made. Everyone loves the tight, cylindrical flautas, not too oily, dipped liberally in sour cream and fresh guacamole. The tacos, equally lacking in grease, are topped with a virtual mound of shredded chicken, but somehow seem to hold together on the trip to one’s mouth. What I really love, aside from the entrees, are the condiments: bowls of the freshest guacamole I’ve ever found, chunks of avocado that seem to have just been cut, swimming with cilantro and onion and, secondly, the salsa, darker than most tomato based concoctions, fiery in taste, dominated by bits of black chilies and chunks of green ones. (A)

Zankou (5065 W Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles)

The mutabal at Zankou is in its own league among the adequate menu of wraps, plates and side items. It may be my favorite single item in LA, at least in the realm of things I would most want to have an endless bowl of as I watch a football game. There's a characteristic smokiness to the product that begs the question of why the owners don't offer a complimentary beer the same way a snooty pub might with good cheese. The chicken wraps, coated with just the right amount of a suitably potent garlic sauce are pretty good as well. As are the pickles. And the tabouli. But make sure you try the mutabal. (A-)

Akasaka (14926 Clark Ave. Hacienda Heights)

Akasaka can be found on the same lonely stretch of road that contains one of the best lunch spots in the world, Foo Foo Tei. When you first make your way into the restaurant you’re greeted with the sound of water from a bubbling fountain just as you duck your head under the hanging piece of stenciled fabric that marks the way to the main door inside. There’s a small outdoor seating area, but I can’t ever resist the pleasure of sitting inside. Upon entrance you may run into someone, or push the door against their back, as there will likely be a cramped line filling the tiny foyer that you first encounter. If you have a reservation, you’re good. If not, you may be in for a wait. The restaurant is about the size of a master bedroom (at the most) and is divided between the main area and two semi-private side areas (one more private than the other). Signed photos of stars that probably don’t even know they’re stars vie for space with what appear to be family pictures and computer printouts of the roll offerings. There are no windows and no visible doors beside the one you enter through. It’s all a bit cozy to say the least. And in the center of it all, at least spiritually, is the sushi chef, the owner's daughter, handling the customers at the bar and the fish with equal ease.

What about the fish? Everything at Akasaka seems big and bloated. The Rainbow Roll, a plump specimen that as much in common with the Hollenbeck burrito at El Tepeyac as with a Rainbow Roll at any fru-fru LA sushi joint, is worth every bit of the $25 it costs. The Salmon Skin Salad, a not too salty marriage of large amounts of crisp salmon skin, avocado and daikon radish sprouts, is sometimes more salmon than salad, but consistently good. There’s a great seafood udon bowl containing (you guessed it) a pile of sea-going creatures swimming in a briny broth that reminds you of where they came from. And then there are combination platters that combine decent teriyaki with sashimi. The only downer I’ve ever really had here is the $65 platter combo, sort of the combination “boat” of Akasaka. It seemed a little long on fried chicken and tempura in comparison to the other stuff. Not so much my thing. The Chirashi Sushi bowl is more my thing. The dish contains 20-25 pieces of sashimi- salmon, shrimp, yellowtail, tuna, liver, uni, scallop, squid and more, sitting simply and unadorned, the way I like it most- neatly arranged atop a bowl of sweetly seasoned rice topped with tempura flakes. You even get the shrimp head, deep-fried as an appetizer. (A)

Ord Noodles (5401 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles)

Somewhere in a cave in northern Thailand, or maybe in some monastery, or maybe in a Bangkok prostitute's suitcase is a secret box containing the recipes for the first two dishes at Ord Noodle. At least that's how I imagine it. "Number one dry, and number two wet." Or maybe it's the other way around. Really, they're really nothing more than simple examples of Thai "boat noodles," so called, I guess, as they are/were served off of slender riverboats in the nation's capital. Medium spice is usually more than enough. Taken apart the dishes are micro-repositories of complex spices, sensation-inducers and flavors that might be allowed to speak for a country if an ambassador was busy. Together, they're pretty much the Thai version of McCartney and Lennon. The plates of crispy pork with rice, which sometimes might be seen on every table in the restaurant, are equally addictive, though perhaps doubly bad for your arteries. The seafood noodle soup is basically a version of the #1 with seafood instead of terrestrial animals. You really can't make a bad choice. Or at least I never have. Order a Thai iced tea, sit back in the Eames chairs, and wander around the collage of pictures on the wall. Don't worry about taking it all in the first time as you'll probably be back. (A)