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Top Chef's Mei Lin wowed us with her elegant Arts District restaurant, Nightshade, and while her follow-up fried-chicken concept also wields Asian ingredients in innovative ways, Daybird manages to set itself apart—both from its predecessor, and from the rest of L.A.'s booming fried-chicken scene. Dusting tenders and massive planks of breaded chicken with a hot-and-numbing Sichuan spice blend, Daybird is unique in a sea of Nashville-style "hot" operations, providing heat from a different dot on the globe.