Patricia Kelly Yeo

L.A. is bursting with phenomenal food from every cuisine—Indian, Mexican, Korean, you name it—but the French food scene here is alive, well and better than ever. From traditional French cooking to experimental prix-fixe menus, food from the tres chic country takes a number of forms. But where to start? If you're looking for some top-notch places to get your steak frites fix—or maybe just a really good omelet—check out our guide to L.A.’s best French restaurants.

In a city known for its vegetarian and vegan appeal, we sometimes forget about the bounty of steakhouses serving prime cuts of meat around L.A. True, Angelenos tend to prefer their red meat in Korean barbecue form, but there's nothing like a steakhouse to seal the deal on an important contract or impress someone after a great first date. These protein-heavy joints are the ideal spot to kick back with a martini or two, level up a relationship (or, you know, not) and find solace with other meat-eaters. Check out our list of the best steakhouses in L.A., and keep your knives at the ready. RECOMMENDED: Read more of our guide to the best restaurants in L.A.

If you’ve already eaten through L.A.’s best restaurants and sipped cocktails at the hottest bars from the Westside to Downtown, you’re probably the type of person who loves checking out the city’s hottest eateries, but hates spending money on overhyped duds. With our heavily vetted list of newly opened restaurants (yes, we’ve personally checked out every single one), we’re helping you decide where to head next—since there’s nothing worse when it comes to going out than wasting one’s precious, typically limited free time and, of course, money. Updated on a monthly basis, our best new restaurants list takes into account the quality of cuisine, overall ambience, price and value. We steer clear of the social media hype cycle (hello, TikTok!), give thoughtful ordering tips and let you know exactly what to expect in terms of crowd, vibe and cuisine at fine dining spots, laidback fast-casual joints and everything in between. If necessary, we also make recommendations as to when, and how, to fit these red-hot restaurants into your finite leisure time and budget—whether they’re worth driving out of your way for, or perhaps better suited for locals in the neighborhood. In the interest of price transparency and reader convenience, we also strive to include valet costs and parking availability for every restaurant—further taking the headache out of your next great new meal in Los Angeles. Read on for December’s best new restaurants, ranked.  December 2023: To round out the end of the yea

Within the densely populated blocks of Koreatown, you’ll find the most diverse and high-quality array of Korean restaurants in the United States. If you’re wholly unfamiliar with Korean cuisine, there’s no better place to start than to explore its various strip mall restaurants—a task that might take the better part of a lifetime. Still, there’s a few eateries outside Koreatown worth paying attention to, including a few places serving Korean barbecue and a new-school restaurant in the Arts District. As a starting guide, we’ve rounded up the city’s very best Korean eateries, both inside and outside of Koreatown. While many do offer bulgogi and galbi now known and loved across the country, we’ve also included a great many other restaurants that specialize in other dishes equally worthy of recognition. Think seafood, bubbling cauldrons of tofu soup or kimchi stew, noodle dishes, dumplings and more. If you’ve only experienced the barbecue side of things, consider this a solid introduction to the rest of L.A.'s Korean cuisine.

Contrary to popular belief, winter does exist in Los Angeles. For a few fleeting months, the Santa Ana winds litter our streets with palm fronds, cravings for ramen and pho are at an all-time high and, yes, even the leaves change colors (you might just have to drive to see them). So when the sun sets early and that Pacific Ocean breeze blows in, it’s time to head for the fire pits and other cozy places around L.A. These fireplace bars are keeping us warm with crackling flames and seasonal cocktails all fall and winter long. Now—let’s get lit!

Over the course of this year, I’ve dined at hundreds of local restaurants as Time Out’s L.A. food and drink editor—and that’s not counting a couple takeout orders and other off-the-clock meals thrown in for good measure. Along the way, I tried plenty of sushi, tacos and pizza to keep our dish-specific guides au courant, and researched and wrote our first-ever guide to L.A.’s best fried chicken. Of the hundreds of dishes I’ve sampled, here are my 12 favorites from last December through this Thanksgiving. While not every item on this list is available in L.A. on a regular basis, I’ve only included dishes you could reasonably expect to find tomorrow, next week or next month—whether at a traditional restaurant or across the country in New York City. Some were simply new to me, while others came from entirely brand-new restaurants; either way, I hope you’ll take the time to seek out at least a few that speak to you. One of the greatest joys of living in Los Angeles is the access to some of the country’s most amazing food, and it’d be a shame not to try something—or somewhere—new in 2024. These are Time Out L.A.’s best dishes of the year. RECOMMENDED: The best new restaurants of 2023

Also known simply as the Valley, the San Fernando Valley is the sprawling suburban expanse of Los Angeles that nearly two million Angelenos call home. Across the 260 square miles, you’ll find plenty of chain restaurants, but look a little deeper and you’ll find a wealth of dining options, including many of the city’s best sushi bars, amazing Thai food and affordable options for Filipino, Syrian and Sri Lankan cuisine. If you include Glendale (which some 818 locals consider a separate entity), the Valley is also home to the city’s best kebabs. There are taco stands and torta shops, Michelin star joints and L.A. icons—so many, in fact, it was hard to put this guide together!  Kick off your 818 dining journey with our starter list to dining in the San Fernando Valley (and the very best restaurants in Glendale, which has its own list here), then wander over to the place next door in the strip mall you’ll invariably find yourself in—you just might find another hidden gem.

If you're spending this December checking out holiday lights, decorating your tree and shopping for gifts, you might not exactly have the mental bandwidth to plan, shop and cook for a big Christmas gathering at home. That's where some of L.A.’s best restaurants come in. Whether you're hoping to dine in this year or don't celebrate Christmas at all (the best Chinese restaurants, anyone?), we've gathered the best restaurants open for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2023.Take advantage of your ability to leave the house this year, support L.A.'s small businesses and enjoy a hassle-free Christmas gathering with loved ones at these amazing restaurants offering both á la carte and multi-course prix-fixe Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals—no dishwashing by you required. Make sure to book ahead and then just relax! Christmas dinner’s ready.RECOMMENDED: Check out our entire guide to Christmas in Los Angeles

As 2023 comes to a close, it’s time for our small and seemingly tireless (but maybe a little bit tired) team of editors at Time Out Los Angeles to look back at the venues, events and timely oddities that brought us the most joy this year. We spent countless hours scoping out movie theater reopenings and museum expansions, feasting on fried chicken and sushi, and eating our way through every single vendor at the Original Farmers Market. Amid all that, these are the dozen new spots that really left an impression on us. Some of our Best of the City picks are one-time events or ephemeral pop-ups that we thought deserved some recognition, but the bulk of these new restaurants, music venues and attractions are spots that you can get out and see this very second—and absolutely should.

In 2023, I visited an average of six new restaurants a month across greater Los Angeles for Time Out. Among them, I found solid date night spots and neighborhood joints, plus a handful of truly great places, one of which already ranks among the city’s very best. I also witnessed the gradual revival in Downtown’s dining scene and ate at a lot of overpriced, overhyped restaurants. Oddly enough, there were more notable openings in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood than anywhere else in L.A.—a boon for anyone who’s complained about the relatively boring dining scenes in both parts of L.A. This was the year that Evan Funke added a crown jewel to his pasta empire. From dining destinations like Frogtown’s Loreto and Downey’s El Muelle 8 to new-school food trucks like Silver Lake’s Simón and Mariscos Mar-Es in the Arts District, Mexican-style seafood specialists had a well-reserved moment in the sun. Red-sauce joints like Beverly Hills’ La Dolce Vita and Donna’s in Echo Park preyed on our weakness for nostalgia for decades past; the same could be said of TikTok-famous Fluffy McCloud’s and Drake’s Hollywood. Out-of-town restaurant groups from Tokyo, Osaka, Boston, Dallas, New York City, New Orleans, Milan and Toronto also decided 2023 was the year to set up shop in L.A.—and though I tried essentially all of them, just one of them made it onto our list of the best new restaurants of 2023.  In truth, L.A.’s restaurant and bar business is a tougher nut to crack than out-of-towners might t

Time might be a flat circle, but it's almost time to say goodbye to 2023. As you get prepared to celebrate Christmas and the busy season of holiday parties and family gatherings, New Year's Eve is just around the corner—and for a more food-centric holiday celebration, these L.A. restaurants and bars are offering prix-fixe menus and other festivities to help you celebrate the start of a new year.  Whether you're looking for more of a party atmosphere with a live DJ and sparklers, a classy but more relaxed New Year’s Eve dinner or a pulling out all the stops caviar-and-champagne kind of deal, here's where to have dinner on New Year's Eve.Editor's note: Check back in early December for more New Year's Eve dinner options as restaurants announce their holiday plans. RECOMMENDED: Our guide to New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles

There’s no question that Los Angeles has one of the largest offerings of dim sum in America. In the San Gabriel Valley—a place once advertised to would-be immigrants as the "Chinese Beverly Hills"—dim sum restaurants are the de facto brunch spots, drawing lines of people attracted to the hustle and bustle of this culinary tradition. But dim sum's reach has grown to encompass neighborhoods within the city's official limits, including serviceable options available in Hollywood and parts of the Westside. Whether you flag down dumplings from a push cart or opt for a more upscale dining experience, here’s your guide to the best dim sum restaurants in L.A. RECOMMENDED: Have a meal at the best restaurants in L.A.

After a year of sitting vacant, the former James Beach space is now Si! Mon, Venice’s most exciting restaurant to open in literal years. If the old venue—an iconic Westside queer space and locals’ watering hole—reflected the needs and wants of a bygone, more eclectic and affordable era in the beachside neighborhood, the new Central American restaurant exemplifies the type of place desired by the area’s new set of monied locals: Stylish, pricey and intended for those willing to casually drop $150 apiece on dinner and drinks. Luckily, head chef José Carles generally, but not always, justifies the expense with impeccably made raw dishes, yuca tostadas (a carryover from Carles’ globally recognized Fonda Lo Que Hay in Panama City) and other small-to-medium plates that distill the country’s Chinese, Spanish and Afro-Caribbean culinary influences into a delicious meal, the likes of which you can’t find anywhere else in Los Angeles. While not L.A’s first Panamanian restaurant—that title goes to Mid-Wilshire’s Caribbean Soul Food Kitchen, a casual joint serving oxtails, jerk chicken and Latin American staple stew sancocho—Si! Mon offers an upscale, seafood-centric interpretation of the country’s cuisine that introduces Angelenos to lesser-known ingredients like pixbae, a peach-sized palm fruit with an earthy flavor, and yuca, an oft-fried root vegetable indigenous to South America and the Caribbean. Stick with the smaller seafood starters and you’ll find out just why World’s 50 Best r

For certain Angelenos, a crowded room with loud music, pricey drinks and a sticky floor is somehow the ideal way to hang out with a friend, meet someone new and even—shockingly!—enjoy themselves. For everyone else, there’s Alma’s Cider and Beer, an intimate Virgil Village bar that’s the opposite of every single one of those descriptors. Specializing in a global assortment of cider but offering both namesakes, the cozy Silver Lake-adjacent bar might not have your typical standard cocktail fare, but Alma’s delectable bar bites (namely, waffles), ultra-chill atmosphere and knowledgeable bartenders more than make up for it.  Unlike most Los Angeles drinking dens, you can actually hear yourself think inside Alma’s, which plays an eclectic collection of domestic and international jazz at just-below conversational level, as you ponder its collection of over 100 unique ciders and glance at the mirrored menu on the wall listing whatever’s on draft that week. Spend enough time inside and your eyes might wander around the bar’s dark blue interior, which hosts a few spare prints on the wall and not much else. However, closer inspection of the windowsill will reveal Alma’s adorable Easter egg: Z scale miniature scenes, which owner Lee Briante—formerly of Echo Park’s still-closed Button Mash—took up making in quarantine. In all-too-common moments of decision paralysis, Alma’s bartenders—including Briante himself—will gladly help guide you towards whatever you might be in the mood for. Swee

If you love the smell of gingerbread, this branded pop-up in Highland Park might be up your alley. From December 1 to 24 (Thursday to Sunday, 11am–6pm), you can stop in and view the life-sized gingerbread recreation of parts of Flamingo Estate, the lifestyle brand headquarted at an impeccably decorated Eagle Rock home that's been featured in the New York Times' T and other glossy fashion and lifestyle publications. You can also "shop" a Mytheresa's fashion showroom, including gingerbread replicas of Vivienne Westwood dresses and Bottega Veneta's famous sardine bag, by using QR codes. Stop by the Flamingo Estate retail pop-up next door for adorably shaped $6 gingerbread cookies—100% of cookie proceeds will be donated to LAUSD schools.  

The wait can be killer, but this eye-catching deep blue lonchera with two locations—Silver Lake’s Sunset Triangle Plaza and a roving location near Sawtelle—serves some of the most creative mariscos in town, including a unique fish al pastor ($4.50). Drawing upon culinary school training, Francisco Aguilar serves a seasonally driven menu of tacos, tostadas, ceviches and aguachiles that pack acid, flavor and heat all into one delicious, beautiful package. If available, be sure to get the soft-shell crab taco ($5.50), but you also can’t go wrong with the fish al pastor and enchilada suiza ($4.50)—a mouthwatering mix of grilled shrimp, melted cheese, habanero lime crema, avocado slices and salsa verde. Best of all, Simón offers a selection of colorful, ultra-fiery salsas that add even more zhuzh to your meal.

Drawn by the sight of glistening trompos, we’ve sampled al pastor all over town, hoping for a taste of sweet, porky nirvana—and now we’ve found it. While Leo’s continues to offer delicious, highly accessible al pastor (the kind that’ll never fail in your time of need), this South L.A. taco cart parked off the 110 freeway offers the absolute best taco al pastor ($2.75) in the city. Only available after 5pm (though the cart opens in the morning), Tacos Los Güichos serves the beautifully charred, slightly smoky meat sans the pineapple and avocado salsa other taqueros rely on to compensate for not-so-great al pastor. During the day, you’ll still find great cuts of offal like lengua and tripas, but the trompo is the true star here. Arrive in the evening and anoint your taco with their delicious salsa verde, or perhaps the subtly fiery salsa roja, and you won’t find a better taco al pastor in Los Angeles.

This beloved Orange County taqueria has finally expanded to Huntington Park, putting amazing mesquite-grilled meats within a short driving distance for much of Los Angeles. Open until midnight most days of the week (and 1am on Fridays and Saturdays), Tacos Los Cholos serves some of the best street meats on tortillas we’ve ever had. Yes, we mean ever. Three price tiers—regular ($2.35), premium ($3.50), prime ($7.50)—offer a wealth of flavors, from the chewy, perfectly grilled panela cheese to the ultra-tender rib eye. Our suggestion for first-timers? Go for mid-tier options like the costilla de res (pork ribs) and arrachera (skirt steak), which strike the balance between affordability and quality. Tacos Los Cholos’ self-serve topping station includes a creamy chipotle mayo, cucumbers and several varieties of salsa, ranging from mild to heart-stopping.

It’s all in the name at Inglewood’s Carnitas El Artista, where Gustavo Chavez’s tender, slow-cooked Michoacan-style cuts of pork and offal will have you second-guessing the definition of carnitas. Best mixed with ribs, lengua and cabeza (though you can also order pure carnitas), the carnitas here offers a craveworthy mix of textures, from crispy to soft and buttery, plus a seriously aromatic mix of garlic, lime and spices. Order it inside tacos ($4.35), tucked into a burrito, heaped onto a platter of rice and beans or paired with chilaquiles for breakfast—the vehicle matters less than the meat itself, which is among the best carnitas in the city. The squeeze of lime and trio of housemade salsas simply gild the lily.

Can we be honest? We’ve never understood the hype around Sonoratown—whose flour tortillas often turn gluey and somewhat hard by the time we receive our tacos. Now that we’ve visited Tacos La Rueda, however, we completely understand the fervor over smoky meats, flour tortillas and sinus-clearing red salsas. This Bellflower strip mall joint offers the best Sonoran-style taco experience in L.A., with buttery, pliant flour tortillas that travel well, but taste even better eaten right on the spot. The carne asada, al pastor and crispy, crackly beef tripas are all winners here, as is the tender beef cabeza (available as a daily special), whether adorning a simple taco ($3.50 to $4) or piled into a decadent caramelo—which adds pinto beans, Monterey Jack cheese, guacamole and grilled Anaheim chiles into the mix. Stop by on the weekends for a soul-warming menudo.

For old-school mariscos fans, there’s nothing more satisfying than a simple mixed seafood coctel served with a couple tostadas. If you’d prefer to experience a newer, zanier side of Mexican seafood, head to this Arts District lunchtime seafood truck, where new-school creations like octopus con papas ($6), smoked marlin tacos dorados with Oaxaca cheese ($2.50) and some seriously great shrimp aguachile ($7.50) await. While you’ll find the classics here, we’d rather steer you towards the new-school stuff, like the Peruvian-inspired ceviche blanco and the excellent aguachile rojo. Be sure to check ahead on Instagram before going to see if Mar-Es is open—the truck closes for catering gigs from time to time and occasionally decamps to Alhambra.

This Compton carne asada specialist relocated to Long Beach a couple of years ago, bringing Sinaloa-style chorreados (a type of carne asada) to the LBC. At Tacos La Carreta, each corn tortilla gets slathered with lard, then topped with asada and a hearty cabbage-thickened salsa. Add cheese to make it a vampiro—just be sure to get the grilled onions and hot peppers, too. It’s a delicious taco, and towards the center, where the meat juices and cheese have pooled and the tortilla is softer, it’s also a little like a delicious cheeseburger. You can also swap your tortilla for a baked potato, if you’d like to switch things up. Wash everything down with agua de cebada, which uses barley instead of rice for a creamy, horchata-like drink.

Run by the same family behind longtime Lebanese restaurant Skaf’s, this fried chicken sandwich spot in Glendale serves seven different fried chicken sandwiches that bring varying levels of heat and flavor to the game. The one constant, however, is the juicy breaded chicken breast at the basis of each sando, which plays beautifully with sweet chili glaze (the Wok), habanero buffalo sauce (the Nitro) and a Nashville-esque house spice rub (the Heater). No matter which one you order, you can’t go wrong with the high-quality ingredients and quick turnaround time.

Inside a cramped West 8th Street strip mall, this new-school Korean fried chicken joint serves one of the best fried chicken sandwiches in town. While you can take or leave the regular chicken (and honestly, given the number of amazing Korean fried chicken joints, we’d leave it), Chimmelier offers a surprisingly delicious, Korean-inflected take on the humble fried chicken sandwich. A crispy chicken breast gets topped with a spicy pickled red cabbage slaw, dashi mayo, perilla leaf and lacto-fermented pickles. It’s massive and crunchy, and all those pickled goods give each bite a refreshing edge. There’s more than fried chicken, too, with sides such as chapsal cheese balls, cauliflower nuggets, and kimchi fried rice packed into a Shin Ramyun cup. You can also catch Chimmelier every Sunday at Smorgasburg in the Arts District.

With a few exceptions, it’s been a slow year in terms of openings in Los Angeles—all the more reason to enjoy the city’s very best restaurants instead of flocking to the newest, hottest thing. That being said, 2024 is shaping up to be a banner year for new restaurants in L.A., with many of the most anticipated openings in 2023 having been delayed to the point they’ll open early next year. In the new year, local, national and even international players will enter L.A.’s ever-changing dining and drinking scene, including long-awaited pristine sushi that can trace its lineage back to Jiro Dreams of Sushi's Jiro Ono and a couple of Michelin-starred restaurants that are expanding with second locations in L.A. Will they succeed? Only time will tell. Until then, read on for our guide to the 10 biggest L.A. restaurant openings to know for 2024.  Photograph: Paul Wagtouicz for Time OutTamago from Sushi Nakazawa New York Sushi Nakazawa LA Anticipated opening: By March Jiro Dreams of Sushi fans, look alive: Jiro Ono’s longtime protégé, Daisuke Nakazawa, is still planning to set up shop in West Hollywood. Though the opening has been delayed at least a full year (we included it on 2023’s buzzy openings guide), reps tell us the plan is to open sometime this winter. Located at 145 North Robertson Boulevard, Sushi Nakazawa LA is the third location for the chef’s longtime apprentice, who also maintains outposts in Washington D.C. and New York City (both of which have Michelin stars). Based

Table at Third & Fairfax is a weekly dining column in 2023 where Food and Drink editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will eat her way through the Original Farmers Market. Each column will drop on Thursday for a week-by-week recap of her journey through the classic L.A. tourist attraction. Last week, Kelly (re)visited Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts. As usual, the sun is unrelenting on my weekly visit to the Original Farmers Market. Even in December, it’s 81 degrees in central L.A., limiting my patience as I navigate the parking lot and make my way past the fruit and vegetable stands in search of something to eat. The market has put up its Christmas tree and decorated the clock tower with enormous garlands, though, which puts me in a slightly better mood. On my way to visit Michelina, I decide to order a small chocolate peppermint milkshake ($8) from Local Ice, which mixes a chocolate sauce-drizzled cup with a vanilla peppermint and chocolate ice cream shake, then tops the whole thing off with whipped cream and crushed peppermint candies. It’s five days into December, and the only holiday drinks I’ve had thus far have contained alcohol—my own homemade eggnog, plus some warm cider-inspired cocktail from newly opened speakeasy Cold Shoulder. The blessedly non-alcoholic shake offers just the right amount of minty flavor, and the peppermint candy is crushed finely enough that it dissolves in my mouth rather than sticking to my teeth. I’m tempted to finish the whole thing on the spot, but I know I

Table at Third & Fairfax is a weekly dining column in 2023 where Food and Drink editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will eat her way through the Original Farmers Market. Each column will drop on Thursday for a week-by-week recap of her journey through the classic L.A. tourist attraction. Two weeks ago, Kelly (re)visited Nonna’s Empanadas. In a bid for work-life balance, I took the week of Thanksgiving off from this column—my first since starting Table at Third & Fairfax 48 weeks ago. By the time I return to the Original Farmers Market on Tuesday morning, I’m refreshed and ready to tackle the last five weeks of eating here. The Christmas decorations are already up in advance of the market’s early Christmas celebration which will happen this Sunday, December 3, from 2 to 7pm. It’s still early in the morning, so the market is fairly empty; most of the vendors haven’t opened up shop for the day yet. Today, I’m headed to Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts (est. 1970) for a second look at the excellent deep-fried sweets, which easily clinched a spot on my guide to L.A.’s best doughnuts.  The shelves are full when I walk up to the stand, and it’s hard to make a selection when I decide to put together a box. There are a few cake doughnuts, those amazing apple fritters and even a New Orleans-style beignet, as well as the usual yeast-raised suspects. I decide on five different doughnuts, bringing me to a total of $16.90: an enormous apple fritter; one of the beignets; a maple bar; a glazed yeast-raised

“Very Niche, But Where Can I Find” is a new recurring column where Food & Drink Editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will track down, and in some cases try, hard-to-find food and drink items across Los Angeles. Have an elusive dish or drink you’d like to know where to find? Email p.kelly.yeo@timeout.com. “What is that, exactly?”  “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any passion fruit liqueur.” “I think we’re out of Passoã.” This summer, after an evening of scrolling through online menus, a half-dozen Instagram inquiries, unsuccessful phone calls and a failed attempt to walk in and blindly order at the Roger Room, I finally located a bar near me capable of making a porn star martini. Though popular in London (the drink’s birthplace) and across the UK, the passion-fruit-based cocktail remains fairly unknown in the United States, where the mere mention of the drink’s name sends people into fits of laughter, leaves many bartenders scratching their heads and activates Google’s SafeSearch function. As a result, it’s also extremely difficult to find in Los Angeles—though not impossible.  The orange-hued drink’s original recipe comes from the late London bar owner Douglas Ankrah, who first served the cocktail in 2002 at his now-closed bar, Townhouse. According to a 2017 interview, Ankrah wanted to make a drink that personified the attributes of “bold, sexy and playful.” It consists of vanilla vodka, passion fruit purée, lime juice, simple syrup and Passoã liqueur, a Brazilian spirit. After shaking, th

Two and half hours after opening to the public, nearly every spot is taken in the underground parking lot of 99 Ranch Market in Westwood. Located across the street from beloved Persian ice cream shop Saffron & Rose, the store is technically in soft-open mode until November 29. Still, a mix of nearby students in UCLA sweatshirts and mostly Asian locals are already eagerly perusing, pulling small red shopping baskets behind them as they stock up on rice paper, frozen dumplings, imported chips and cookies, instant noodles and other foodstuffs. While many items are geared toward Chinese and Taiwanese home cooking, you can also find ingredients for Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean and Thai cuisine. For most Asian Americans living on the Westside, sourcing these ingredients has long required a trip on the currently partially closed 10 freeway to the San Gabriel Valley, which offers four 99 Ranch locations plus plenty of other independent Chinese- and Taiwanese-oriented grocery stores. With the opening of this Asian supermarket giant, that’s completely changed—the brand brings an array of ingredients that are difficult to find in American grocery stores to a large swath of Los Angeles. (Note: There are Japanese supermarkets like Marukai, Nijiya and Mitsuwa available on the Westside, plus H Mart and other Korean grocery stores in Koreatown, but they typically lack many products for traditional Chinese and Taiwanese cooking.)  Photograph: Patricia Kelly Yeo for Time Out While the upstai

Table at Third & Fairfax is a weekly dining column in 2023 where Food and Drink editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will eat her way through the Original Farmers Market. Each column will drop on Thursday for a week-by-week recap of her journey through the classic L.A. tourist attraction. Last week, Kelly (re)visited Market Chicken Rotisserie. The nights have finally gotten chilly and the Christmas decorations are up at the Original Farmers Market, where I visited this past Tuesday around 8pm for a quick snack before a nearby sushi dinner on West 3rd. On my return to Nonna’s Empanadas (est. 2017), I find most of the pastry case empty, presenting me with a common conundrum for those who arrive at restaurants on the later side of things: What’s left to order that’s still good? On my visit, the stall is out of all Argentine-style beef pastries, nearly all chicken varieties (except with jalapeño) and most sweet empanadas. Some of the ones that remain look misshapen and unappetizing, and I start to wonder if I should just try to come back the next morning for the best pick of the bunch.  After a few minutes (and revisiting my jam-packed eating schedule for the next few days), I decide to try picking through the stragglers for the most appetizing ones. Priced at $5.25 apiece, I order the chicken and jalapeño as well as the carnitas. Within seconds, they’re in my hands in a cardboard box. Taking a seat at the counter, I alternate bites of each still-warm empanada, finding that even the less de

Table at Third & Fairfax is a weekly dining column in 2023 where Food and Drink editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will eat her way through the Original Farmers Market. Each column will drop on Thursday for a week-by-week recap of her journey through the classic L.A. tourist attraction. Last week, Kelly visited Michelina Artisan Boulanger. Nine months and 36 different types of fried chicken later, I’ve finally published a guide to the best fried chicken in L.A. In the last two weeks, I’ve tried about a dozen fried chicken dishes across the city, and while I’m still turned off by the idea deep-fried chicken skin, I still have a solid appetite for chicken meat itself. Returning to the Farmers Market on Wednesday, I know exactly where I’m headed for the second time: Market Chicken Rotisserie (est. 2022). The stall is run by the people behind Pampas Grill and Phil’s Deli, and if their chicken plates are any indication, their sandwiches, salads, wraps and grain bowls will be just as delicious. On the way there, I stop by the newest grocery vendor, Mediterranean Market, which opened three weeks ago. The stall is run by Sam and Jasmine Chatallian, who are related to the owners of nearby Moishe’s. I don’t need anything at the moment, but it’s fun to peruse the boxes of Turkish delight, imported olive oils and other products, including an extensive collection of Middle Eastern bottled fruit juices and other bottled beverages. The cold case is full of labne and other yogurt-based products, plus

Table at Third & Fairfax is a weekly dining column in 2023 where Food and Drink editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will eat her way through the Original Farmers Market. Each column will drop on Thursday for a week-by-week recap of her journey through the classic L.A. tourist attraction. Last week, Kelly visited Patsy D’Amore’s. I’ll be honest: There are just a handful of places for me to revisit before 2023 is over, and I’m desperately looking for different, service-worthy ways to keep this column going until the end of the year as I juggle revisiting places for Time Out’s annual Best New Restaurants list and work diligently towards putting together a definitive guide to the best fried chicken in L.A. As always, I’m also ensuring our best restaurant guide remains relevant and up to date. Naturally, all of these things require money, so I’ve also been cutting back on my expenditures for Table at Third & Fairfax. This week, I revisited Michelina Artisan Boulanger for a quick, relatively inexpensive sandwich lunch, even though I found their eclairs lacking when I bought a couple in July.  When I grab a stool at the counter on Wednesday morning, the glass counter is full of pastries, loaves of bread and other confections. As appealing as they look, I know they’re expensive (and, based on their eclairs, not necessarily good), so I bypass the thought of a croissant in favor of Michelina’s breakfast and lunch menu, which includes omelettes, salads, tartines, sandwiches and eggs Benedict. I t

Table at Third & Fairfax is a weekly dining column in 2023 where Food and Drink editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will eat her way through the Original Farmers Market. Each column will drop on Thursday for a week-by-week recap of her journey through the classic L.A. tourist attraction. Last week, Kelly visited Thicc Burger for breakfast. This week, I get to the market via rideshare, saddled with a yoga mat and a bright orange bag of swag from a pilates class sponsored by a Korean skincare brand. Hungry, sweaty and greatly in need of a place to sit, I take a seat in the shaded patio area close to Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts and Patsy D’Amore’s Pizza (est. 1946), which I’ll be revisiting today. Having already tried their pizza, it’s their pasta I’m after today. They serve ravioli, lasagna and meatball sandwiches, but I decide to keep it simple with a plate of spaghetti and meatballs ($14.95).  The employee behind the counter adds just one large meatball to my plate, but the generous dollop of meat sauce seems to make up for the overall lack of meatball action. Topped with a shower of powdered parmesan cheese, Patsy’s spaghetti bears little to no resemblance to the housemade pasta at Pasta Corner. Then again, it isn’t trying to: This is unabashedly Italian American cuisine, ladled from steaming silver vats. The meatball is well-seasoned, though it doesn’t hold a candle to the excellent meatballs I’ve had recently from Donna’s in Echo Park and to a lesser extent, La Dolce Vita in Beverly

Table at Third & Fairfax is a weekly dining column in 2023 where Food and Drink editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will eat her way through the Original Farmers Market. Each column will drop on Thursday for a week-by-week recap of her journey through the classic L.A. tourist attraction. Last week, Kelly visited Phil’s Deli.  Arriving at the Farmers Market on a late Wednesday morning, I’m ready to tuck into breakfast from Thicc Burger (est. 2023), which the Los Angeles Times recently named one of its favorite burgers in L.A. Now, while I was impressed with the two burgers I tried a few weeks ago, I didn’t think Thicc Burger was an obvious shoo-in for Time Out’s best burger guide, given the formidable number of competitors across town. What did pique my interest, however, was the morning-only menu, which consists of a breakfast sammie ($12), an English muffin-based riff on a McGriddle ($12), “hot” avocado toast ($12) and a breakfast burrito ($13). The day I arrive, they’re out of the Thicc Griddle and the avocado toast, so I order the breakfast sammie with bacon and the breakfast burrito with sausage. As a sign near the register says, all food is made to order, so I’m already anticipating a short wait as I place my order. In the end, it takes about 10 minutes or so for my order, though I’m the first customer of the day so I can’t say this would be your experience later in the morning. The first thing I notice about the sausage breakfast burrito is its size: It’s on the smaller side, tho

Table at Third & Fairfax is a weekly dining column in 2023 where Food and Drink editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will eat her way through the Original Farmers Market. Each column will drop on Thursday for a week-by-week recap of her journey through the classic L.A. tourist attraction. Last week, Kelly visited Gone Bananas Bread. It’s nearly the busy season here at Time Out, when Thanksgiving, Christmas and end-of-year lists conspire to make us work overtime before the entire country tunes out the last two weeks of the year. As a result, I’m relishing the last handful of visits for Table at Third & Fairfax, now that I’ve tried basically every place in the market, with plans to revisit most places twice. This week, I decided to have a leisurely late breakfast at Phil’s Deli & Grill (1934), where a handful of people are already noshing on French toast, eggs and other dishes associated with morning. Following their lead, I order the Deli Special ($13.95), which consists of two eggs, two pancakes (or French toast) and sausage (or bacon). I take a seat at the counter and order my eggs scrambled. Over the next half hour, I end up having an extended conversation with the nonbinary OnlyFans content creator sitting next to me who is in the middle of moving away from the area. The food arrives quickly, and is generously portioned: My order comes with four breakfast sausages and some orange slices on the side. The paper container of melted butter is a little confusing, but the pancakes taste gr

Table at Third & Fairfax is a weekly dining column in 2023 where Food and Drink editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will eat her way through the Original Farmers Market. Each column will drop on Thursday for a week-by-week recap of her journey through the classic L.A. tourist attraction. Last week, Kelly visited Pasta Corner.  Taking over the old Waffleshot stall is Gone Bananas Bread (est. 2023), a new Farmers Market vendor dedicated to all things banana bread, as well as a handful of bottled and canned drinks. In addition to six varieties of banana bread, the stall sells banana bread pudding and “bananyays,” tiny heart-shaped pieces of banana bread that are deep-fried and coated in a sugar glaze. You can order banana bread by the slice or pick up whole loaves. Oddly enough, per GBB’s Instagram stories, the company held a “grand opening” pop-up at another stall in the Farmers Market almost a year ago, but I can personally attest to the fact that it didn’t actually open as a full-fledged market vendor until quite recently.  On my 40th weekly visit to the market, I’m fresh off another scouting meal in Gardena, so I made my way quickly from the parking lot to the Gone Bananas Bread stall. A pink and yellow neon sign, as well as a large hand-painted graphic with a few banana peels, mark a sharp visual departure from the old Waffleshot. The branding is admittedly quite cute, and there's a stack of greeting cards for sale by the register that read “I find you appealing,” with illustrations