Mohawk Bend in Echo Park is a scary place. No, it’s not in a bad neighborhood or perched precariously upon a cliff along a fault line. It’s scary because its menu defaults to vegan. Yes, you read that right. If you don’t want to eat vegan you have to find something on the menu with (NV) after the name of the dish. That presumably stands for Not Vegan and they were the only menu items worth looking at.
While searching for fried chicken not from Kentucky, my coworker and I found ourselves at Donahoo’s Golden Chicken in Pomona. From the outside, Donahoo’s looks like it may have been abandoned years ago, but inside there is a smell of golden fried deliciousness. Of course, it is a very small inside, with no seating whatsoever and food only served in boxes to go.
It can probably be said that nearly everything on the East Side is trendy, essentially catering to the crowd of hipsters that have overtaken Echo Park, Silverlake and Los Feliz. One of these places is a restaurant called Ostrich Farm in Echo Park that has no ostriches to be found, but it does have a brunch.
It’s pretty well-known that Little Tokyo is now home to some of the best restaurants in LA. One of these is better-known for their spicy ramen challenge perhaps moreso than how good their ramen actually is. This place is Orochon Ramen, which can be found in one of Little Tokyo’s mini malls and I set out to try their non-crazy-spicy ramen to see how it held up.
Eggs Benedict is pretty well-known for being one of the greatest breakfast creations of all time. Yet, it is not without faults. After all, the English muffin is probably the worst of all muffins and not even great in the realm of breads. But M Street (a Lettuce Entertain You place) in Santa Monica has a solution for this nonsense: hash browns.
Out in San Dimas is a microbrewing spot called Clayton Brewing Co. Due to eating there during work, I wasn’t able to try their beer, but fortunately most breweries have great food and I was hoping Clayton would follow that pattern. After a whole lot of deliberation, I opted for the Smoked Gouda Patty Melt.
The name Bull Demon King isn’t intimidating at all, right? And yet it’s pretty much the most appropriate name for a beef noodle soup spot in Diamond Bar. You see, a buddy of mine from work thought it would be a great idea to check the place out and I thought it was a good idea as well.
While attempting to get our bearings on food in Pasadena, we stopped in Thai place called Daisy Mint, which promised to be more than just an ordinary Thai spot based on its eclectic furnishings and somewhat unique menu. It wasn’t easy getting a stroller into the tiny place, but we made it work and set about eating.
In LA, the word Rodeo usually means one thing: a shopping street in Beverly Hills. Sometimes it means another random street on the west side and occasionally it means the thing with cowboys and stuff. Almost never does it mean dinner, unless you happen to find yourself strolling along Sunset in Echo Park and stepping into the first divey Mexican place you can find that just so happens to go by the name of Rodeo.
Pittsburgh may be a great city, but it was unquestionably missing the riches of Mexican food that can be found in LA. When I told people about my new digs in Echo Park, a number of them said I had to check out Guisados, which was apparently home to amazing tacos. I took these recommendations to heart, pushed them on my family and set out to pick up a number of these tacos for us to eat.