The name Pink Taco is something of a shock. You’d think you were walking into a strip club or something, but lo and behold, you end up walking into a restaurant. The Pink Taco in LA is at the Century City mall and although it’s not part of their glorious food court, it was still a place worth checking out. As you would expect, once you realize Pink Taco is actually a restaurant, the place serves up Mexican food in a trendy way.

After a long look at the menu and even more thinking, I finally made my decision: the Suiza Chicken Torta. At only 10 bucks, it looked like one of the best values on the menu. This torta came with chicken, pinto beans, onion, cilantro, melted cheese and avocado. It also came with sweet potato fries on the side. I ordered mine without onions and when it came out it looked delicious. The bun was shiny and looked like something I would have loved on a burger. In addition to the ingredients above, I also saw that it was doused in some salsa verde. Then I ate.

This was one tasty torta. The bun was soft and tasty, but wasn’t especially great at keeping ingredients inside. This wasn’t so bad, as I could just play cleanup with my fork, but the messiness is definitely something to plan for. The salsa verde added some nice flavor and although the avocado was a great addition, there was so much of it that it overpowered the chicken. The chicken itself was good, but kind of took a backseat to the rest of the torta. This wasn’t a bad thing, considering all the good ingredients, but it wouldn’t have hurt to get some more chicken. Finally, there were the sweet potato fries. Although I always prefer to eat regular fries, these weren’t too shabby.

So in the end, I was pretty happy with the torta. It didn’t break the bank and tasted quite nice. The only trouble I had was that the whole time I was eating, I had the feeling that I could have had something better for cheaper at a little corner Mexican hole in the wall. There wouldn’t have been the same atmosphere, which is what you really pay extra for at Pink Taco, and every once in a while it’s nice to get some atmosphere.

So if you like Mexican food and atmosphere, Pink Taco isn’t too shabby. It may be a little pricier, but sometimes that’s a good thing.

Not too long ago (at least in my head), Ajisen Ramen opened its doors at the Century City food court. I’m not sure where else this Japanese ramen chain exists in the US, but I do know it is a pretty popular and slightly upscale chain in the land of Asia. I decided to check it out to see how it held up against its Asian brethren and found that the menu was pretty similar to what I remembered from Asia. It had a variety of ramen options and some tasty-looking Japanese appetizers.

The prices were pretty on-par with the Century City food court, but a bit more than can be find at your average corner ramen shop. After looking at the menu, my decision was pretty clear: Beef Curry Ramen. But I didn’t think that would be enough (not in size, because I can never finish a bowl of ramen, but in terms of flavor variety), so I also ordered some gyoza. After about two minutes, the meal was ready and I grabbed it from the counter and brought it back to my table.

The gyoza was disappointingly small in size and number. There were only five dumplings and they were pretty tiny. It definitely didn’t seem to be worth the 3 bucks, but at least they tasted pretty good. The bowl of ramen, however, was huge. I knew that there was no way I could finish it, so I just set out to eat as much as I could. The noodles had a great consistency and the beef was pretty tasty. It had absorbed a nice curry flavor, which was strongest when drinking the broth. It didn’t bend any of the rules of ramen or try to do anything especially creative, but it was certainly what I expected and it made me happy. Better ramen can be had in the little Japanese pockets of LA, but if you have a hankering for good ramen around Century City, you really can’t go wrong with Ajisen.

EDIT: The Century City location is gone, but Lawry’s continues to carve elsewhere.

After a year or so of flirting around with the Asian options at the Century City food court, I finally decided to take the plunge into some of their meatier food. This is not to say that I wasn’t eating meat all along, but few restaurants exude meatiness more than Lawry’s Carvery, the food court version of Lawry’s Prime Rib steakhouse. I took to browsing their menu and even though there was a ton of meat, a few of the good-looking dishes included vegetables.

Finally, I found their BBQ Brisket Platter. It included crispy onions and cole slaw, so I just ordered it without the onions and asked if I could get it without the cole slaw as well. Rather than just listening to me demand, the woman at the counter asked if I wanted to substitute the cole slaw for anything under 2 bucks. This left only the potato chips, which sounded far superior to the wicked veggies of slaw. The platter also came with the side of my choice, which I chose to be mac and cheese.

They whipped up my platter along their assembly line and I found myself a nice little table to eat at. I looked proudly at my meaty dinner and began to eat. The brisket was pretty good and tender, and it was certainly a healthy-sized portion. The BBQ sauce wasn’t really anything special and although it didn’t hurt the meal, it didn’t make the meal either. The mac and cheese was tasty and my only problem with it was that I wanted more. The chips made a nice substitute for cole slaw, but didn’t bring too much to the table aside from making my stomach more full.

I definitely recommend Lawry’s Carvery for anyone looking for a meaty meal at the Century City food court, however, there’s definitely better brisket and BBQ to be found outside the mall in the rest of LA.

EDIT: This location is closed, but miraculously Sorabol lives on elsewhere.

Since Korean BBQ has never let me down and the Century City food court has also never let me down, I decided to check out Sorabol, the Korean BBQ place in the Century City food court. At the time it seemed like a great idea. I walked up to their stand and saw a few different food items hanging out in heating trays, so I chose their beef short ribs. They looked a bit dry, but the woman behind the counter ladled some sort of Korean sauce over them. They came with noodles, rice and some vegetable sides. I dismissed the vegetable sides and paid my 10 bucks, which I thought was a pretty good deal. I was wrong.

Do you like eating sand? No? Because that’s what eating these ribs tasted like at times. Every few bites I would bite into something crunchy, and not the bone. No, this was as though the ribs had fallen into charcoal and been dusted off. To make matters worse, I don’t think I’ve eaten drier ribs in my life. Usually the fats around ribs make them juicy and tasty, but somehow any juiciness had been cooked out of these things. The flavoring was decent, but nothing special and certainly not good enough to overcome the feeling that I was consuming a desert.

The rice and noodles tasted just fine, but they were not the most important part of the dish. Sorabol certainly failed in my book, but they somehow manage to stay in business in the delicious Century City food court. Perhaps I just got a bad batch of food, but I really can’t imagine it being any better.

For a pre-movie dinner, I found myself at the Century City food court once again and looking for something new. Some of the competitors in the food court have found the best way to bring in new customers: sampling.

I will sample almost anything put in front of me, as long as it has no vegetable qualities. You wouldn’t buy a car without giving it a test drive, so why buy a meal without knowing how it will taste? Well obviously, this isn’t always possible, but when it is I think it’s great to take advantage.

The Rotisserie Works offered me a sample of their Hawaiian BBQ chicken and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It had a nice sweet BBQ taste with the hint of some pineapple-like fruit. After a few other tastes, I decided the Hawaiian chicken would be filling my belly that evening. The order of chicken came with two sides, and I looked at the menu with mild distaste. All but two of the sides had words like “squash,” and “spinach,” so I ordered their mashed potatoes and mac and cheese.

The guy behind the counter scooped out dollops of all my dishes, and I was please to see he wasn’t stingy. In fact, my plate ended up having sides bigger than the main course. This is not to say that the main course was small, just that the sides were even bigger.

I started eating and really enjoyed. The sides, although nothing amazing, complemented the Hawaiian chicken. As I continued eating, I became increasingly happy with the sizes of the sides, because the Hawaiian chicken became a little too sweet, but the sides were always there to bail me out. Herein lies the only trouble with ordering a food based on a sample. The initial taste might be great, but it could become increasingly intense. For a big example of this, read up on the Pepsi Challenge.

No doubt my meal was an enjoyable one, only not as good as I had hoped upon first sampling.

EDIT: This location is closed, but I mean, you can find one of these elsewhere and they’re all the same.

Though rare in Southern California, Fuddrucker’s is a pretty common burger chain with an uncanny name. The Fuddrucker’s I found was in the Century City mall’s food court, sandwiched among many fancier looking places. After a short perusal of the other restaurants, Fuddrucker’s became my top unvegan option.

One thing that is unique to Fuddrucker’s is that that they put no toppings or condiments on your burger. I ordered the bacon cheeseburger knowing that they wouldn’t be putting any terrible vegetables on it. Rather, once the burger is served, there is a virtual cornucopia of toppings to add to the burger. Sadly, most of these were vegetables and no good to me.

I added only ketchup, but I also found that they had a pump full of cheese sauce. I assumed (rightly so) that this would be a good addition to my the fries and burger in my meal.

The burger itself was really just decent. It was freshly prepared, which was nice, but didn’t compare to a place like Fatburger. The main selling point was the choice of toppings or, in my case, the choice to not use toppings.

I had heard a lot about the Century City food court, which really surprised me considering most food courts I’ve been to don’t get any fancier than S’barro. As I was going there for a movie already, it was finally time to check out the food court.

I was actually very surprised with what I found. This was no ordinary food court with Panda Express and McDonald’s. Instead, it was filled with upscale places that made me feel like I entered an international marketplace with prepared foods. After a long walk around and a little sampling, I decided to order from Mr. Hana, a Japanese place. They had a great looking platter with spicy chicken, gyoza (dumplings), shrimp tempura and rice that I decided to get. It also came with mixed vegetables, which I was sure to order without. I also ordered a Japanese Melon Soda, which is one of the greatest drinks ever created. No, seriously, next time you see it, you must get it, you can thank me later.

I waited in anticipation of my Japanese meat-filled meal while sipping on my drink and when it finally came, I was pretty disappointed. The meats looked good, but it still had vegetables. Even worse, everything was placed on a bed of lettuce. Worst bed ever.

It was tough eating the chicken without getting lettuce in it because of the sticky sauce. The gyoza was pretty good, although a bit small. Finally, the tempura tasted pretty good aside from the lettuce that kept sticking to it.

In the end, it’s not scenario I would like to relive anytime soon. Next time I’m at Century City, I’m sure another food court option can give me a better unvegan meal.