Welcome to DiningInLA.com! We eat, write, think and take in the spectacular, sexy, occasionally seedy but never-stagnant qualities of our city.

We live in Silver Lake, over on the northeastern side of things, and slowly we're building our culinary experiences. We branch into adjoining areas as well as L.A. itself. Select a Category on the right to get started.

Got a place we need to try? Leave a comment or click the Contact link above to suggest new places to tickle and tantalize our taste buds (but don't use silly restaurant-review-style sentences like that last one).

Dave and Bianca

My new favorite sub sandwich spot
602 W. Glenoaks Blvd. (above the 134, in Glendale)
Phone: 818-551-0800 | map | website

The exterior is one of those overly designed corner malls, the interior a repurposed "it was also a sandwich shop before this" layout, but pray do not let that deter you. Every wall is pinned with photos of the Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard Street, in case you forget where you are. The room swelters from a bank of humming drink machines.

I do not know particularly what constitutes a "San Francisco" style submarine sandwich, but if this is representative of the Bay Area's Italian-American Juxtaposition Of Bread and Meat erudition, I'm down. The bread simply wins. A sheen from a light application of butter or oil transfers itself to the fingers. The bread itself is golden brown, a crispy armor that buckles into shards, collapsing into a nirvana of soft, warm contrast. How's that for a pretentious food review statement?

There are three sizes here: Mini, Center and Super. If they present a huge piece of wheat bread and ask if you want it cut, say yes, else they will charge for the brawny XL sandwich that will end up coming home with you.

The Atomic Sub is their specialty: sheets of hot lean pastrami, and roasted turkey breast, and corned beef, and is topped with what seems like pickle but turns out to be thinly cut hot pepper.

The Hot Smokie Link sandwich has lettuce, tomato, onion and provolone, embracing thin slices of adobe-red sausage with just a spark on the tongue. The mustard and mayo deliver flavor but are nicely unobtrusive. SF Sub has beef-and-lamb gyros as well, shaved off the vertical rotisserie: it's ominously hot with a slight crunch to the meat, and almost too thick to try to fold and eat. A meek yogurt sauce tries to calm it down.

Drinks are either "fill the cup with ice and hold it under here" or "refrigerated cabinet" fare. The choices range a little outside of typical: yogurt drinks, fizzy flavored waters, sexual-dynamo-energy-drinks, et cetera.

They do not bother with meatball subs, although I would be happy if they did. While Dave's Chillin-n-Grillin has my heart for melty grillwork on sliced bread, SF Sub is now among the ruling class in my submarine sandwich world.

Caribbean contentment above the 110
333 S. Fair Oaks Ave. (in Pasadena)
Phone: 626-405-8080 | map | twitter

Three words: They Have Ting.*

Kingston Café was closed for remodeling... for three years. For a restaurant in Southern California, a "closed for remodeling" sign is too often a death knell, a saddened shake of the head until something new tries to open in its place. However, Kingston has been reopened by the same family, with new chefs, a more dignified interior, and new Caribbean-fusion finesse.

The interior is divided into small two- and three-table rooms, each with its own title (we want to reserve a party in "Ackee" one day), and a large, pumpkin-hued back room where the bar and the band is. Reggae, naturally, lopes through the speakers**... and hey! I have this Trojan Box Set compilation at home! I knew I recognized Max Romeo's "My Jamaican Collie".

The dinner dishes are marinated masterpieces. The Jerked Chicken is a deep mahogany on the outside, lying in a thick brown stew sauce; gentle prodding causes the meat to fall away from the bone like wispy garments at a burlesque performance. I ordered it spicy, which means a higher concentration of scotch bonnet peppers evilly plotting my demise, and a low, stalking mouth-burn that is distracted only by the cool mango salsa.

The quintessentially Jamaican dish that is Curried Goat has a similar presentation but is stewed with onion and thyme, made into a liquid velvet with a gentle pimento flair that zips around the sides of the mouth. Bianca made a conscious decision to interrupt her six-month period of not eating meat to have curried goat. This, like the Jerked Chicken, comes with white rice, or a solid support-cylinder of red beans and rice, and a sunny batch of carrot slices and green beans which is tastier and friendlier than "carrots and green beans" sounds like.

For lunch there's a Jerk Burger, the patty darkened and dried by the jerk seasoning. Ordering this spicy may produce coughing and possibly hiccups, cooled infinitesimally by the mango salsa. The sesame seed bun is simple, but offering a burger at all on a Jamaican menu is merely a nod to our U.S. palates. The french fries are crisply moist and lightly seasoned, and need no dipping sauce or ketchup.

Oh, do this: get a side of the Fried Plantains. They are sweeter even than Bossa Nova's, and keep their golden texture. Also try the long slices of festival, a cornmeal fritter that's as moist as buttered cornbread and sweet as innocence.

There's Rum Cake and sugared walnuts for dessert, dense and lush with the scent of cane, but we are full, so full. Seen? How I nyam so much?

They do not (yet) have Blue Mountain coffee, and that is a cause for temporary sadness... but we spoke to them and they did tell us that new dishes were forthcoming... allow me to place the lovely words "ackee and saltfish" in your mind. Yu tan deh!

The building belongs partially to a Women's Diagnostic Imaging Group, and the parking lot belongs to the Salvation Army, so of course I think this is a perfectly sensible place to have a Jamaican restaurant (I, however, think there should be Caribbean restaurants placed everywhere, so my opinion is biased). You can park in the lot for dinner as long as you inform the waiter. Kingston Café is closed Sundays and Mondays, but since live reggae plays every Saturday night, maybe that's a necessary two-day recovery ting.

* If you know us, you know our love for this grapefruit soda and the memories it brings.

** Thank you, Kingston Café, for not automatically busting out the easily-recognized-by-tourists "Jammin'" and "One Love" in resort fashion.

Who's the girl of the 21st century?
2609 N. Hyperion Ave., Silver Lake
Phone: 323-644-8000 | map | website

We don't usually bring up bars in this review blog, leaving that to more experienced imbibers, but sometimes a local place needs some words.

Located a hop, skip and a stagger away from the Gelson's on Hyperion, this used to be the icky but danceable Zen Sushi. It's since been bought by the owners of the Bungalow Club on Melrose, and expertly re-wrought with an eye toward kitsch and vibe. The furniture is all brass-studded black leather, and wallpaper of a "reclining nude sketches" design spans one wall. Corseted women and their tattoos zip past, bearing drinks.

Sit at the bar or on one of the kilometer-long black sofas. If there isn't a DJ playing on the tiny balcony above, the speakers might be spouting "Purple Haze" or "Edge of Seventeen" or "Up on Cripple Creek". People gather in small, busy groups, suppressing their pretension for the evening.

The Barbarella Bar has a bevy of unusual beers, delineated by the highly-useful categories of Lager, Malty, Hoppy, Yeasty and Spicy, Fruity and Herbaceous.

The cocktails have the expected names but are superbly crafted. The Key Lime Pie is vanilla vodka, Licor 43, coconut rum, lime juice, and a dash of créme. The head-nodding touch of approval is the glass rim dipped in crushed graham cracker, adding a pie-bottom sweetness. Good God, this one is sneaky.

I haven't experimented with the menu yet, but it seems to be more than hot wings; there are Cheese Empanadas, Avocado Egg Rolls, et cetera, but I'll have to tell you about that when we wander back in there with the munchies. Call us up after a light dinner and we'll go.

Vegetarians need fast food love, too
817 N. Lake Ave. (north of the 210, in Pasadena)
Phone: 626-794-0861 | map | website

You've seen recycled eateries like this: a darkened front window, a peaked roof which probably had the words "pup" and "taco" on it a few decades ago, stained signs that look like they were beaten with a crowbar. The drive-through is more of a polite feature than a time-saver. You may as well park and walk up to the window.

What is this place? It's an unlikely but earnest vegetarian fast food joint. There are burgers; the veggie patty is very light and crumbly, and easily gets lost in the leafy shuffle between the fresh whole wheat buns. There are burritos; the Pollo Burrito is more of a "we're calling it chicken but it's actually just straight-up tofu" yellow curry ladled into a tortilla glove and held together by hope and surface tension, and not much fun. Really, Orean doesn't execute the faux-meat maneuvers as well as, say, Green Leaves, so you should search out the specialty items in the corner of the menu.

The Pastrami Dip--no, really, kind of--should probably be called the steak sandwich, being a pile of seasoned seitan (wheat gluten) chips with green pepper, pickles and onion. It's really rather good, and seitan has that near-steak texture that throws off the purity hounds.

The fries are "air fries," which means they're likely baked instead of fried, which I suppose means they might be called "French Bakes' but which would be sorely confusing. Anyway, they're fluffy and shreddy and good. You can get chili on those, and then they're cut thicker. The chilli (sic) is interesting--it's seitan with kidney and pinto beans, so it's an attempt at a "meat chili"--but I'd just as soon have a proper spicy-powdered bean chili that I can proudly have on top of things.

The best thing here is the African Tostada. Atop two crunchy yellow tortilla discs is a heap of black-eyed peas rendered to an almost refried-beans consistency, African salsa, a honey-mustardesque tahineh sauce, and chopped tomatoes. There is soy cheese but it is convincing and works here.

The beverages are also where Orean shines. How about a granola rum shake? A ginseng slush? Some iced yerba maté? For me, they have a peanut butter shake that's quite alluring, and I can up the ante by making a Chai shake into a Super Green Chai shake, which means it's a pale Irish color and resists both straw and pouring, but is tasty.

Is it healthy? Well, it's meatless, does that help? Consider the surrounding corners: a McDonald's, a Carl's Jr./Green Burrito, a KFC, and a Roscoe's Chicken 'n Waffles, so arguably it's the healthiest corner in these parts.

... that I get the opportunity to wear my "Will Write Bad Poetry For Food" sign.

However, I saw that LocalLowdownLA tweeted: "We heart Fred 62! Best haiku about our favorite retro diner gets a $25 gift certificate! Tweet at us!"

Naturally, I donned my best Evil Satirical Writer's grin, cracked my knuckles, and hammered out a series of 5-7-5 poetry. Oh, yes. I will dominate the retro-diner-related Japanese poetry niche in this market, sir.

I didn't win.

Which of course means the world is completely out of whack and unjust, because I must pay for my next Fred 62 meal. However, for posterity (or at least as long as the Internet holds out) I've put my (evidently unworthy*) haiku entries below.

I'd love to eat at
this green and orange diner
but there's no parking

car-themed vinyl booths
like sitting in a hot rod
but with a milkshake

I need a Dime Bag
No, no, that's not what I mean
I mean the pancakes

One Juicy Lucy
fries in cutoff paper bags
and those odd toothpicks

Fred McMurray and
his good friend Mr. Frenchy
eat breakfast with me

* However, I gotta admit that the winning entry was pretty good.