Favorite Los Angeles Restaurant Locations

Please note that some places may have closed or moved.. if so, please let me know! email me at lushboy76@yahoo.com

These are MY favorites.. not everyone's tastes are the same, but these are some places I'd recommend if you are up for some good food. If you don't like it, then just go down the list! =) You can click on the name of the restaurant to see the mapquest link!

Japanese Restaurants:

Sen Nari Sushi - Sushi joint. Fairly expensive menu, but the quality of the fish is worth the price. However, dining experience is not that great if you sit at the sushi bar; the sushi chef seem to be too eager to serve you food and constantly nags, "so, what's next?"

Uzushio Restaurant - Great place to be, average sushi price. Quality of fish is fairly decent most of the time. The place tend to get busy during weekends.

Curry House - Oh, the great Japanese style curry. It's different from Indian curry. How it's different? Well, it's not very spicy and tastes slightly sweet. There are several chain stores around LA, but the one in Cypress is the best! Well, at least that's the one I mostly frequent. Try the house tropical ice-tea with the syrup provided!

Crazy Fish - This place I wouldn't really recommend those of you that are interested in quality sushi. However, if you are just incredibly hungry or just have an oversized appetite for food, regardless if it's cooked or not, this is the place to be! The menu consists mainly of "rolls". There are nigiri as well, but not too many choices of fish. As I mentioned, large portions is the operative word here. If you got $10 sitting around burning a hole, order the "crazy fish roll". It's quite interesting looking. Oyster shooter is a huge cup.. not a shot glass type that I'm used to ordering.

Koraku Ramen - Cup of noodle, maruchan instant ramen.. well, those are for poor college students to fill up stomach with. Here in Kiraku, ramen are cooked the way it should be. The cha-han (fried rice) is one of the highlights. I like the mabo-ramen here, really fills me up! Plus they open until 2am and got Kirin beer on tap!! YEAH!

Chinese Restaurants:

Savoy Pizza and Pasta - If you like Hainan Chicken rice, you've gotta check out this place. Ignore everything else, just order the hainan chicken rice! Then if you don't like it, try other stuff..

Dai Ho Lu Wei - This place has the best sesame sauce noodles in LA. The beef noodle is pretty good too! Beware, they are only open for lunch time only, and it gets overly crowded! Get there early. Meal time starts at 10am until 3pm. You can buy it to-go if you want. They also sell lots of side dishes at the counter.

Ocean Star - On the 2nd floor of the building, this is one of the better place to have dim-sum. It's always crowded, but the food trays are always hot and steamy. Although the price is slightly expensive comparatively.

Empress Harbor Restaurant - This place is the building right on the corner, 3rd floor of the red building. It's also neighboring to Ocean Star shown above. This place is more expensive compared to Ocean Star. Some people say quality is better, but I'll leave that up to your taste buds to decide. Dinner prices are pretty crazy though.. fancy place!

888 Seafood Restaurant - I've only been here once, but dim-sum here is really good. It wasn't that crowded when I went (Monday) but the food were hot and yummy. Prices are very reasonable. My brother tells me it gets very busy here during weekends. I'll verify the address when I get a chance.

Taiwan Garden - In the Diamond Plaza in Rowland Heights, this has got to be the most expensive Taiwanese food place I've been to. However, aside from taking a plane trip to Taiwan, this place offers the most authentic Taiwanese push-cart delicacy in LA. Roast squid, roast chinese sausage, Taiwan beer.. The interior decore is filled with wood furniture, almost outdoors like. During lunch time, the same place is hosted by another chinese family which offers some awesome fried pork chops! It's cheap too! Please note that the address link shows BOAT, which is not the right one. However, it's in the same plaza, just keep driving into the end of the plaza, it's on the first floor right next to the stairway by the supermarket.

Charcoal Station NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CLOSED.. so sorry.. - So far, this is the best charbroilled pork chops and chicken shop around. The service is really really slow, and I think the chef in the back takes their time to start the coal or something.. Every order takes almost 20 mins. I suggest you to place the order and go walk around the plaza for a good 15 mins then head back to the place. Please note the address here is generic. There's a Hong Kong Supermarket right next door. This place is in the small shopping plaza right next to the supermarket on the left. You'll see a jewlery store from the outside, just go through the glass doors into the plaza and you'll see plenty of other restaurants there.

Vietnamese Restaurants:

Golden Lion - What do you usually get from Vietnamese restaurants? Pho? Do you know Pho? Well, that's not what you get here in this place. Here is where you order LOBSTER! Lobster cooked house special style. You will not regret the choice. The filet mignon strips are very good as well. Plus all the chinese style dishes. I should probably file this under Chinese instead.. haha. Everyone there speaks chinese as well..

"Green House" - Well, here is where I was introduced to the great PHO experience by my buddy John. It's still our classic place to visit when I'm in town for some good pho. This may not be the best place (according to some Vietnamese folks), but I like it! So there..

Bikini Coffee House - Okay, this place really changes the way I view coffee houses. I could swear that I did not go into a strip club or some sleezy red-light district outside of Vegas. Aside from the waitresses (if you call them that) that are barely covered by their, ehem, uniform, the drinks are pretty good. However, the cover price to stare at the girls is included in the drinks.. One coffee for.. umm.. $6??

Korean Restaurants:

Pure Luck - This is gotta be the greatest place I've ever been to. A hole in the wall joint that will fill you up for under $10. You have 10 friends that's hungry? Come to this place, and you'll probably only pay $5 a person which includes tip and taxes! Unless you order beer or something. Dishes to order: Mongolian beef, Chap-Che (transparent noodles), Spicy pork... yum. Oh, there's free fried rice too!!

ToFu House - This is by far one of my favorite tofu house. The seafood combination is my choice. If you know you can finish the tofu bowl, their BBQ spare-ribs are really good too. The restaurant is on the northwest corner of where the map shows. You'll see a Korean supermarket there. It's in that plaza, to the west side of the market. I think there's a beauty salon right next door.

Oak Dong Restaurant NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CLOSED!! - This place is good for weekday lunch special. I order the bbq spare-rib lunch special. It's $8 or so, but it's a good size for lunch. Dinner time gets to be too pricy and weekends doesn't have lunch specials.

24 hour tofu house - There are quite a few of these in LA, but the one in Garden Grove is the closest to my house. Anyway, the main attraction point of this place is that it's open 24 hours! The food is alright.. but I consider it pretty damn good at 3am after some parties! Prices are fairly average.. unless you can find someone else to cook for you at 3am!

Thai Restaurants:

Thai Thani - This is my favorite Thai joint thus far. Prices aren't too bad. Main attraction: Pineapple fried rice! What's so good is that the "plate" holding the fried rice is the pineapple shell! It's extremely flavorful and fun to dig the rice out of the pineapple. Crab fried rice is pretty good as well. No, not served with crab shell, but there are crab meat. =) However, pad-thai is not that great here (warning for you pad-thai lovers).

Georges Thai Bistro - If you are in Costa Mesa Mall and have hankering for Thai, this is the place to be. It's really close to the mall and it's yummy. My favorite dish here is the "drunken noodle". Fat white noodles stir-fried with chinese basil, chicken, and whever vegetables that's listed in the menu. Pad-thai is pretty good here!

Saladang Song - Okay, this place is fancy! The location actually has two Thai restaurants next to each other. Both are really good. The portions here are not that big, but very flavorful. I think the sauce they use are slightly too heavy, but it's still quite yummy. Pricing here is a bit more expensive than the norm. Great place for a date though.. just get there early to get a seat! Very crowded..

Thai Boat - In Rowland Heights, Diamond Plaza. This place is pretty good.. only been there once, but gave me a good impression. Prices are alright. I'll give un update if I go back there again sometime.

American food:

Lawry's Prime Rib - I'm very impressed with the quality of the prime rib they offer here. One time I brought home the left-over and reheated with microwave and it still tastes almost like I was in the restaurant a few hours ago! The "spinning salad" is interesting.. but the cream corn is the most yummy side dish!

Pink's Hot Dog - If you are in LA/Hollywood area, you've gotta try the hot dog they offer here. I'm not a big hot dog fan but I would go here for some hot dog when I'm in the area! This is also a historic landmark of the area too! Check out the guestbook on their site. It's got a picture of the storefront.. it does look pretty ghetto and it's hard to find parking!

Ruth Chris SteakHouse - One of the more fancy american restaurants I've been to in LA. Most people are pretty dressed up for this place. There are quite a few of these chains all around United States. I recommend the lamb chops. Otherwise the filet mignon. Creme brulee is very good here as well. Save room for the dessert!

Boba Locations:

Okay, after I've been told that not all boba nor the tea are made equal, I just had to find out. At first, every cup of boba tasted about the same. $0.99/cup, $2.99/cup, $3.50/cup.. I couldn't tell the difference! What's with the price difference? Well, as more boba I drank (and chewed on), I came to the realization that I like the green tea to taste like green tea in Japanese restaurants instead of the cheap lipton tea bag tasting tea. Then, the boba itself has to be chewy, but cooked throughly. I can't believe people sell boba that's half cooked (you can't chew the boba or feel the boba core not cooked through) or overly cooked (mushy, slimy boba).

There are millions of boba specialty shops in LA and across USA, even restaurants sell it to boost business. However, eventhough you see the same store name, doesn't mean that the boba will be properly cooked! The lack of quality control for the franchise is disappointing. Let me digress and give you some listing of my favorite boba places:

Tea Station - On Valley Blvd, right outside of the Focus Plaza. So far this is my favorite place as the boba is cooked just the way I like it and the tea is brewed from Ten-Ren brand (right next door.. haha.. and it's the same owner too.)

Au 79 - On San Gabriel, cross street is Valley Blvd. This place is pretty hip as it's got comics, board games, magazines, and chinese MTV's playing on the 9 tv screens in the store. With a group of people, you can play cards, Jenga, Go, and whatever else are available. I like the red bean slushy with boba.. actual red beans too! Not just some red bean flavor powder..