Brick Lane. This new Indian restaurant in the Arts District (old Brera space) is a bore. Down-spiced from real Indian food. Not nearly enough refinement to compensate. Grasping for a silver lining, Peony says: the water is infused with spice, that’s special.
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Tanakaya is still going strong. Great opportunity to bang bang with Cream Pan, Taco Mesita, Seven Grams, Manaoo Thai, Oliboli, THH and many other places in the area. Both udon and soba are home made and delicious. Fried stuff is crispy and not oily. Always a good meal.
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Fosselmans - Alhambra
Cheesecake brownie sundae with chocolate peanut butter cup and vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream and peanuts.
Mariscos 4 Vientos - East Los Angeles
Taco poseido y taco dorado de camaron
Tostada de ceviche de camaron
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I feel I have been punked (again) by the Los Angeles Times’ food section (which has deteriorated as badly as the rest of the paper, if not more).
According to the L.A. Times, the Lorenzo sandwich shop on Little Santa Monica Blvd. in Beverly Hill is one of the best 101 restaurants in all of Los Angeles. According to me, I just had the worst sandwich I have ever had in my entire life.
For those of you not in the know, Lorenzo is a tiny sandwich shop a few blocks east of the vastly superior Beverly Hills Cheese shop. It has a few tightly jammed tables outside and a few equally jammed tables inside. Not sure what it is like on a weekday, but on a Sunday, it was quite like a mosh pit where you had to fight your way to the ordering counter and then wait outside on a jammed sidewalk for your order (mine took 20 minutes).
Perhaps I ordered the one awful thing on the menu of this vaunted L.A. Times establishment and everything else is delectable? Anyway, I had the $26 Chicken Milanese sandwich which is only available on weekends. This consisted of thick dried out tasteless crusted chicken smeared with gobs of a mayonnaisey sauce, with some tired greens, on focaccia that tasted like what you would pick up at the supermarket.
I just read an article in the Washington Post about how to avoid a bad restaurant in Rome. https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/2026/05/16/how-avoid-terrible-restaurant-rome/ It said never to stand in line for a restaurant in Rome because that signifies a touristy restaurant, not good food. Maybe I should have taken my cue for that for Lorenzo, which as I said was like a mosh pit.
The $26 sandwich was so bad that after-the-fact, I wish I had just tossed it rather than being a victim of the sunk costs fallacy. A few days ago I had picked up a $26 pizza from Pizzeria Sei (buffalo mozzarella Margherita) and I couldn’t stop thinking about how $26 at Sei bought me a truly artisanal product versus the Lorezno sandwich that I should have tossed. It’s possible that perhaps you should never order anything other than Italian cold cuts at Lorenzo (and possibly they don’t douse those with mayonnaise and then top with tired greens), but that focaccia is not artisanal.
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I have never had that specific sandwich from Lorenzo, but I have tried many others. I think Lorenzo is one of the best sandwich shops in the city, on par with many similar type of establishments in Florence.
I can’t speak for the chicken cutlet itself since I’ve never had that sandwich. Maybe they don’t know how to cook a chicken cutlet? However, while I don’t discount your experience, the way you’re describing the bread is befuddling in light of my experiences at Lorenzo. Across many visits I have found their focaccia to be consistently fantastic - good flavor, light and airy but with just enough chew. I have definitely never encountered anything even remotely close to their focaccia at a supermarket, but maybe i’m shopping at the wrong places.
I certainly agree with everything you said about Pizzeria Sei.
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I was at Lorenzo on Saturday with family/ out-of-towers, and it was spectacular. The breads, meats,veg and cheeses are wonderful. Everyone was mightily impressed. I never had (and likely never will have) the Milanese.
And as for seating, it’s always difficult but with the Beverly Hills Art Walk on, it can only be an atrocity. So we made sure to get there well before noon and managed to seat 4 together.
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Sorry, it sucked.
The Lorenzo is the sandwich that I enjoy the most there. Have also had the tuna and smoked salmon, but the house sandwich is the best. Great bread, tasty mortadella and toppings.
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Yeah going to join the chorus of “Lorenzo is good”
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I dunno, maybe it was the restaurant’s dumping the equivalent of a full 8 oz cup of Miracle Whip on the focaccia that made it taste so bad, but everything about my Milanese sandwich was wrong, and I’m still mad at myself for falling for the sunk costs fallacy and not trashing the whole thing.
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Lorenzo California best sandwich in Los Angeles sorry you had a bad experience
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I’m truly surprised how many people like this place. Maybe they are good at curing meats, and ordering anything but cured meat is a huge mistake.
Based on my $26 dried out chicken sandwich doused with mayonnaise, it didn’t feel like there was an actual chef in the house at Lorenzo. And the tomatoes on the sandwich were tasteless and the arugula was tired and sad. I just can’t get over the contrast between Lorenzo and Pizzeria Sei at the same $26 price point. In addition to my pizza at Sei, I ordered the arugula salad at Sei and it was so fresh and vibrant – one of the best salads I have had in a long time. The Lorenzo arugula on my sandwich tasted like the bagged stuff at the supermarket. Not sure if anyone has tried Lorenzo’s actual $18 salad. The Lorenzo salad has more stuff in it than the $14 salad at Sei, but I’m guessing the Lorenzo salad has the same sad arugula that was on my sandwich.
Anyway, I’m glad that people like their cured meats.
Never tried the Milanese at Lorenzo. I avoid going to any Beverly Hills eateries during their scheduled BH art installations days.
Instead, I went and got another Young Thai Coconut Smoothie again. And then drove by Sei 2.0… So close!
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Do you liked cured meat? If you don’t, then perhaps it’s not the place for you.
I’ve only been once, had a sandwich w/ cured meat, and I regularly fantasize about going back.
If you really want a sandwich and experience that truly stinks, try the Tran Cafe “banh mi” I had in Santa Monica today (well, technically yesterday, I guess) that was about $1.50 more than it was b/f (which is kind of significant when it was like $7.50 to start off w/); where the prices in the kiosk don’t match what’s literally listed 4 feet away on the printed menu sign; where the sign above the kiosk says “Ghost Kitchen ordering,” even though the kitchen is perhaps 6 ft away and, AFAIK, doesn’t prep food for any other eatery there (seriously, where the f*ck else would you expect the kitchen to be???); where the person serving the food couldn’t bothered w/ calling out my name or the order number when he brought out the sandwich (even though the sign above the kiosk says to note your order number); and where the “lemongrass fire chicken” banh mi (also not on the printed menu) is doused w/ some weird, liquidy, possibly mayo-based that was poured on so heavily that I could barely detect the, you know, the chicken bits (which seem to have disturbingly dissolved into the sauce). Not sure what the “fire” was referring to b/c there was no discernible heat.
I won’t get into how ineptly wrapped the sandwich was (I have never had a halved sandwich that didn’t have another, uncut layer on top).
My first experience Tran was cheap and cheerful. I swear to God this last experience was like the ruins of capitalism in culinary form. I seriously felt my soul die quietly w/ every bite I took.
It was perfectly edible, but I was honestly pretty sour and demoralized (can you tell?) after the entire experience (esp what I consider to be bait-and-switch pricing) b/c I would’ve rather gone to Gelson’s for a $10.99 half sandwich (incl an add of avocado) and 2 sides.
The $10 banh mi experience (I included a $1 tip) doesn’t make me eager to return for the $17 burrito there. I’m seriously all riled up again just from writing this…
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Maybe Lorenzo ran out of focaccia and filled in with some from a supermarket?
Not a bad rule of thumb but pretty much every night Pizzeria da Remo and Dar Filettaro a Santa Barbara have waitlists of mostly locals.
They have a delicious porchetta special on Fridays. I heard the same for the tri tip on Thursday as well. I do not remember my cured meat sandwich from there however. If I time it right All Antico has a happy hour on uber eats and some of their cured meats hit the spot.
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Reposting this from the OC section because it was worth chatting about.
Had a really impressive dinner at the Ecology Center in San Juan this Saturday. (Side note, the Ecology Center is one of the most impressive sustainable food initiatives I’ve ever seen, and it’s worth a stop for just about anybody. At this event, I spoke briefly with the food critic Jeff Gordinier. He more or less said that the Ecology Center almost has a different energy to it. I don’t disagree. There is an intentionality and beauty to this space that’s pretty remarkable.) Also, for some thoughts, I’ll link you to Jeff’s instagram on the experience. https://www.instagram.com/p/DYc4sRNAZEv/?img_index=1
This was Korean temple food in the middle of a farm, and something crazy like 90 percent of the ingredients were from said farm. Before the meal, there was tea and a rice-washing ceremony, then the farmer spoke about the importance of sustainable agriculture and whatnot.
All that matters, but what also matters is the food. It was tremendous. The spring vegetable juk was a highlight, as was a tasting of three different kinds of jangs, including a 100-year-old sis-ganjang from Chef Tony Yoo’s grandmother. The main was rice and beans with what was described as temple-style banchan. Of note, the temple cuisine meant no garlic, chives, onions, etc. Finally, the desserts, all more or less petit-fours, but served in front of fire pits, were tremendous. Particularly notable was a strawberry sweet bean tteok situation (fresh strawberries from the farm in mochi) and a blue corn rice cake that was almost reminiscent of the old atole that Carlos Salgado at Taco Maria would occasionally serve.
This was a one off, but visit the Ecology Center if you haven’t yet, and do try to go to one of their various dinners eventually.
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Ugh it was so doable when he was in the SGV, but I ain’t trekking to WeHo on a Friday.
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