I went with my mother and some of her friends to the Eagles concert at the Forum last night. When I go to the Forum, I normally eat the slightly better than mediocre food (tacos, cheesesteaks, etc) at the outdoor terrace. That did not sound appealing to my mother, so she tasked me with finding us a restaurant near the Forum. Top of my list in Inglewood has long been Sunday Gravy, but they do not take reservations. As I started researching restaurants in the area, there was one in particular that stood out both for the quantity of mentions, and the fervent acclaim of its reviews. That restaurant is Two Hommés.
Two Hommés describes itself as an “Afro-Centric Eatery”. Afro-Centric indeed, but with much broader influences. The Infatuation, which has the sole standalone major publication review(1) of the restaurant, calls it Afro-Latin fusion (hold your tongues, I know many of you hate the “f” word). Afro-Latin seems closer to reality, but still not perfect. It’s a bit hard to describe exactly what the cuisine is, except to say it’s clearly an amalgamation of the chefs’ upbringings and influences. It feels personal.
Two Hommés is, as the name suggests, the product of two homies. It’s also a pun, which I suspected but had to confirm on Google Translate, as my French is sadly nonexistent. As the story goes, the two chefs were friends and LA locals. They ran a series of (evidently) successful pop-ups around Los Angeles before deciding to open a physical location.
This is not a fancy restaurant. Nor is there any attempt to be one. You sit at wood picnic bench tables and drink from plastic cups. It feels like a permanent pop-up. But the service is convivial, and most importantly, the food is stupendous.
I came with a group of six and our server recommended ordering 3 to 4 share plates and all 3 of the mains. For the most part, we ordered exactly what our server recommended.
We ordered:
(note - all pictures stolen from the internet - as I am not president of a major university, I should be fairly insulated from the consequences of my photographic plagiarism)
House Salad
Our server described their house salad as “the best damn salad you’ve ever had”, or something along those lines. A bold opening line, but I can respect boldness when it’s deserved. Admittedly, I am not a huge salad fan, and when I do eat salad, I prefer to add a protein. Was this the best damn salad I’ve ever had? Hard to say, but I can assure you that it was definitely a damn good salad. From the first bite, everyone at the table was raving about how delicious it was. The combination of flavors was fantastic, but even more than that, it seemed to have the absolute perfect ratio of each ingredient, such that each bite was as good as the last. Sweet but not overly sweet, tangy but not overly tangy, cheesy but not overly cheesy, crunchy but not overly crunchy.
Za’atar Zucchini
When I first scooped some of the dish onto my plate and took a bite, it turned out I forgot to grab any of the zucchini. The shito cream with the arugula and breadcrumbs was so good that I didn’t even care that I missed the main item of the dish. But yes, when I went in for another bite, this time with some zucchini, it was even better.
Mahi Mahi Tostada
Ostensibly harder to share then all the other dishes, yet I miraculously managed to crack the tostadas perfectly in half. Now we start to see what I can only presume is some Mexican influence. I must profess that I was most incredulous about this dish, as it seemed furthest afield from the rest of what we ordered. But, I was so wrong. Again, the combination of flavors and the ratio of ingredients were just right, elevating the seafood tostada from what I find to often be a good but not great dish to something truly outstanding. The expertly cooked, no trace of fishiness (a peeve of mine) mahi mahi was certainly the star, but the supporting players - the tangy pickled onions, the bright cilantro-lime cream turned helped this become greater than the sum of its parts.
Honey Berbere Chicken Bites
Our server said this is their most popular item. We almost didn’t order it, however. My mother and some of her friends have an aversion to fried foods. Which I can respect. But I was not about to miss out on their most popular menu item, so I used my veto override. And boy, am I glad I did. I was not familiar with berbere, which it turns out is a fantastic spice mixture, especially when paired with just the right amount of something sweet like honey. The chicken bites stood on their own as some of the best I’ve ever had, but were elevated even more so when combined with a pickle and a dollop of aioli. And the aioli on the chicken bite (so to speak) is that my mother eventually acquiesced and tried a little micro-nibble, and ended up loving it so much that she ate an entire piece.
Jollof Platter with Branzino
Note that the below image shows salmon, but we ordered it with branzino.
This dish was a knockout. So simple, but so delicious. The same fresh arugula from the zucchini starter, slightly charred on the outside but perfectly soft on the inside plantains, perhaps the best rice I’ve ever had (I need to learn how to make jollof rice), a beautiful fillet of branzino with the skin crisped just the right amount, and black beans (which I normally avoid) that were more like a delicious stew than plain old beans. A recurring theme… simple on its face, but incredibly complex in the combination of such flavorful ingredients. I could eat this for dinner every night.
Garlic Noodle
I must note that, unlike the image below, we did not add lamb chops to our garlic noodle. Perhaps we should have. We ordered the garlic noodle standard (no added protein). Which, in retrospect I think was a mistake. It was a good garlic noodle. I enjoyed it. I went back for seconds. But it was missing something. And apparently that something was an added protein, as every table around us, and every review on Yelp, ordered the dish with a protein, and enjoyed it more with a protein than we did without.
Root Beer Braised Short Rib
Ok seriously, I could eat this for dinner every single night. But unlike the healthier jollof platter, I probably shouldn’t. With the closure of Craft, I lost my favorite short rib dish in LA. But I genuinely think this has taken its place. The short rib was cooked to absolute perfection. It had just enough flavor from the root beer brazing to give it some oomph, but not too much to take away from the greatness of the short rib itself. Importantly, as this is what I look for most in a short rib to determine cooking technique (others can disagree), they cooked it long enough to render out all of the fat. Bravo! Not a hard thing to do, but so many restaurants still fail to do so. Beneath the short rib sat some zucchini (a callback to one of our appetizers) and what we kept calling mashed potatoes, but looking at the menu appears to be whipped yams. Damn, were those good yams.
I walked into the restaurant with a group of somewhat incredulous boomers, and by the time we left, they were all planning a time to return (probably before we go to Bruce Springsteen at the Forum in April, in case anyone cares).
One thing that was in the back of my mind the whole time was that while the prices may seem reasonable, or even particularly inexpensive, for those of us that live in LA proper, the prices felt high for the neighborhood, which I only bring up in the hope that they have not priced out the locals. Inflation is inflation, costs are high, and I am sure they do not intend to price anybody out if they can help it.
Ok enough talk, seriously, go try this restaurant, it’s fantastic.
(1) There is also an LA Times mini-review as part of a longer piece entitled Looking for Black-owned restaurants in L.A.? I found my new favorites here.