8 Of Our Favorite LA-Area Restaurants | Legendary Eats Marathon

if you're seeing in like we are then you might be looking for ways to stay busy join us on a virtual journey to eight iconic restaurants insider visited in Los Angeles to see what makes them some of the best the city has to offer our first stop is in downtown LA where a chef at Philippe's accidentally made the first French Dip sandwich more than a hundred years ago the French Dip is very simple sandwich it's traditionally made with roast beef on a French roll you can add cheese to it but it was created here as an accident we're here Philippe's the original here in downtown Los Angeles this is the original spot where the French Dip sandwich was invented it is a la institution I don't know what to expect I mean I've had friendships before when you know them to kind of hit or miss I mean it's just bread and meat with a little bit of juice on there kind of want to see what the big deal is about I'm meeting my friend Nick he comes here he loves it so this was my first time I'm very excited that's right buddy we opened in 1908 here in Los Angeles and we're the longest continually operating restaurant here so Philippe in 1918 he accidentally dropped a roll in the pan drippings of the beef he was cooking and the customer was in a hurry took the sandwich as it was and came back the next day requesting it be dipped so that was really the birth of the French Dip a happy accident you've been here before what do you normally good I'm gonna get a beef dip double dip I want to get like the wet way I want to get like I wanted the guys dipped as possible yeah with their hands too that's the whole thing in there I get regular french dip I'll get that one I could drive the beef is prepared the same way as all the other Meads they're they're cooked seasoned and throughout the day we add liquid to the roasting pans and so that's really where we get the flavor for the aju so the next day we use those drippings with a stock we make and that's what we dip your sandwiches I take Nick out to lunches and help me carry the food unbelievable [Music] the hot mustard we make here we make it in-house the saltiness of the sandwich goes very well with the nasal burning heat of the mustard oh my god the mustard oh my god dude finish it would turn me off this thing is gonna be this wet and SAT with a good knife my grandma always had just a big vat of them when we come visit on the counter you got retain a grab an egg it's kind of why I looked like I dunno I think I'll keep our prices very low and so at lunchtime you could really see the whole spectrum of our clientele I like the vintage ambiance I like the authenticity of it I started coming here about 10 years ago first time I came here and four years ago it's wonderful 19:18 is a year that the French Dip was in fact a fully faithfully his nickname was Frenchy who's making a sandwich for fireball and he actually dropped the bun in the edges so the fireman who apparently was in a hurry was like don't we make my sandwich I got to go to a fire or whatever it was late for the guy dropping the thing in the pan of a light and there's just how much get out of here people really lacks out rules back then [Music] one of the firemen got a slice of pie too it's like a one slice of lemon pie and actually dropped in an open bed of meringue they had next to it and he was it gets kids give me the pie so I'm in a hurry and that guy was like at the time this is my infection but the speck time with the sandwich I got a mister meringue also in downtown LA we've got one of the city's most legendary delis flangers is a decades-old institution known best for pastrami on rye that many say rivals what you can find in New York City [Music] I've been here like 15 times never had anything but this laggers delicatessen was founded by my mother and father June 17th 1947 and we've been going strong since I've been here active running that establishments in January of 1963 [Music] my dad came up with certain specifications and certain recipes for pastrami and corned beef or the way he wanted it prepared and he was my teacher and I followed it through to this day with all his original recipes his original products his original ways of doing things we like by McKee like smoking and stuff like that right so we've been in love it's flavorful this tender they don't chew off all the fat which is a great that's that kind of sweet taste and the Rye bread goes well with that this might be blasphemy but I do think that this is better than most of the delis in New York I'm not gonna name any specifically because they're also very good but this is up there I think the thing in New York is that it's sort of gimmicky right it's like oh we can make the biggest craziest sandwich but here it's like this is a real sandwich that a human being can put in their mouth and eat that's what I want out of a sandwich [Music] it's just a savory salty delicious meat I don't think that anyone's ever made a meat so good as pastrami they nailed it give up now we're done it's pastrami they've won [Music] you know people ask me norm why are you still here I'm 73 years old to me this is my home this is where I come every day this is where I shall we say make people happy la has long been a hub for some of the best Mexican food in the u.s. from delicious tortas to the juiciest tacos however our list would not be complete without a stop at the nostalgic Tito's tacos in Culver City go ahead and forget everything you thought you knew about hardshell tacos because this definitely isn't Taco Bell Tito's tacos is Ellie's favorite spot for fresh tortilla chips they're also known for their hardshell tacos all right so we are here I am a huge Tito's tacos man when I first moved to LA I had some friends tell me that I had to go to Tito's and my initial reaction so that was why would I go eat a hard shell taco that's not what I came to LA for but once you in the cold crispy crunchy shell you will know that is fully worth checking out so I'm here today with my friends Roman and Craig they're new yorkers who think hardshell tacos are just for Taco Tuesdays they're wrong and I'm gonna show them what's up Tito's was founded back in 1959 it's been about 60 years that we've been in business now and right now the granddaughter Lynne Davidson is still the owner of Tito's so her grandfather started it then there was her father and now it's her the reason I didn't makes it different for other places is the fact that we do cook and lard it makes it taste even better I remember coming here with my family having to wait those long lines everybody loves the tacos they love the burritos people have memories of Tito's when they've been children we have customers that been coming here for the past 40 50 years who remember coming with their parents who come with their children and it's just a family tradition to always bring them to Tito's Tito's signature is the cold cheddar cheese they add the top of each taco honestly it's the best part it's like different item in its own way it's like it has that like in a now factor where it's just like you're not going to get where you're liking it out anywhere else you're not going to get Mexican they use a lot of tortillas a Cheetos and buy a lot I mean over eight million pounds of tortillas a year and they go through over 500,000 pounds of meat and all that meat goes into the tacos just before they're fried making them the perfect vessel for that cold cheese seriously I'm getting hungry just watching this [Music] and now for the moment of truth Roman and Craig's very first bite of Tito's tacos like I think once you try these you're gonna be like converted for real guys so yeah we didn't obviously better than Taco Bell yeah we way past that yeah yeah and it's just so special and tasty I love tacos but I'm really gonna solve some kind of person soft so does fall apart this is just one complete life like everything is together like heaven anyway you want in this some of the city's busiest spots aren't in the most obvious places check out this gas station on Santa Monica Boulevard with the bomb bay Frankie company's serves flavorful chicken tikka masala Frankie's [Music] I'm from Bombay and Bombay is street food is Frankie and this is the only place that actually serves that and it's kind of aesthetic and its really tasty [Music] this is so good this is amazing it was really really delicious oh my god take the Mexican burrito which people know it's like the mainstay a la culture and then you've packaged it up into like an Indian offering but the way you prepare it itself is in the issue with the knot and all the flavors inside people love it I mean we had a sign outside for a few months and people are taking pictures and posting it and that's kind of how the popularity grew and then once they started eating the food and tasting the flavors never I mean they were bored with it we had a space spray here a fully working kitchen that was empty and we decided let's do something with it our dad is a big cook and we've always grown up around when we're eating dinner were already talking about tomorrow's dinner cooking has been such a huge influence in our lives it smells so good I love the way my mom loved cooking my hobby is cooking so I learned from lot of things from my mom [Music] Franky's are pretty hard to find in LA so it's one of the only spots I know to come to I like this has a lot of gravy the cucumber is an ice chest shoe so my first time having a Frank he's gonna be at a gas station on Santa Monica which I just feel is like the most la thing I could possibly think of other than good old salad keep that it's stuffed with like cauliflower and it smells so good and after a whole bunch of different sauces on it and I just know that's gonna be like that's with flavor but it's vegetarian which is really nice you know it's good to be able to not have to stuff your face full of meat which is usually what I'm doing working there's something really comforting about it too I think it's all the cheese and the potatoes and like the garlicky bread it to me is you know very similar to what a lot of Americans consider to be comfort food this is amazing this is exactly what I want to eat for lunch it's not a burrito it's a Frankie it's crunchy it's kind of smushy in certain places it's like you know sour and it's spicy and all of the different things work together really well and every time you just go back for another bite you get something different you can't figure it out and like that's what's so great to see someone that like never tried to take this I guess risk and coming new convenience stores and try now gas station Indian food and then be overwhelmed and then go to another restaurant be like hey wait a sec that doesn't even stack up to the gas station anything so we're we're over George when we see that kind of reaction yeah that's a credible payoff Wow if you're looking for a fancier dining set up lorries is the go-to for a perfectly rare cut of prime rib [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we have guests that have been coming here since they were like 1 years old and now they have their kids coming in we also have two guys to travel the world like this is a destination for that first we fix the natural pick is Edelweiss chocolates Ellie's premium handmade chocolate shop located in Beverly Hills the dessert staple is a favourite among presidents celebrities and locals alike think about every time you walk inside a chocolate shop you're probably immersed with the smell of chocolate coming from the shelves but at all wise the sweet smell doesn't just come from the boxes of chocolate but from the 76 year old factory behind the shops entrance according to the shop these chocolates have been favorites for Frank Sinatra and Katharine Hepburn among other Hollywood celebs this is how adelies became LA's most iconic chocolate shop idolized as a fatigue candy store located in the heart of Beverly Hills we opened in 1942 the original owner was mrs. grace young and she opened the shop it's always been in the same location we make about a hundred and twenty different varieties of handmade chocolates there have been five owners of the business and my family is the fifth owner we went straight to where the magic happens starting with the gourmet marshmallows the original recipe is that mrs. young started with were the marshmallows we have nine different varieties that we do every day and then we have a lot of different seasonal varieties that we do so those were her specialties the star brought marshmallows at all it's so puffy it's okay IDO why still uses some of its original machinery it's all original equipment it allows us to continue the traditional art of candy making processed by hand it's kind of hard to do that without the original equipment so much of the equipment is older or just around a hundred years old but they've also incorporated new automated machinery into their production so they're still making tasty quality chocolate but faster regardless of what machinery the shop uses they still follow traditional chocolate-making techniques that includes treats that can best be made with your hands being this close to Hollywood and being here for as long as we have you know you name the celebrity the head of state kings queens royalty presidents you know they've all been in this shop they've all had our product the chocolate shop also inspired Lucille Ball to film the famous Chocolate Factory scene from I Love Lucy story goes that Lucy would walk through the factory to get to the front shop one day she saw an employee trying to keep up with the chocolates coming down the conveyor belt Lucy witnessed chocolate flying everywhere and a light bulb went off in her head she later recreated the factory scene on the I Love Lucy soundstage so obviously I had to try it out myself too [Music] I love this assortment there's so much you can try there's a chocolate covered apricots there's lots of buttercream a lots of milk chocolate dark chocolate I feel like this box can satisfy anyone [Music] this is dark chocolate filled with dark chocolate but I wasn't expecting that burst of buttercream but I'm happy it happened this is all peanut butter inside this is so good chocolate and peanut butter there's nothing better than that this business I truly believe it doesn't even belong to my family it belongs to this community we have customers whose families have been shopping here for 70 years the great grandparents brought the grandchildren who brought their children and uh bring their children this feels like a second home to a lot of people and you know that tradition is also something that we really seek to keep alive because it's it's so important to the community it's a meeting area for a lot of people and you know we're here to make people happy and to to be a part of the community and keep that tradition going it's easy to crave ice cream in sunny LA which is why a lot of people go to Mashti Malone's in Hollywood the shop serves a Persian ice-cream with flavors like saffron rosewater cucumber and lavender here's why Mashti Malone's has the best ice cream in LA are so good and different and because everyone here is awesome like it's so fun to be around here I go to school down the street and I was looking for ice for him it was just here for the closest place little did I know it was the best ice cream I to ever have for the rest of my life I attend I'd say it's given me as well right now meet Mashti and mehdi shravani they own Mashti Milan's ice cream in Hollywood they're credited for introducing Persian ice cream to LA in a previous video I crown them the best ice cream in LA and since then I couldn't wait to go back for more I'm Ashley Shivani the older brother I came here before the Revolution in Iran and the 1980 I opened this business I had the saving that I bought the business from the landlord and I start making ice cream for local Iranian meanwhile I was working in the restaurant to support my son little by little I started it was difficult first is special we don't have it walking traffic here so I had to keep the customers there when they were coming every single person I was giving them samples that's how I built my business what sets it apart are the flavors but all weird flavors it's mostly floral food base or air ball base things like that we got the rose water first place I ever had Persian cucumber and that's good it's great yeah you got all this wonderful flavors you like what's up bro that's so this is like stop throwing and said it's orange blossom I don't know what reporters moping in this for ice cream saffron pistachios weather has been always with us sela the rules was very unusual and unknown to American cuisine they'd never heard of those one so it took him and asked so much sampling and kind of lecturing about the ingredients so those will not many a little flavor to kind of accept that rose can be eaten too it's just like vanilla but I think whatever is more popular here Rose is more popular than other parts of the world the creamery gets some of its ingredients overseas including imported saffron from Iran right now there is sanction what right before sanctioned we walk in our for the next couple of years deputy you see here that's what we put as much as possible are using natural ingredients it's expensive but I'm very happy Oh Oh it's an interesting yellow color yeah so the saffron gives it that yellow color Wow when you visit order the Mashti Ice Cream Sandwich its Maj taste famous saffron rosewater ice cream sandwiched between two wafers and rolled in pistachios [Applause] [Music] the texture this gets an a-plus is just creamy and stretchy it's just it's so satisfying Wow mmm it's really nice because you get little chunks of pistachios that were blended into the ice cream but also whole pistachios all around the sides it kind of gives that nice balance from like the creamy ice cream to the crunchy pistachio it's really good and then you get these like nice chewy wafers you didn't tell them the flavor the texture everything is really fresh and vibrant all the flavors and the thought that goes into everything actually I guess more than 80% of our customers are non Persian they come from every ethnicity and every group they come here but this is like a destination point they make plan to come and have ice cream I don't regret my decision for naming it the best in LA it's seriously so good maybe even better the second time around and lastly about 30 minute drive outside of LA there's a shop that's known for its gooey decadent strawberry doughnuts it's the go-to at the donut man in Glendora but you can only get them during certain months of the year tucked away in the city of Glendora California is a small donut shop that's always busy locals come in for their daily coffee and doughnut but there's one thing that brings people from near and far to the donut man the famous strawberry doughnuts young mrs. delicious we really love it it's really good [Music] I got everywhere but will you go it's definitely worth Jim Nakano opened the donut man in the spring of 1972 but it wasn't until two years later that one fruit changed his business well reasonably got into my wife says let's go for the American Dream in about 1974 a friend of ours who grew strawberry because this area was all strawberries on the other side that he'll know that was all strawberries but in 74 he came to me and said Jim you got come up with the strawberry donut he's not got so much he saw supply you wherever you you want so we so Kate and I had another friend that said I'll help you make the glaze and everything because he had a bakery and all that soon as we tried it we realized that we had a good product that you could use it for the morning breakfast it's a good snack lunch or dinner dessert the shop makes hot donuts 24/7 they use potato flour and live yeast when prepping batches of dough how long the dough proofs and fries for depends on the temperature and humidity inside the shop each day [Music] the team makes this fresh strawberries with homemade strawberry jelly filling before stuffing a generous amount into the doughnut the strawberry doughnuts are only served from February to September so we had to see what all the hype was about we're gonna get some dough know if you're gonna get some doughnuts they have the classic chocolate swirls they have their peach doughnut but I'm here for this bad boy with strawberries so a lot of people drive here from all over California to try these doughnuts there's been a line out the door since we came so I let's dig in I'm just gonna go for this one they're all gonna make a mess whatever oh yes it is glazy it's gonna be a mess look at that it's like a burger full but it is good no don't I shouldn't crispy on the outside which is pretty good I love how it has kind of dislike the texture on the bottom that makes sense but it's not too sweet it's not like a overwhelmingly sweet doughnut my biggest piece of advice is use a fork don't do what I did not only is the donut man famous among locals but we met people from all over the state who came down to try it for themselves what was that part on my Yelp for three years totally one day I'm going to go hating torrents and then from Torrance we came to Glendora and we're like definitely gonna get the fresh peach and the fresh strawberries I've been coming here for years [Music] Archer when's the first time you have honest when I moved here I like 22 years ago if you eat it with a fork you don't blend all the flavors that's true this is a true blend of all the flavor remember coming here in high school after like the pep rallies and stuff people will come and hang out in that parking lot back there and so it's definitely like the go-to area I what I would say we're very lucky because when I started this store I told my wife we will be that big of a store because we're such a small community and all that I would say 60 to 70 percent of our customers come from more than seven miles away and that's unusual [Music] and then I get big-headed when he goes somewhere maybe and it's so much do I know you you run the donut man those are my favorite [Music] [Music] I'm not gonna count this as a donut I'm gonna count this as like a healthy breakfast with a little bit of dessert because that's what it is you get more strawberries than you do donut which is amazing it's like you're eating healthy

Channel: Food Insider

Views: 2,478,262

Rating: 4.8845158 out of 5

Keywords: INSIDER, FOOD INSIDER, LEGENDARY EATS, FOOD TRAVEL, SANDWICHES, TACOS, RESTAURANTS, LA

Id: rGrRMsVyInE

Length: 34min 43sec (2083 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 10 2020