My new favorite Restaurant Row
Some fast food takes
East side to LAX rides can play tricks on you. The first 40 minutes fly by, placing you 1.2 miles from your gate way sooner than intended. This happened to me on Thursday night. And then, thanks to the deeply flawed machinations of this city’s traffic, I spent another hour gridlocked inside the most loaded fast food intersection in Los Angeles.
I don’t talk a lot about fast food on here, but it was a staple of growing up in Texas without much home cooking. Ices and tots from the Sonic down the street and a rotation of Chick-fil-A orders dominated my first 18 years of eating more than any of the establishments I write about now. It’s where I get my love of fries & aioli, sugary drinks and late-night snacking. My ideal highway is out in West Texas, with competition at every exit for a reliably mediocre and quick indulgence. It took years to get used to the winding conservatism of New England roads or the vast emptiness attached to California freeways. While I don’t always need to give in to a 10-minute burger break, I prefer to have the option.
So my eyes lit up while stuck at Centinela and La Cienega this week. High school me could have lived on this block. Simply by swiveling my head a few times, I spotted:
Burger King
Chick-fil-A
Chipotle
Dave’s Hot Chicken
El Pollo Loco
Jack In The Box
Jersey Mike’s
McDonald’s
Panda Express
Popeyes
Subway
Wendy’s
Wingstop
This isn’t a thing you really see in Echo Park, where the nearest Chili’s is 13.3 miles away in Pico Rivera. My LA food consumption is mostly made up of daily stops at LA Homefarm for vegetables, McCall’s for protein, Maru for coffee, the occasional nice dinner and a Din Tai Fung to-go order when all of that feels impossible. It’s a good and necessary routine for a former fat kid who gets addicted to new habits quickly. I’m not built for a monthly, drunken McDonald’s run. It’s all or nothing.
Right across the street from the Dave’s Hot Chicken, a Taco Bell sat empty during its final hours. A colleague hounded me on Friday night about having never tried their food. There’s little urgency to eat these Mexican-adjacent concoctions in Texas. The holdout began much more as apathy than protest, then it became too late to take the plunge. I’ve stood in a Taco Bell on 23rd and 7th shortly after midnight on New Year’s Eve in New York. It reeked of Baja Blast, frozen lettuce and Svedka. I think I’m good.
Yesterday, I grabbed lunch at Altro Paradiso, catching up with a friend over fennel salad, crudo and chicken milanese. Later that night, I sat in front of an overflowing Gage & Tollner spread featuring ribeye, a medley of sauces, creamed spinach, onion rings, hashbrowns, fried chicken and hushpuppies with honey butter. When I get home tomorrow, I’ll start a bone broth for the next day. This is how I prefer to eat. A light and easy meal in a beautiful space. A big swanky indulgence. And lots of simple dishes at home. But at heart I see that loaded list of spots back in LA and think wistfully of Frostys and Egg McMuffins that could spiral me out of any sort of recent health kick.
Here are my subjective rankings of the offerings. If you catch me conceding all self control, you’ll most likely catch me here:
Popeyes
Chick-fil-A
McDonald’s
Dave’s Hot Chicken
Wendy’s
Wingstop
Chipotle
Panda Express
El Pollo Loco
Burger King
Jersey Mike’s
Subway
Jack In The Box
