LA Eats – Swah’s Best Places to Eat in Los Angeles

I’ve been to LA numerous times, and while it’s not my favourite city (hello New York!), it certainly is a city I always stop off at the start or end of my trip. It used to be purely to break up the long journey, but now I enjoy spending a few days in Los Angeles to eat and make the occasional journey down south to Disneyland.

Note: I stayed in West Hollywood and didn’t have a car, so a lot of these places are located around that area. This only scratches the surface of all the amazing places you can try in Los Angeles!

♥ In-N-Out 7009 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles (plus many more locations)

Oh sweet mother of god. Be still my beating heart. In-N-Out Burger is famous for a reason, and their burgers are next level. And just to make it more exciting, there is a secret menu! I insist you order your burger “Animal Style” – it comes with extra sauce, pickles, grilled onions and mustard fried right onto each burger patty. You can also order your fries Animal Style, but to be honest I was pretty underwhelmed by them.

♥ Farmer’s Market 6333 W.3rd St. Los Angeles – incl Loteria Grill and Bob’s Donuts

The Farmer’s Markets are a great place to visit when you’re in Los Angeles, not only for food, but for a spot of shopping and celebrity spotting at the adjacent The Grove.

Now, to food. The Loteria Grill located at the Farmer’s Market serves up a huge range of regional Mexican specialties. I couldn’t make up my mind which taco flavour to choose, so I went for Probaditas – 12 of their original tacos served on mini corn tortillas for only $16!

And for dessert? Bob’s Donuts of course! If you want a plain and simple, old fashioned style donut then this is your place. I spent a while umming and aahing over the menu and the cashier suggested I go for a classic – the chocolate glazed donut. It was fluffy and fresh and with just the right amount of sweetness. I could have eaten 10.

♥ Sprinkles Cupcakes and Ice cream (next door to each other) 9631 South Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills (plus other locations)

Sprinkles came 2nd place in my Best Cupcakes in America List! And for very good reason. Their cupcakes are moist and flavourful and come in a huge array of delicious flavours. They also have a Cupcake ATM for all your 24 hour cupcakes needs, AND have an ice cream parlour next door to the Beverly Hills store.

♥ Blu Jam Cafe, 7371 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles

Be prepared to wait for a table at Blu Jam. And wait. But the hordes of crowds were a good sign we were going to be rewarded with delicious things, and boy were we. America is notorious for terrible coffee, and I don’t think our jet lagged selves could really deal with that. But we were presented with a pot of the most amazingly strong French-pressed coffee, and suddenly we were very awake, and everything was very exciting.

The crunchy french toast is famous here, so I gave it a go. It featured egg brioche dipped in batter, rolled in corn flakes and grilled, then topped with fresh fruit and served with vanilla bean sauce. A mammoth platter of this was served to me for only $12.95. And god did it live up to the hype!

My friend ordered the egg hash ($11.95) and it had eggs tossed with black forest ham, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, onions, red potatoes and mozzarella and served with toast. I’m not a huge fan of eggs, but this was so flavourful and packed with delicious ingredients and I helped myself to several fork-fulls. (We were both starving and neither of us managed to finish our dishes, these are cheap and generous portions!)

♥ Salt’s Cure 7494 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood

This was a suggestion from our Airbnb host, so we went on a Sunday night not sure what to expect. It’s very dark, so please excuse the weird looking photos!

Salt’s Cure proudly sources ingredients grown and raised in California and use the principle “if it’s not within six hours of the restaurant, it’s not on the plate”. Their menu changes nightly according to season and availability of ingredients (you can check out the daily menu on their Facebook page). We sampled the most amazing meat and cheese platter, 1/2 a roasted chicken, a kale salad (we were in LA, after all) and a delicious chocolate pudding. Everything was flawless, the service was impressive and they happily packaged up our leftovers to take home.

♥ El Flamin Taco 1720 Vine Street, Los Angeles

Allegedly serves up “the best Mexican food in all of LA” with locations in Echo Park, Koreatown, Hollywood and Silver Lake.

♥ Roscoes House of Chicken and Waffles 1514 North Gower Street

Southern style fried chicken served on a freshly cooked waffle, drowned in maple syrup. It sounds weird but it is truly heaven!

♥ Kogi BBQ Truck – follow on Twitter for locations https://twitter.com/kogibbq

These guys started the Korean/Mexican fusion taco movement, and have 5 trucks operating around LA. Follow them on Twitter and track them down.

♥ Foodlab, West Hollywood and Silver Lake

Amazing breakfast options (including a Nutella and Mascarpone Sugar Brioche breakfast sandwich!!). They also do picnic boxes and have a great lunch menu featuring delicious organic sandwiches and salads.

♥ Urth Caffe 8565 Melrose Ave Plus other locations

Grab a cup of organic coffee, munch on a salad (once you get sick of all the burgers) and keep your eye out for a starlet – celebs love hanging out at Urth Caffe apparently!

♥ Milk Jar Cookies 5466 Wilshire Boulevard

Enjoy homemade cookies and coffee roasted locally at this adorable cafe, with cookie flavours including rocky road, cinnamon sugar and of course the classic chocolate chip.

♥ The Mercantile, 6600 West Sunset Boulevard

This wine bar and cheese place serves up delicious dinners nightly, as well as fanciful brunches over the weekend that include several great brunch cocktails (hello Bloody Marys and bottomless Mimosas!).

Image sources from El Flamin Taco onwards – 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Some things to remember when eating out in America:

* Servings are huge! I don’t think I ever finished a meal in America. Try and get a few dishes and share amongst friends. If you’re staying in a place with a fridge, restaurants are usually more than happy to pack up your leftovers to take home.

* Tipping is pretty much mandatory in the service industry in America (but generally not expected in fast food places such as In-N-Out). Expect to tip around 20% in restaurants and bars.

* Book restaurants with Open Table – I used this handy site to book all my restaurants across America, from West to East coast. While not all restaurants take bookings, it’s very handy to book with one that does especially on a Friday or Saturday night.

And for more handy America tips, go  here

Have you been to Los Angeles before? Where is your favourite place to eat? Share it with fellow readers in the comments!

And check out my San Francisco Eating Guide here!