Yet another seedy dive in a strip mall you’ve passed a hundred times, thought, “hey, I could have a bacon and avocado burger” and then forgotten by the time you crossed Sepulveda. Places like this have a real estate curse on them. I think it has to do with the donut shops. You’d stop for a burger, but then you see the donut shop next door and think, “shit, I can’t eat a burger and a donut” and then keep driving. If these places had just a dry cleaners and a TV repair shop next door, you’d stop. But the donuts kill it. Howard’s burgers are good, but there’s not a great reason for their fame. It’s just a good burger joint with a fun sign. Four or five bucks for a wad of beef here.

On Venice east of Sepulveda

I run down Matsuhisa at every chance I get because not only was it the most expensive meal I’ve ever been treated to, but the fish and presentation was nothing I could not get downtown for a fraction of the price. Hama Sushi is perhaps the best sushi bar I’ve been to in town, possibly because there is a fish market next door. Fish comes in to the market, chef ducks through a small door to get the cut he wants. This is one of the only sushi restaurants I’ve been to where they have the standard Asahi beer menu on the table – and that’s their menu. The specials are whatever the chef decides to give you, or if you speak enough Japanese you can get whatever you want. I don’t speak a lick of it, so I let the chef do the surprising. In fact, most of the staff and clientele don’t speak English which is why you know you’re getting good sushi. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, and you can’t pass crap sushi off the locals. The prices are basically market fish price. Back when we were rich we’d drop $90 and gorge ourselves. Nowadays we can get by for about $50.

Downtown LA

You’ve died and gone to pancake heaven. The Griddle is nirvana for those of us who occasionally find ourselves staring longingly for what IHOP promises and never delivers. The Griddle is a café, specializing in breakfast concoctions that are simply amazing. Not only do they have a dozen monster pancake specialties, but their coffee is freakin’ fantastic. Each coffee order is served in an individual French press made to your strength request. Because it’s next to the DGA, however, the parking sucks elephant butt and the tables outside are always jammed with wannabe starlets and their scummy boyfriends who think they’re the next Johnny Knoxville; which should tell you their relative intelligence. Average price for two people is about twenty bucks before tip.

(323) 874-0377, 7916 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles

There’s a number of restaurants that aren’t on this list, even though I’ve been to them several times. The reason Gladstone’s has taken this long to make it is because of two reasons: 1) every time I go I order a burger or steak because everything I want is too expensive for me to justify, and 2) we always go with the same friends whom we love dearly and it’s more fun to watch them go berserk for the seafood. The truth is that fish bores me even though I know it’s good for me. I love living near the water but have little interest in going in it or eating from its depths. I guess it provides me with an inner sustenance. Some of the best memories from my youth in Baltimore involve going to Phillip’s in the Inner Harbor, strapping on a bib, cracking open a Maryland blue crab, and relishing every moment of delicious pain as Old Bay seasoning seeped into the tiny slices made by the razor sharp shell fragments. Scooping yellow “mustard” out of the females and digging for precious treasure in the deep chambers of the crustacean. The Maryland blue crab has been overfished out of existence, so those memories are all that are left of my relationship with the crab. I’ve gone back home and had the Louisiana blue crab substitute, but somehow it was like visiting my old elementary school: everything was smaller and harder to navigate. Gladstone’s has lines miles long for their seafood bonanzas, but since seafood for me is more of a communal experience than a gastronomic one I’ll simply enjoy the company more than the food.

(310) 454-3474, 17300 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades

This family owned restaurant is a neighborhood favorite and you can expect a wait on cold, rainy nights when you’re looking for comfort food. Like El Coyote, Garden of Taxco fulfills your stereotypical Mexican restaurant needs, but the approach is more of being in someone’s patio rather than a theme park that serves booze. The owner gave us a warm rehearsed litany welcoming us to his home, then rattled off the meat choices that would form the main course of a set meal. The meal includes a taco, an enchilada, and a heaping plate of meat, rice, and beans. Go enough times to Garden of Taxco and you can enjoy turning tents into your new pants.

1113 N Harper Ave, West Hollywood

There are two Gaby’s locations, both have absolutely amazing food, but the Marina del Rey spot is the only one worth going to – unless you like dining in a parking lot with music blasting from crappy speakers while choking on cigarette smoke and hookah pipes. The Marina del Rey location has a small inside with about eight tables, though the patio is definitely the place to sit to gawk at beach pedestrians. Gaby’s Mediterranean serves your expected lamb, beef, and chicken shish kebab and gyros, but with a distinctly Lebanese flair. They use liberal amounts of zatar spice, a delicious concoction of flavors floating in a sea of olive oil. If you can get over the texture, which sometimes feels like eating a dirty shag carpet, your tongue will be awash in a sea of exotic goodness. Try Bruce’s Zatar Pizza, a split pita covered in zatar, cheese, tomatoes, and onions. Mind blowingly good. The labna is consistently fresh and adds a wonderful sour zing to anything you put it on.

10445 Venice Blvd, Los Angeles and 20 Washington Blvd, Marina del Rey

OK hipsters, once upon a time there was this little movie called Swingers, which starred a thick necked talentless goon named John Favrau and an even less talented corpse named Vince Vaughn. This movie took place around Silver Lake and Vermont Village, in the old parts of Los Angeles that go back to the twenties. For a while there, due to the popularity of the movie, you couldn’t get into any of the clubs or dive restaurants because every moron in the town had slipped on a pair of tiger skin loafers and a polyester bowling shirt and had begged his girlfriend to wear Betty page hair. Now the scene has quieted down, and all that is left are the same old clubs like the Derby and the Dresden room, and the restaurant that still has style, Fred 62. The food here is hit or miss. You’ll pay a bit more for the scene, but every so often you’ll get yourself a fine ass meal. Everything is priced ending with sixty two cents, which is charming at first, then ceases to make sense. I suggest avoiding the swanky fare like the Thai tofu noodle bowl and sticking to things like the meatloaf and the jalapeño mac n’ cheese belly bomb. They do burgers, sandwiches, breakfast food, and diner entrees. Ah yes, and the reason to go to Fred 62 is that they are open 24 hours, and they are not Norm’s. Two people will eat for twenty five sixty two.

(323) 667-0062, 1850 N Vermont Ave, Los Angeles

Farmer Boys was started by a cadre of Greek brothers who emigrated to southern California and opened up burger joints as they arrived. The Farmer Boy burger is a great traditional burger worth mentioning for two reasons: a generous sized double patty with avocado and bacon is $4.69, and the S. Alameda location is open 24 hours. The rest of the menu offers a very Denny’s-like variety of Things You Can Fit in a Deep Frier, and the SoCal standard, “Regardless of Our Owner’s Ethnicity We Are Mexican Line Cooks So You Can Always Have a Burrito”.

726 S. Alameda St. Los Angeles, CA

My dad was a class climber, the son of blue collar parents who married up across the railroad tracks. Unfortunately, he married a crazy psycho bitch from hell with evil parents to boot, so much of my father’s first marriage was spent lashing out in rebellion to his situation. Part of that lashing out was spending his way to happiness with material goods, so when my sister and I came along our childhoods were marked by having a father who bought cool stuff and a mother who hated being the one who had to save every penny for a rainy day. As an adult, I’ve had to reconcile my own class aspirations and happiness through conspicuous consumption with my career and life choices. I work with people who have, for all intents and purposes, infinite wealth, and sometimes acting as their proxy I can spend some of that money and briefly taste that lifestyle. Which is why I’ve spent more and more time in Beverly Hills. While I acknowledge that there is a lot of pretentious snootiness about the place, the resentment from the plebes is because the price of admission to the adult amusement park is high. Your wallet must be *this big* to ride. Sure, you can slag on the price of everything, but you’re paying for an experience and not just the base product. Those who still separate the two things are unwilling to accept the rules of a capitalist system. This is exemplified by The Farm of Beverly Hills. I’ve been consistently treated well whether dining solo, in pairs, or a group of six. They take reservations for all meals, but walk-ins are welcome. I’ve never had a bad meal here, most recently after a quick stop in at the Cheese Store next door. I had the turkey burger, which was moist and flavorful. The only better turkey burger I’ve had is at the Texas BBQ King at Figueroa and Caeser Chavez – an altogether different experience than The Farm. Our server was kind enough to ask how my friend wanted her Ahi tuna cooked with her Nicoise, which though I appreciated we both felt was kind of silly. In the past I’ve enjoyed their pizzas and sandwiches, especially their applewood smoked bacon with avocado and their BBQ beef brisket with grilled onions and cheese. Salads are also fresh, hearty, and generous, and once you get over the sticker shock, know that you could stretch one of them to a second meal. I finally had one of the giant Oreo cookies and my blood sugar swooned with delight. It might just be sweet enough to finally kill my diabetic biological mother. It’s easy to bitch about the prices of things, but I’m willing to pay more to get good customer service, friendly treatment, and quality products. My greatest joy is finding these things for bargain prices, but sometimes I just don’t want to work that hard. I’m OK paying more if I can be sure I’ll have a good experience. I’m not spending my way to happiness, but I recognize that working hard is meaningless if I curb my desires to save a few bucks and still don’t have a good time.

(310) 273-5578, 439 N Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills