Joe’s is by far the most consistently wonderful dining experience I’ve had in this city. It is so good, and so reliable, that the noisy room doesn’t even pull down a star in its rating. For several years I worked at Digital Domain, at the corner of Rose and Main nearby. I’ve been to Joe’s dozens of times for lunch and dinner and have never had a meal less than spectacular. Two years ago my visiting father got violently ill after a dinner at Joe’s. Much to my relief, it was because of years of turning himself into fois gras and his pancreas was exploding. Thank goodness! I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to go back to Joe’s. Joe’s has a wonderful, seasonal menu, an outstanding wine selection and exceedingly knowledgeable staff. Trust your server to guide you through what is good and bad, they will be honest with you about their tastes. I find that the price is not as high as most fine dining in L.A., so it is reasonable in its class. Expect to pay at least $50 per person if you do a full, multi-course meal with wine. Oh, and Dad’s fine, thanks. (Update – he died in 2010. Didn’t change his lifestyle enough.)

(310) 399-5811, 1023 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice

3rd Street is becoming hard to beat as the hip starfucker zone of Los Angeles. Zipper, OK, New Stone Age, and Flight 101 are just some of the stores where you’ll find great gifts for your snooty modernist friends (like myself) while you shop alongside Alan Rickman, talk politics with Jake Gyllenhaall, and hold the door for a scruffy faced Jared Leto. All of these things happened to me, and I’m not even paying attention. Joan’s on 3rd is a New York style bodega swank deli that has horrible seating but stellar food. A great variety of sandwiches, but the glass case of salads is worth repeat visits. A vast array of pasta, vegetables, and cheeses, along with roast vegetables and meats make for a variety of choices for anyone. Anyone who considers mortadella, apricot glazed ham, and grilled maple rosemary chicken breast food (as opposed to overdressed meat) will enjoy themselves.

8350 W 3^rd St.

When I look for a good Chinese restaurant, I never trust the place stocked with white people. Give me a hole in the wall packed with old men yelling at each other. In the case of Persian food (read: Iranian), I look for the age and demographic, too. Javan always has at least four or five great big fat middle Eastern men who have crammed their puffy feet into tiny little loafers. This place is perfect. For an appetizer you have to have the marinated garlic cloves that have been sitting in vinegar for 11 years. Their kebabs and chicken are splendid, as is their salads and soups. The lentil soup served with sizzling mint is a filling meal unto itself. We’ve paid around twenty five bucks for two people, before tip.

(310) 207-5555, 11500 Santa Monica Blvd, near Sawtelle

The Inn of the Seventh Ray is incredibly attentive to food allergies to the point of being insane. This is the place to go for your loved ones with auto-immune disorders, which if you ingest as much meat as I do will likely be you very soon. It is amazing that my stomach and immune system can still distinguish between what is my flesh and what I’ve just consumed. Anyway, what was once a purely vegan restaurant has changed to include meat dishes, probably in order to satisfy all the men who had to take their Beverly Hills yoga girlfriends out to a vegetarian dinner and were tired of starving and paying the outrageously high bill. Lots of Mercedes SL 500s in the parking lot, lots of people irradiating their heads with cell phones. Menu items are arranged on their “quality of vibration” which is just a bullshit reason to charge a ton of money for a squash attacked with a Braun hand blender by a chain smoking Hare Krishna in the back room. The place refuses to carry any chocolate desserts because the head chef and owner calls it “poison”. Clearly they don’t believe in poison at the Inn of the Seventh Ray as there are rats scurrying along the lattice and in the bushes. On my first visit there was a coyote on the riverbed snacking on bagels cast into the ravine. Now that the nature has come to include rats, the seating is on unpadded concrete booths, and the waiters drip vegetarian sanctimony, I think I’ll wait until my thyroid shuts down to go again. Expect anywhere from $50 to $100 per person, depending on your consumption of red wine poison.

(310) 455-1311, 128 Old Topanga Canyon Road, Topanga

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