If you're looking for ways to entertain your out-of-town guests during the holidays, heading to Museum Row is a no-brainer. But after you’ve all checked out the Urban Light installation at LACMA, the Batmobile at the Petersen Automotive Museum and Dorothy’s ruby slippers at the Academy Museum, you'll probably have worked up an appetite. Where can you take them without breaking the bank?
Luckily for you, Mid-City and the Miracle Mile are home to some of the best pizza and smash burgers in all of L.A., world-class mariscos, and plentiful plant-based options in the form of dim sum and tacos.
As a refresher, every dish featured in our Cheap Fast Eats series costs around $10, give or take. And while these dishes featured can be enjoyed on solo trips, you get more bang for your buck if you go with a group. Enjoy our selections — you deserve it after entertaining your family.
Qi Steam Kitchen
Qi Steam Kitchen, a solid choice for some non-San Gabriel Valley Chinese food, is located in a strip mall sandwiched between Olympic and San Vicente boulevards. Inside you can find an array of noodle dishes and dumplings that will please anyone hungry on this side of town.
Some favorites include the BBQ pork belly buns ($9.49), with sizable chunks of pork braised in a housemade BBQ sauce, cucumber, and cilantro on a folded steamed bao bun. Another standout dish that doubles as a vegetarian option is the mushroom and Chinese spinach bao ($9.49), filled with a beautiful heaping of veg with each bite. The bao is light and counteracts the fattiness of the meal.
Alternatively, try the dan dan noodles ($12.99) which hail from Sichuan province, a favorite of ours when it comes to noodles. It's made with a thick noodle that allows for maximum slurpability, drenched in a sesame sauce rich with chili oil, palette-numbing Sichuan peppercorns, cinnamon, star anise and ground pork, topped off with two slices of bok choy. It marries equal amounts of savory, sweet, and spicy, not to mention delectable textures, making for an excellent bowl of comfort.
Each dish is perfect for sharing with a group of at least two to three people, allowing everyone to try a little bit of everything.
Location: 5966 W Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles
Hours: Daily, 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Del Mar Ostioneria
If you're searching for mariscos in the Mid-City area, Del Mar should be at the top of any list. The stationary food truck, parked in the same parking lot as a massage parlor, a juice bar, and a wedding chapel, tends to blend into the scenery, perhaps due to its tan-colored paint job that camouflages itself among the surrounding buildings. However, if you set your Google map to the proper coordinates, you’ll be rewarded for your efforts.
Start with a taco, with selections that include Baja-style fish and shrimp ($10) that come on a hand-made blue corn tortilla piled high with fresh-tasting guacamole, cabbage mixture, and pico de gallo, making for a delightful bite and a light meal.
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Every month, we scout out eateries, stomach-filling burrito joints, and hidden gems, focusing on dishes around $10 -$15. If you want us to try an area, drop us a line at the bottom of the story.
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- Cheap Fast Eats: Pasadena
- Cheap Fast Eats: Long Beach
- Cheap Fast Eats: Glendale
- Cheap Fast Eats: Downtown LA
- Cheap Fast Eats: Culver City
- Cheap Fast Eats: Koreatown
- Cheap Fast Eats: Silver Lake
- Cheap Fast Eats: Inglewood
- Cheap Fast Eats: Chinatown
- Cheap Fast Eats: Gardena
- Cheap Fast Eats: Mid-City
- Cheap Fast Eats: Boyle Heights
- Cheap Fast Eats: Canoga Park
- Cheap Fast Eats: Fountain Valley
- Cheap Fast Eats: West Hollywood
Suppose, though, that you want to wade into the water a bit deeper and are lucky enough to have someone willing to accompany you on this particular mariscos journey. In that case, the aguachiles are an excellent option for sharing. The dish contains wild-caught shrimp, cucumber, lime juice, and chiltepín pepper, providing earthy, smoky flavors and an added coolness with a couple of slices of avocado.
If you want to kick it up a notch even more, it would behoove you to go bivalve — yes, I’m talking oysters. Each oyster ($4 per oyster) is served on the half shell, topped with a palate-cleansing squeeze of lime, and chiltepín. While your best option is to grab a taco, I recommend you go full-on Triton with a couple of your pals and enjoy the the taco, the aguachile and some oysters.
Location: 830 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles
Hours: Tuesday though Sunday, noon to 8 p.m.
Burger She Wrote
Heading over Beverly is where you’ll find perhaps the best punny burger spot name we’ve ever encountered: Burger She Wrote, riffing off Bob’s Burgers or just Murder, She Wrote, depending on your pop culture frame of reference. It's the brainchild of skateboarder legend Don “The Nuge” Nguyen and restaurant veteran Steven Arroyo. When you enter the small order-at-the-counter restaurant, you can almost feel the two personalities fully represented.
The walls are lined with photos of Nguyen’s most significant skateboarding feats, and the simple burger and fries menu symbolizes Arroyo’s prowess in building a concise and straightforward menu. The two burger options include the smash burger ($9), a smashed patty with melted American cheese, mayo, mustard, pickles, and just the right amount of minced white onions. The Oklahoma burger ($9) is similar in execution to its smashed cousin, but the onions are grilled directly into the patty. Both contain the requisite lace-like edges of the burger patty, held up with a King’s Hawaiian bun.
Don’t forget to add their crispylicious fries ($5) with their tasty in-house dipping sauces, making it a cheap and perfect party meal for enjoying on the fly, and an exemplary representation of L.A. burger culture.
Location: 7454 1/2 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Hours: Open every day, 11:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m.
Chicas Tacos at All Seasons Brewing
Inside a former Firestone tire repair shop whose interior has been restored to all of its Googie glory is where you’ll find All Season Brewing. Once inside, head towards the back of the bar, where you’ll find a walk-up window for Chicas Tacos. The small regional chain is known for its Mexican-American fare with plenty of vegan options. Start with the jackfruit taco ($4.49), which comes in a soft yellow corn tortilla, with the jackfruit cooked in tangy red containing just a hint of spice, topped with a refreshing dollop of avocado salsa and a couple of halved grape tomatoes for that added bit of texture. Next, try the Crispy Taco Supreme ($4.99), a hard shell taco filled with plant-based ground beef and topped with a grated vegan cheddar cheese, shredded iceberg lettuce (or shrettuce if you will) mixed with slightly spicy vinaigrette, and julienned radish. The delightful crunch from the hard shell of the taco will make you forget that you’re eating a plant-based taco.
If you’re still hungry and looking to try some of the non-vegan options, round out the meal with five of their buffalo wings ($10.48). It’s a perfect accompaniment to wash down to draft beers ($7-$8), making you feel swimmingly good. If timed right during Happy Hour, the beers are two dollars off.
Location: 800 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles
Hours: Sunday though Thursday, 3 p.m. to midnight. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Apollonia’s Pizzeria
Apollonia’s Pizzeria, located within a strip mall off Wilshire, is cash only and often has a line outside. It would be wise to budget your time wisely as the wait time for just a couple of slices can reach 20-25 minutes, and there are no seats.
But we'll gladly sacrifice for some of the best pizza in Los Angeles.
Have your pick of thin slices of cheese or pepperoni; if you’re feeling extra famished, the square pieces are the game's name. Everyone working behind the counter the night I visited was Latino, which feels like a point of pride for those with the same shared heritage. Seeing homegrown L.A. talent do their thing within the pizza universe, we’d gladly wait as long as it takes.
As to the pizza itself, the thin crust slice of pepperoni that was charred and cupped, resembling tiny bowls, contained sweet-tasting tomato sauce.
But the square slice ($9) manages to steal the show. The body of the crust with its burnt crispy edges isn’t bready, as other square pies tend to be, but instead is perfectly airy and crusty on the inside. The architecture of the slice itself is a marvel of sorts, allowing for enough structural integrity to bear the weight of the cheese, chunky tomato sauce, and pepperoni. If you’re up to it and willing to pay a little extra, add fresh burrata and Mike’s hot honey for that added oomph.
Location: 5176 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
Hours: Wednesday though Sunday, noon to 2:30 p.m. and 5p.m. to 8 p.m.
