Five (More) of LA's Best Dishes in 2019

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December 14, 2019 1:04 AM

(California Today)

Five (More) of LA's Best Dishes in 2019

Narrowing my favorite dishes of the year to just 10 was an excruciating exercise.

Yes, it was a chance to shout out the things I loved most, from drippy birria tacos to coconut-braised jackfruit, to a perfect bowl of rice porridge with pickles and jam. But there was just so much deliciousness in Los Angeles in 2019 that it couldn’t possibly fit into just one story.

This means it’s time for some bonus content. Here are a few more tastes that still haunt me:

— Northern Thai Food Club’s sai ua, the impossibly fragrant pork sausage with a satisfyingly rough texture.

— The extraordinary lamb barbacoa under banana leaves, which Poncho’s Tlayudas served to celebrate its one-year anniversary at Smorgasburg.

— Chengdu Taste’s boiled fish in a luminous, peppery, drinkable broth.

— The bare-bones, but perfectly composed omelet sandwich at Konbi. Yes, I know I wrote about the egg salad, but the plainer omelet sandwich has my heart.

Since writing my roundup, of course, there’s already new stuff to try.

Zhengyalov Hatz, which opened in Glendale just last month, makes huge, juicy breads filled with chopped herbs and greens, cooking them to order all day so they’re hot.

There’s nothing else on the menu, but the bread is so good that I’ve already gone twice — and I’m sure I can fit in one more visit before the end of the year. I hope you do too.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .

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