la.foodblogging

As the cliche goes, it has been a while since I have posted around here. Along with our addition of a little guy almost two years ago (!), we moved down to the South Bay in the Fall and have been slowly, but surely exploring what is commonly considered a culinary wasteland.

When I first moved to LA, I lived in the South Bay. At that time, I wasn’t too adventurous and hadn’t met my partner in dining (now my wife) yet. Now that we’re down here again, we’re putting a new set of eyes on the options.

In general, we have found a lack of worthwhile high end dining spots, which with a toddler in tow isn’t such a downer. On the plus side, most restaurants are out-of-their way accommodating to families, which is a nice change from the Westside singles, DINKs and blue hair atmosphere. At this point, when I go out to eat, I want to make sure I’m not disturbing someone else just by being there, and I like feeling welcome.

So, where are we eating? Plenty of great places, actually. While there isn’t a Zankou close by, we have decided that the South Bay is ground central for rotisserie chicken. Our go-to spot is Chicken Maison, or “Place” (as in Chicken Place) as my son calls it. Outrageously good Mediterranean chicken with the requisite garlic sauce, and also the best selection of sides — go for the mayoless potato salad.

American Farmhouse Grill is a perfect restaurant. Perfect in that you could happily and healthily eat there every night for a very reasonable $10-$15/person. Meats cooked on an Oak fire grill and fresh vegetables with really good desserts if you still have room. Plus, friendly service that makes you feel like family. Added bonus for us that we can walk there from our house.

There is a Counter location at the El Segundo center where the massive Whole Foods was built a few years ago. The Whole Foods prepared food section is like a yuppie Hometown Buffet where you can pay $8/lb for cous cous. Be smart, though, and grab some smoked chicken thighs from the back of the store, add a cup of soup and a green tea and lunch is around $8 and you might have some chicken left for dinner. Way in the back of that center is the Veggie Grill which serves excellent meatless creations that leave you full all day.

We have always liked breakfast in the South Bay. Ocean Diner and Martha’s are old favorites, but North End Cafe breakfast tacos are hard to beat.

In downtown Manhattan Beach there is a Mr. Cecil’s for ribs now (I hope that he steals some recipes for sides from Baby Blues) and the Manhattan Beach Creamery for home made ice cream. Sashi, while trendy looking, has an extensive and delicious menu — also nice outdoor dining. We loved the cake we got at Becker’s and I do like that there is a Peet’s Coffee to offset the Starbucks and Coffee Bean.

A quick drive to the other side of the 405 opens up a trove of Japanese including Ramen at Shin Sen Gumi and Boba at Tea Station. We haven’t tried too much sushi, but have had good experiences overall.

There is also a surprising amount of Halal in the area and I am particularly taken with the food and the service at Al Hamra

El Gaucho is my go-to spot for carne asada, but it’s their pollo asada that is unreal. They also have a small, but excellent selection of oaky Argentinian wines.

We are still settling in and acclimating to our new hood. We do make it back to our old locales on the Westside and beyond, but have been pleasantly surprised that moving to the South Bay hasn’t meant settling into two hour waits at the Olive Garden.

By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.