Where to eat in Mar Vista

No neighborhood deep-dive would be complete if I didn’t give you recommendations for places to eat. Mar Vista is a great place to explore the globe through your palate. You can walk from Japan to Venezuela and Taiwan to Oaxaca all while getting great California produce in between. These are my recommendations for where to eat in Mar Vista.

For updated information on mask mandates and other COVID rules and regulations, check this page out.

Where to get a great cup of coffee

Mar Vista loves its coffee. You can find a lot of coffees to suit your tastes, from lavender lattes to coffee as black as night. Here are a couple of recommendations if you don’t know where to start and are tempted to head to Starbucks–don’t do it.

The Coffee Connection

This place has been a favorite for meet-ups and laptop workers forever. The Coffee Connection’s patio is a hidden oasis in the pretty concrete neighborhood. This coffee shop is community-focused and proceeds go to local charitable organizations as part of the Westside Vineyard church’s mission. Know that your drinking coffee is part of something better.

Good for groups, kids, and local students–UCLA students get a discount. Wifi is free.

If you have a group–birthday, book club, etc., you can see about renting meeting or celebration space.

Hours, cost, and other information

• Website: https://coffeeconnectionla.com/
• Address: 3838 S. Centinela
• Costs: Chai latte (and most lattes) $3.50, drip coffee $2.25, tea $2.25

Alana’s Coffee Roasters

You may remember this place from my previous post. Alana’s, as the name says, roasts their coffee in-house and the options are full of subtle flavors and caffeine. Alana’s is a coffee shop but also a community hub. This is where locals come for a great cup of coffee or perform on the stage set-up on the beautiful back patio. Is coffee not your thing? The Chipotle Hot Chocolate will do the trick, it packs a punch, but in a good way. 

This is a great place to change up the scenery in your work-from-home situation. 

Hours, cost, and other information

• Website: https://shop.alanascoffeeroasters.com/
• Address: 12511 Venice Blvd
• Costs: Chai latte $6.00 for a small, drip coffee $4.00, Chipotle Hot Chocolate $4.50 for a small
• Hours: Temporary hours are 6:30 a.m. to 5:00 PM

Brunch

Brunch is Los Angeles’ favorite meal.

Lodge Bread

This is a great neighborhood joint on Washington as it blurs into Culver City. It is very popular and can get pretty packed–even after expanding a few years ago. At Lodge, the focus is on sourdough–from the freshly baked bread to the pizza they serve in the restaurant. This is a great place to grab a coffee and pastry in the morning or grab one of the best avocado toasts in town. Pastries flavors are classics inspired by Los Angeles. (Get the miso chocolate chip cookie.)

I am picky about bread. There has been a bread revolution in Los Angeles, but for a while, if I couldn’t find a Bub and Grandma’s it had to be bread from Lodge. I love Lodge’s olive loaf and baguettes. Get there early because they sell out quickly. FYI they keep the baguette’s behind the counter.

Stay tuned for when Full Proof Pizza pops up at this location after hours. This is a great New York style pizza joint that takes over Lodge’s kitchen after 5:00 p.m. These aren’t your average pizza flavors and I love the 80s branding.

Hours, Cost, And Other Information

• Website: https://www.lodgebread.com 
• Cost: toasts around $8, sandwiches which are large—around $12, Pizzas around $18. Loaves of bread are around $8 and the baguette around $4
• Good for: Quick bite or grab and go. Tables are first come first serve.

Lunch

It is often errands that bring me to Mar Vista–farmers market shopping, grocery shopping, florists, drug stores. While I am out, I try to grab lunch from various vendors in the area.

My Lai

How do I describe My Lai? I guess the best way is to describe it as build-your-own bowl with Vietnamese flavors.

This healthy spot is relatively new to the Mar Vista scene, opening during the pandemic. Here you can choose to create a bowl of salad, rice, noodles, with pickles, fresh veggies, and grilled meats. They have a range of crafted bowls so if you can’t decide, there are delicious options for you. 

This is my go-to if I want to be healthy and also want food to taste good and filling. I love their grilled pork and pickled veggies.

Local hint: The rice bowls are huge and great for those who want to lunch prep for the week. I tend to get the Mama Mai’s Chicken Garlic Rice and split it into two of my lunches for my work week. It is the best $7.50 lunch you will have lunching al desko.

Hours, cost, and other information

• Website: https://www.mylaikitchen.com/
• Address: 12222 Venice Blvd.
• Cost: Build your own bowls $13, Chicken garlic rice $13, spring roll $7.

Mitsuwa Marketplace

I mentioned this Japanese grocery store in my last post about Things to do in Mar Vista. It is such a wonderful place that I had to talk about it twice. Not only can you grocery shop, but you can grab one of the best and cheapest lunches on the westside. You can find ramen, tempura, katsudon, and other favorites and soon-to-be favorites. Many of the stalls feature branches of restaurants from Japan, including the Michelin-starred Tendon Hannosuke. 

It is also one of the few places in Los Angeles where you can park for free. Yes, it is true, folks.

A note: Tables are first-come-first-served in the small food court. If you are overly polite, you won’t get a place to sit.

Where to eat in Mitsuwa Marketplace

If you do a loop in the food court, you may notice that there are similar menu items at each of the stalls. Menus are often in the form of plastic food models–shokuhin sampuru–of the food served at each place. You will notice that there are options for large, medium, and mini-versions of menu items at many of the restaurants. This is great for those of us who have smaller appetites and tighter budgets.

So how do you decide between one ramen or teriyaki bowl or the other? I am here to help by giving you my favorite stalls in the food court.

Santouka (aka Hokkaido Ramen Santouka)

This is an outpost of a Japanese restaurant hiding in a tiny food court in Mar Vista. Hokkaido ramen features a miso base, making it richer and heartier than others. (Got to survive those winters somehow.) 

This is my go-to for ramen in the area. The broth is rich and porky, and the noodles are al dente which I love–better for slurping. The pork is cooked in the broth, leaving it melt-in-your-mouth tender and flavorful. There are few additions–a little fishcake, menma, and green onions–not overloaded with accouterments. This is simpler ramen than those you can find on neighboring Sawtelle. Simple doesn’t mean less tasty, it just isn’t trying to hide anything.

Hours, cost, and other information

• Website: Yelp site
• Hours: Open daily 10:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m.
• Other: Many of the yelp reviews mention that this location is cash only. This has changed since the pandemic. They are also on many food delivery services. You can pre-order and pay, do your shopping, and take ramen to go. They separate the broth and noodles so it isn’t a gloppy mess when you get home.

Sanuki Sandou Udon

Although the Udon soups are very good here, I tend to get the gyudon, a shaved beef bowl with rice and pickled ginger. Their beef is very flavorful and oniony. As a combo, it comes with a mini-bowl and your choice of udon soup or soba. 

Of all of the stalls that sell gyudon, teriyaki, and katsudon, this one is the best. Don’t be fooled by how good the plastic food looks, this is where you should go. The dishes are more flavorful without being salty.

Hours, cost, and other information

• Website: Yelp site
• Hours: Open daily 10:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m.

Where to get a great bite on a Sunday

I know that this is very specific, much like the post on Where to Eat in Bergamot Station. The reason I note a certain day is that these days are when the Farmer’s Markets are open. On Sunday in Mar Vista your lunch options increase multi-fold.  Here is where I would eat at the Mar Vista Farmer’s market. (For information on the market, read this post.)

All three of my suggestions for where to eat in Mar Vista on a Sunday are specialists in their craft. You won’t find a long list of menu items; you will find one thing, and that one thing is done well.

From The Netherlands we head to South America.

The Mar Vista Farmer’s Market is open on Sundays on the intersection of Venice and Grandview from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Dinner

I am now back to everyday recommendations.

Quiadaiyn 

If Guelaguetza feels too far to go for Oaxacan food, you will be in excellent hands at Quiadaiyn. This brightly colored mom-and-pop restaurant serves giant tlayudas with dried and cured meats, rich moles, and other specialties of the state. 

For those of you that are unfamiliar or have yet to try Oaxacan food, it isn’t like food from other regions in Mexico. It is earthy, not painfully spicy, and recipes are thousands of years old. Here you won’t find nachos smothered with queso and guacamole. At Quiadaiyn, you will find something similar and better. Everything is made by hand from tortillas to dried meats.

My favorite thing to order is the mole coloradito. It is savory with a hint of sweetness and spice. You can get it with chicken or eggplant.

This really is an all-day place and you can get something delicious at any time of the day.

Hours, costs, and other information 

• Website: https://www.quiadaiyn.com/
• Address: 12326 Venice Blvd.
• Cost: Totopos $13, Mole coloradito w/ Chicken $13, Tlayuda mixta $20 (if you order all of these things to share, you will be really happy.

I hope this gave you a good idea of where to eat in Mar Vista. This is an understated neighborhood with great restaurant options. You can travel from Oaxaca to Hokkaido in a matter of minutes without leaving the zip code.

Next up… Culver City the place I have called home for almost a decade.

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