Grand Central Market makes new friends, keeps the old

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Activity and foot traffic peaks during lunchtime at Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles, where the food and a mix of new vendors with more upscale offerings are bound to make it even more crowded. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Lamb heads and livers and beef tongues are among the items in the meat case at Belcampo. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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David Tewasart works the counter at his Sticky Rice restaurant, a newer vendor that serves Thai street food. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Tewasart displays a typical dish served at his Thai eatery. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Barbecued ribs with potato salad and greens at Horse Thief BBQ, a vendor on the Hill Street side of the market area. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Russell Malixi and Wade McElroy are the owners of Horse Thief BBQ, which specializes in Texas-style barbecue. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Side dishes can change at Horse Thief BBQ, but they are usually the typical barbecue joint offerings. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Tomas Martinez, owner of Tacos Tumbras a Tomas, watches the lunch line at his counter, which is often two or three deep per server. One of the original food stands, Tacos Tumbras a Tomas is famous for its heaping tacos of carnitas. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Valerie Gordon is the owner of Valerie Confections, which sells a variety of pastries, desserts, sandwiches and salads, as well as coffee. A favorite is the Blum’s Coffee Crunch Cake, to her right. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Valerie re-creates the coffee crunch cake make famous by Blum’s Bakery in San Francisco and Los Angeles. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Gordon, working with her son August, sells seasonal fruit galettes from the pastry counter. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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The Grand Central outpost is not the only Valerie site. There are also locations in Silver Lake and Echo Park. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Lydia Clark and Reed Herrick run DTLA Cheese, a shop and kitchen that show their passion for fine cheese. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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A wheel of cheese is broken down at DTLA Cheese. The new vendor sells cheeses and ready-made food including salads and sandwiches. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Adele Yellin, owner of Grand Central Market, is continuing the legacy and vision of her late husband, Ira Yellin, who invested in the market years ago, gradually rebuilding and revitalizing it with a mixture of new tenants and veteran vendors. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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One of the original stands, Valeria’s, sells dried goods including chiles, spices, beans, moles and dried shrimp. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Whole dried shrimp can be purchased for $20 a pound at Valeria’s. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Stalls that sell fresh fruit and vegetables are still a staple at Grand Central Market, despite the changes that have made it more of a food hall and less of a true food market. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Classic neon signs guide hungry visitors to China Cafe, a purveyor of traditional Chinese food and a longtime tenant. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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China Cafe, adorned with neon above its lunch counter, is one of the older vendors at the market. Customers flock there for the wonton soup and more. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Sara Clark, owner of Saritas Pupuseria, watches while her staff makes some of her famous handmade pupusas. Fried plantains, yuca con chicharon, stews and other Salvadorean dishes are also served at the counter. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Clark celebrates in front of her restaurant. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Some of the Salvadorean offerings at Saritas Pupuseria, including whole fish. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Popular new vendor Eggslut serves fresh egg sandwiches with a variety additions like bacon and cheese. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Alvin Cailan, chef and co-owner of Eggslut, holds up the ingredient he is most known for using. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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The lunch crowd at Eggslut wash their egg sandwiches down with orange juice and Cokes at the crowded counter. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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The lunch line at Eggslut wraps around the corner of the store. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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Fernando Villagomez, owner of Las Morelianas, hands a carnitas plate to a customer. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

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The lunch crowd at Wexler’s Deli crowds around the stand, with a line for ordering and a waiting area for pickups. The restaurant, a recent addition to the market, makes its own pastrami on site. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

By Russ Parsons

Aug. 29, 2014 11 AM PT

How does a business that’s more than 100 years old wind up as one of America’s best new restaurants of the year? It takes more than simply recruiting a slew of trendy new concepts. It takes a careful balancing of a choice selection of new stands with the best of the old. That’s the trick that the Grand Central Market has pulled off. And stay tuned, more is coming. Here are a few favorites.

Eggslut: Honestly, I would like this place a lot better if I got more of a chance to eat there. But when the line to order is always at least a dozen people deep, I have to pick my spots. Alvin Cailan has built a monster fueled largely, but not exclusively, on egg dishes. Granted, though the Fairfax sandwich may be hard to beat (scrambled eggs with chives, cheddar, caramelized onions and Sriracha), the cheeseburger has a cult following of its own. The simply named Slut is simply perfect: a poached egg on top of an unctuous, buttery potato purée, served in a jar. No wonder it’s so crowded. www.eggslut.com

Tacos Tumbras a Tomas: This has been my go-to taco stand downtown for more than 20 years, and it has never let me down. Order a couple of tacos and you’ll get four corn tortillas and a mountain of salsa-laced meat. The carnitas, of course, are very good, but so is the carne asada, lengua and even the chicken. And on some blustery winter day, try the tacos de trompas: gelatinous, richly flavored braised pig’s snouts.

Sticky Rice: Take a seat at the counter. Watch as a cook hacks a green papaya into shreds and then pounds it in a mortar and pestle to make salad. Taste the amazingly beefy, tender Crying Tiger, dipping it in the spicy sauce and sopping up anything left with a clump of sticky rice. If this does not make you happy, what possibly can? Or maybe you’d prefer the gai yang grilled chicken? Or the creamy Hainan chicken or Panang curry? The menu is small, but each dish is a gem.

DTLA Cheese: While the Grand Central Market has been remarkably revitalized of late, most of the new offerings are more in the model of a food court rather than a true market. DTLA Cheese, opened by Lydia and Marnie Clarke, who also run the Cheese Cave in Claremont, and chef Reed Herrick is an exception. True, they do offer terrific sandwiches and salads (the farro salad is especially good), but the real starring attraction is the tightly edited selection of artisanal cheeses in their case. Because sometimes you just need to pick up a wedge of Ossau Iraty on your way home. www.dtlacheese.com

Belcampo Meat Co.: You can appreciate this place for its role in rethinking the American meat system — it’s the first fully vertically integrated butcher shop/restaurant in the country — or you can love it simply because its hamburger is everything that a hamburger ought to be. Or maybe you prefer the cemita made with a disk of fried pork head meat, or one of the rotating specials. And if you’ve got a big dinner party coming up and are feeling a little splurge-y, by all means do try the meat. It is extraordinary. www.belcampomeatco.com

Grand Central Market, 317 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, (213) 624-2378, www.grandcentralmarket.com

russ.parsons@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @russ_parsons1