Jonathan Gold’s Picks

El Parian

Goat’s the stuff at this Jalisco-style workingman’s lunch hall-- birria , kid roasted crisp, hacked into slivers, submerged in a thick, chile-laced elixir of amplified pan-drippings. The sweet, mild meat has crunchy parts and stewy parts and parts that seem cleaved from a roasted joint; meat also clings to the tiny goat ribs, which you suck and then spit back into the bowl. With a basket of freshly patted corn tortillas and a Bohemia served so cold ice crystals sometimes form on the surface of the beer, primal Mexican food doesn’t get any better than this.

1528 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 386-7361; entrees, $4.80-$7.35.

The Pines Cafe

An hour away from Los Angeles, across the San Gabriels, through the national forest, into a blasted stretch of red desert that sprouts tract homes the way it used to sprout Joshua trees, the Pines is the diner all others aspire to be, with blueberry pancakes the size of Harley saddles, chicken-fried steak smothered in 40-weight cream gravy and huge messes of hominy scrambled with eggs and chorizo that could have won the West all by themselves. This is the kind of place you hope to find off of Route 66 somewhere near Winona, but don’t.

4343 Pearblossom Highway, Palmdale, (805) 285-0455; meals, $3.95-$10.95.

Xiomara

Xiomara has pretty much everything you could want in a neighborhood bistro: obscure country wines, rustic French stews, really good takeout cassoulet for those nights when you can’t find a baby-sitter, an astonishing St. Aubin. Though the $25 prix - fixe bistro menu may not be cheap by the mess-hall standards of the Old Town Pasadena feedlots, it is among the better restaurant values around. But, mostly, there is Patrick Healy’s daube of lamb, simmered for an eternity in a sealed cast-iron pot until the meat and sinew are almost soft enough to collapse under their own weight, reduced into something that resembles pure, jellied flavor. Healy may look like a surfer dude, but he has a Burgundian grandmother’s soul.

69 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena, (818) 796-2520; entrees, $18 to $23.

Golden Deli

There are about a billion Asian restaurants in San Gabriel, sushi bars and Malaysian joints and Indonesian places and absolutely authentic representatives from what seems like every sub-prefecture in China and Taiwan. But in this city of a billion restaurants, it’s the Vietnamese noodle shop Golden Deli that always has the line out front, because even more persuasive than the Shanxi noodles or Shanghai-style roasted eel that those other places serve, is a perfect spring roll, and this place delivers the goods. Crisp as spun sugar, thick as your thumb, filled with a peppery forcemeat of herbs, pork and crab, the spring rolls here are bliss.

815 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 308-0803.

Vida

Oh, Vida can be too arch to live sometimes, with blasting mix tapes put together by its Beastie Boy investors, squadrons of chain-smoking habituees trying their best to look like Avengers goddess Emma Peel, and an ever-changing house drink called Road Kill. And what we’ve got here, with a chef who serves the best expensive-restaurant gumbo this side of New Orleans but insists on calling it Okra Winfrey, is a failure to communicate. But Fred Eric is one of the most formally innovative chefs in a city sated to its gills with grilled-vegetable salads. With inspiration coming from more ethnicities than are featured in a Peter Sellars revue, the greatest compliment that can be paid Eric may be that he cooks as if he lives in Los Angeles.

1930 N. Hillhurst Ave., Los Feliz, (213) 660-0446; entrees, $10-$18.

Casa Bianca Pizza Pie

Los Angeles is a truly lousy pizza town, everybody knows that--with the California pies from Caioti and Spago and the ethereal Roman pizza at Alto Palato being the goat-cheese-lover’s exceptions. But Casa Bianca, run by the same guy since Harry Truman was President, happens to serve the unpretentious, red-checked tablecloth, Italian American lasagna that’s not supposed to exist west of Philly, as well as a dense, crunchy, chewy, half-burnt pizza laden with fried eggplant and homemade sausage that rivals the stuff at the famous places in Brooklyn.

1650 Colorado Blvd., Eagle Rock, (213) 256-9617; entrees, $7.95-$11; pizza, $3.50-$17.

Taylor’s Prime Steaks

Blood-rare, tender, dry-aged to a profound tartness, the softball-size lump of Taylor’s prime culotte steak is pretty much better than almost any steak you’ll find south of Point Conception, and costs about half as much as the only steaks that even come close. When you’re spending your own money, you might as well spend as little of it as possible, and Taylor’s is one of the last real big-city restaurants in town.

3361 W. 8th St., (213) 382-8449; entrees, $9.75-$17.95.