Eating First, PhD Second｜January LA Restaurant Reviews 🍽️

This month, I mostly followed the Michelin Guide — super handy when you don’t know what to eat. Just open it and boom — instant food map around you! 🙌🏻 🍴 Lulu Tucked inside the Hammer Museum — super atmospheric. Daily menu changes — ingredients are super fresh. Portions and prices are fair, not overpriced. (P.S. UCLA students get 10% off!) Only downside: dessert today was just okay, but I heard it’s usually great. Will try again another time. 🥢 Longo Seafood This place is polarizing — the good dim sum is so good I’d order three portions, the bad ones we couldn’t even finish one order… But the good stuff is really good, so I’ll keep going back. ✅ Recommended: Beef Offal with Chu Hou Sauce (my #1 — includes lung and intestine, rare in LA dim sum spots) Portuguese Egg Tarts Herbal Chicken Feet (angelica flavor — childhood taste!) Beef Congee with Poached Egg (huge portion, thick and silky, barely any rice grains) Rice Noodle Rolls with Beef (traditional steamed rice sheets) ❌ Skip: Har Gow / Crab Dumplings — thick skin, bland filling. Black Pepper Beef Ribs — too sweet. Soy Sauce Chicken Feet — just average, NBC Seafood’s. 🍴 4 Saints — 9/10 A Palm Springs detour! If you’re in Palm Springs, try this spot. Surprisingly good seafood in the desert — the fish was especially impressive. 🍴 Citrin Their tasting menu feels overpriced — better to order à la carte for bigger portions. But the Basil Bread is incredible! $10 for unlimited refills — we had like five or six loaves… were almost too full for the steak and venison later 😂 🍝 UOVO — Not recommended. Tried almost every pasta between three people — still left hungry. Only one dish stood out, the rest were just okay. Their tiramisu was creative and tasty, though. 🍢 Torihei Pretty good — a few dishes make me want to return: Grilled beef tongue, chicken liver toast, chicken thigh. But it’s not LA’s best yakitori. Sawtelle’s Yakitoriya easily beats it (though Yakitoriya’s service attitude can be hit or miss… might leave you annoyed 🥲). #LAEats #LALife #LosAngeles 🏮✨🍜😋