Outsider’s Guide to Eating in Silverlake

Silverlake is bougie, gentrified, and expensive as hell — but there’s really no place like it in Los Angeles. Having lived in Silverlake for more than two years, I’ve come to love it for the little pockets of life tucked inbetween the hills dotted with boxy homes. Despite only being a few miles from Downtown, in the right parts it feels small and isolated, like an alpine grotto. And from the Sunset Junction, to the Reservoir , to the L.A. River, there are some really great places to eat scattered throughout. For visitors though, it can be a confusing place to navigate and find actually good food.

The downside is that food can be pricey and there aren’t a lot of cheap options nearby. Silverlake proper doesn’t really have any fast food chains in it. There are also a lot of short-lived, expensive “hipster” eateries that charge high prices, have fancy interiors, but ultimately have bland, forgettable food. I try to avoid those.

But the upside of that is that there are a lot of interesting places to try if you’re ready to pay more than Applebee’s prices. A good meal doesn’t have to be mindblowing and I can’t make any Jonathan Gold claims on best or most authentic dishes, or even whether or not something is one of a kind. I only know what my taste buds tell me.

Fried Chicken Sandwich at Night Market + Song

Gun to my head, the best place to eat in Silverlake — that is actually unique to Silverlake and is not just overpriced garbage — is Night Market + Song. I guess it’s technically the second Night Market restaurant, but I've heard that the two joints have different menus, with Night Market +Song focusing on small, late-night drunk people dishes that you might see in a big city in Thailand.

It’s Thai food, but you don’t necessarily come here for the Pad Thai or Pad See Ew. For me it’s all about the Fried Chicken Sandwich. There is traditional Thai food on the menu too — some of it very authentic and probably unfamiliar to patrons of the average strip mall Thai place. It certainly was for me.

But in the Fried Chicken Sandwich I found perfection. The reason I’m writing this post in the first place is because I just ate one for lunch and can’t stop thinking about it. It has a generously sized crispy, perfectly fried chicken, covered in sweet papaya salad, cilantro, a kind of ranch dressing and these ridiculously hot green chilies stuffed in between two cheap white hamburger buns that were slightly toasted. Like so many authentic Thai dishes, your mouth is on fire for most of the meal but you can’t really stop yourself from continuing to chow down. I can’t stress this enough, if you like chicken sandwiches or Thai food, preferably both, you have to have it. The restaurant is also a fun place to be — maybe the only restaurant I've been to that lives up to the hype in a neighborhood with a lot of hyped up restaurants.

Spicy Tonkotsu Ramen and Pork Buns from Silverlake Ramen

Just like Night Market + Song , Silverlake Ramen is another one of those places that has persistent long lines on weekend nights. But for a suburban kid like me, who used to drive 50 miles from the Inland Empire to check out a place like this, I would have appreciated some guidance. That’s who I’m writing for — the guy who just lives in Ontario who just went to Cha Cha Lounge with his friends for the first time on a random Tuesday night.

The Tonkotsu Ramen from Silverlake Ramen was a revelation to me. I never really enjoyed eating soups of any kind because all the broths I ate growing up were little more than greasy, salted water. When I finally sat down to a big bowl of the Tonkotsu Ramen I was absolutely blown away by what salty water could be. The broth is a creamy, subtle and delicious masterpiece and with the pork belly added in, it is the only meal I crave on the rare chilly night in L.A. Go for the spicy option if you can handle it, or don’t care that you can’t.

The other thing I love here is the Pork Bun. It’s a steamed bun with pork belly, pickled onions, green onions and an amazing sauce that is pure candy. It’s not the best quality pork bun i’ve ever had but I don’t really care. It is like eating a tiny Japanese version of a Big Mac. Not a meal in itself, but the perfect compliment to the hearty Ramen broth.

The restaurant at the Silversun shopping center across from The Silverlake Lounge and Los Globos is small and a tight operation. There’s always a line so it takes a while to get in and you’re kicked out pretty much as soon as you finish eating — this isn’t the place to go for a long birthday celebration — but the food is so worth it you just go along with it. It’s also a good choice to order for take out if you’re staying close enough, so you can skip the lines and there’s more than one location.

Lamb Sandwich from Dune

Dune is a Mediterranean restaurant in Atwater, which is not actually in Silverlake but from where I live it’s right around the corner. I can’t stress enough how good this place is. I do not typically like Mediterranean food. Things can get way too garlic-ey for me, chicken and other meats are often too dry in a cuisine that doesn’t really do “sauce.” But at Dune, everything is moist, everything is flavorful and everything I’ve tried is great.

The standout, that really made me realize it wasn’t just some “hipster” Mad Greek was the Lamb Sandwich. It’s not a sandwich really, two ground lamb meatballs wrapped in a pita with pickled onions and some delicious sauce. I have no clue what’s in it, but I know that it tastes amazing. I feel like most people expect Shawarma-style meat at a place like this, but the fact that it’s ground lamb doesn't detract at all from it, it’s incredible. The same goes for the Falafel sandwich, fried chicken sandwich and hummus plate. And the best part is that it’s actually cheap, a rarity in these parts.

Hummus at Mh Zh

After bitching about Mediterranean food I put two of ’em back to back. Mh Zh is tiny Israeli place that opened in 2017 with basically no room to eat inside, outside of a few seats at the bar and a tiny table. The rest of the seating is on the street, along Sunset Blvd, across the street from the 99 Cent Store.

I avoided trying Mh Zh at first because of the long lines and my assumption that a brand new restaurant in Silverlake would probably cost me half my paycheck. But when we finally got around to it, during a holiday week (the best time to try any of these busy places because L.A. clears out around Christmas and Thanksgiving) I was blown away by how cheap the simple menu is. A nice selection of single-item dishes for reasonable prices written on a piece of cardboard or something. The only crazy expensive item is a grilled rib-eye steak. We didn’t get that but the dishes we did eat were all delicious, simple and clean even if we did have to ask our waitress what most of it was before ordering.

But the Hummus —I’ve never tasted it like that. Almost sweet but not sugary, slightly salty, not overly garlic-ey. Just a beautiful taste that I haven’t experienced at any other similar place. There’s not much to add beyond that, except to say it’s fun to eat at Mh Zh on a beautiful clear evening — a good place to take a date if you go for drinks or something afterwards — and if you ever do go, you should absolutely get the hummus because it’s one of a kind.

Shrimp or Fish Tacos at Tacos Delta

Many places come and go in Silverlake but Tacos Delta has been there since I started visiting Silverlake a decade ago and it’s likely to remain long after assuming the restaurant owner owns the land it’s built on and doesn’t feel like cashing in for whatever absurd price it would fetch.

The menu is vast — all the food you would expect at any hole -in-the wall Mexican joint. But my personal favorites are the shrimp and fish tacos. Both are about what you’d expect. But the creamy sauce they slather on is delicious. Squeeze a little lime on either and its the best meal you’re likely to get for under ten bucks in the whole city.

Mexican food is good no matter how expensive or inexpensive it is. Sure the ingredients might be better, the presentation might be more exotic. But you can only improve on meat, beans, rice, and tortillas so much. Even the bastardized items at Taco Bell are delicious in the right context, if not hypertension inducing. That’s what makes Tacos Delta good. It’s cheap, but it’s recognizably tastier than other similar places. That’s the sweet spot.

Kale Caeser Salad at Mixto Comida Latina

Mixto Comida Latina, or simply Mixto, is another walk-up Mexican food joint that’s not too expensive but also not dirt cheap. I’ll never ask where the shrimp and fish come from at Tacos Delta, but at Mixto I don’t worry. It’s all the stuff you’d expect, burritos, tacos, quesadillas, but the ingredients are a little more organic.

But my personal favorite is the Kale Caeser Salad. There are actually a lot of Kale Caeser salads to choose from in Silverlake, but the simple version at Mixto is good for when you want something to eat late at night but are also feeling too fat to splurge on something cooked in a vat of grease. It might seem like my most lackluster choice so far, but i’ve definitely eaten this item more than any other one here and it is kinda perfect for what it is.

It’s not the insanely thick Kale you get at some places where if feels like you are eating a potted plant. It is mixed with a lemon vinaigrette that is far to the tart and acidic end of the spectrum. Throw in a few croutons and pieces of cheese and a little garlic and it’s pretty solid. Not worth more than it costs, but a go to for me. Throw in one of their surprisingly good pork tacos or corn tortilla quesadilla with soy chorizo and you’re golden.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza at Masa

I’ve never been to Chicago so I don’t know if the Chicago Deep Dish Pizza at Masa in Echo Park is comparable. But I do know that it kicks the shit out of BJ’s Brewhouse and most of the thin crust pizza joints I've been to in Los Angeles.

Copious amounts of crust and sauce and cheese, one slice is a meal. Two slices is a cheat day and three is a guaranteed depression spiral in front of the mirror that night. It’s delicious, it’s pizza. It’s the best pizza you can get in the area in my opinion.

It takes 40 minutes from the moment you order it to receive it too, but the restaurant is a fun place to be with a random mismatched assortment of furniture and tables that is a throwback to the 90's chabby chic style made famous by Friends and Gilmore Girls. Just don’t pig out on bread or salad beforehand.

Bacon Egg Cheese Biscuit Sandwich from Division 3

Division 3 is not really in Silverlake at all. It’s in Glassell Park, which looks like it’ll probably be gentrified at any moment but is still not somewhere you’d want to spend a lot of time in after sunset if you don’t know where you’re going.

The Bacon Egg and Cheese Biscuit Sandwich is so good though. I already love the Bacon Egg and Cheese Biscuit from McDonald's to be honest, but this is sooo much better. The egg is over easy which means the first bite releases a flood of orange yoke, the bacon is thick and perfectly cooked, the Biscuit is flaky and to top it all off, it is covered in the delicious D3 sauce. The only bad thing about this sandwich is that it isn’t bigger and the location is kinda strange and out of the way. But if it were closer, i’d probably eat it too much, anyway.

There’s another Division 3 in Hollywood, but the spot in Glassell Park is in a re-purposed home in an old Mexican neighborhood. If you eat there, you get to sit in a small garden backyard and feel for a morning like you know what it feels like to pay $800,000 for a one-bedroom house. It’s kinda nice.

Chicken Liver Pâté at Alimento

Aliemento is an upscale Italian restaurant right in the heart of Silverlake by the formerly named Spaceland Ballroom and a 7–11. It’s an intimate place, great for two people to have a quiet meal. My wife and I went there for an anniversary, enjoying a few tasty expensive cocktails and whatever else looked good on the menu. It was all pretty great but the best thing we ate was the chicken liver pâté.

I had no reference point for it, but every review I saw insisted that we get it and we did. And we were treated to a delicious nutty paste spread evenly across half of a plate with some dollops of sweet something and perfectly toasted bread to spread it on. It looked like art, but it tasted like a masterpiece. I have a hard time describing it because it was so new to me but after we finished it, we contemplated ordering another plate.

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That’s it for now, if i think of more i’ll add on to the list. There’s a lot of great food in this area, and a lot of great restaurants and bars, but I wanted to be more selective to start.