Where to find the best lobster roll in Los Angeles

Warm lobster roll from Saltie Girl

The most decadent sandwich in Los Angeles could also be the heat lobster roll from Saltie Girl, the Boston seafood restaurant that just lately opened on Sunset Boulevard. This will not be a city identified for its seafood sandwiches. Towers of pastrami, sure. A stellar Italian sub, completely. But rolls brimming with chunks of scorching lobster? Not a lot. At Saltie Girl, you received’t go quite a lot of minutes with out spying a server whisking an order to a close-by desk.

“We all the time wished to make sure that our lobster roll was a showstopper,” chef Kyle McClelland mentioned on a current name. The New England native grew up going to clam shacks and lobster eating places, the place an abundance of recent seafood was all the time out there. “There have been sure locations I used to go on the Cape and they might provide you with like two entire lobsters in the roll. We actually wished to showcase that.”

McClelland’s roll is constructed on recent lobster from Maine, buttery rolls flown in from Massachusetts, and plenty and many European butter. There’s a heap of lobster, with chunks spilling up and out from the break up roll, shiny with what could be greater than a few tablespoons of butter per sandwich.

“You’re getting butter throughout the place,” he mentioned.

There’s the lobster butter he makes use of to poach the lobster. The butter he brushes onto the roll and the butter he cooks the bread in. And the butter in the butter sauce, poured onto the butter-poached lobster.

A heat lobster roll with home made salt and vinegar chips is on the menu at Saltie Girl on Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

The meat is nice and tender, lavishly dressed in the butter sauce. The roll is extra like challah than brioche, wealthy, mushy and only a tad candy. The chips on the facet are monumental, gossamer petals of potato dusted with malt vinegar powder. They are so skinny and crisp they virtually dissolve in your tongue. Each roll comes with a complete cylinder full, however there by no means appears to be sufficient. Whoever doesn’t order the lobster roll at the desk will inevitably steal a couple of or extra. McClelland mentioned they bag them at the location in Boston. I hope they observe go well with in Los Angeles.

The sandwich conjures an on the spot seaside breeze in your cheeks and the scent of the ocean. The explicit mixture of lobster, butter and bread defies geography. But as quickly as you wipe the final of the melted butter out of your lips, the phantasm is gone. You are in the previous Wahlburgers house on Sunset Boulevard the place Mark Wahlberg and his two brothers as soon as opened a burger restaurant. Halfway by way of dinner an Oscar-winning actress walked by way of the door. And close to the finish of my meal, the lady at the subsequent desk leaned over to ask if I used to be a stylist. This is unquestionably Los Angeles.

Chicharron huarache from Tacos DF

The huarache with chicharron from Tacos DF in South Gate.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)

The huaraches at Tacos DF are the heavyweight champs of the style, with the heft and measurement of a medium supply pizza and what looks as if a full bowl of beans sandwiched between the masa. While others extra carefully resemble the slim rectangular form of the sneakers they’re named for, the huaraches listed here are broader, the equal of my dad’s extra-wide New Balance. The many I’ve tried all through Mexico City might be categorised as a snack. The Tacos DF huarache is a meal.

Stuffed with beans then flattened right into a quarter-inch thick disc, the masa is cooked on each side till it’s nearly crisp, like an enormous sope topped with any protein you want. I choose the chicharron, with plenty of diced onion and cilantro and dredged in sufficient salsa to rework the pork into one thing that extra resembles crumbles of soppy chorizo. It’s completed with loads of queso fresco and each a fiery pink and a inexperienced salsa so piquant it’s nearly electrical.

I’ve seen individuals use a fork and knife to reduce strips of the masa. Some use their palms to tear away large items. I like to choose up the whole factor and eat it like an enormous slice of pizza. It lasts longer that manner.

Chef Kyle McClelland spoons on beurre blanc sauce whereas getting ready a heat lobster roll at Saltie Girl on Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)