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| My Last Bite |
| It's not Lucques' cassoulet, but it looks pretty great |
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In L.A., where high-paid architects and interior designers seem as essential to a new restaurant's success as the choice of chef, walking into a well-worn local haunt like Lares in Santa Monica has that "welcome home" appeal you can't buy. It's the sort of place where the paint and woodwork take on the cracks and chips of age gracefully, developing a character that never needs a new coat of paint. It's also the sort of place people hit when they have pork carnitas and carne adobada cravings, not when they're looking to simply grab a drink. 
jgarbee The Lares Altar
In part, that's because the margaritas are proudly made with a mix -- ask for a fresh lime juice version and they'll make it for you -- and the beer list is old-school ("imported" here means Modelo). But mainly as the tiny six-stool bar area just inches from the front door is exceptionally dark by day, and come supper hour, an uncomfortably cozy way to get to know the dozen people lined up behind you for a table. You sidle up to this bar for one reason only: To have a beer at the altar.
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"A is for dining alone," M.F.K. Fisher wrote in An Alphabet for Gourmets, "...and so am I, if a choice must be made between most people I know and myself." We feel ya, Fisher.
Joséphine Runneboom/Flickr Alone at The Biltmore Hotel
Like Fisher, we would much rather dine alone, or not at all, if the alternative is being forced to indulge some twat droning on and on about their so-called life, or to endure that awkward moment when all diners' shared interests have been thoroughly hashed and it's not even dessert yet.
Poor Fisher found 1949 Los Angeles a bit hostile to the idea of a woman eating alone in a restaurant. While some restaurants today still aren't quite optimal for singles -- dishes served family-style, for example, or tables so uncomfortably big that you feel like Edith Ann -- Fisher nonetheless would have been in a good company of misanthropes, introverts, alone-but-not-lonelies who eat alone, and eat well, in the city. In no particular order, here are our favorite spots to dine alone. Comfortably. Happily. Shamelessly.
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Earlier this week we told you about CITY Night at Border Grill -- a special event at which Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken will indulge the nostalgia of their 1980s glory days by serving a menu inspired by their first restaurant, City Cafe and its subsequent incarnation, CITY. Today, the menu was announced, and as was the case in their former kitchens, it crosses continents.
Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger
See the menu after the jump:
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Here's comedian Patton Oswalt crashing a chat with Harlan Ellison at Cinefamily. The brilliant, irascible sci-fi writer known for his rants (our favorite: "Pay the Writer") is there to discuss the limited-edition re-release of The Glass Teat, his collected writings on television. 
Writer Harlan Ellison and comedian Patton Oswalt at Cinefamily.
When Oswalt hijacks the interview, it veers to topics like his attempt to take his pal Ellison, a curmudgeon par excellence, to the fancy steakhouse Jar. Unsurprisingly, Ellison finds something to complain about. [Video after the jump.]
With their success at Border Grill and beyond, it's difficult to think of chefs and restaurateurs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger as ever being scrappy young things, just starting out, with a kitchen so tiny it spilled over into their back alley. But they were, back in 1981 when they opened City Cafe on Melrose. And on Feb. 29, as they've done every Leap Year since 2000, they'll commemorate that time by serving a menu highlighting the flavors that launched their careers.Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, young, wild and free.
Valentine's Day is fast approaching, thus it is time to book reservations at your favorite swank restaurant. Assuming you have a date for the evening. If you do not, well, check back later for our Best Dive Bars in L.A. list. 
Anne Fishbein taco love at El Pique
Of course your significant other may not be the white tablecloth sort, so where to take him or her isn't nearly as straightforward as Providence or Michael's or Rivera. All this depends on many variables, not the least being the status of your bank account. Other things to think about: If your date is your spouse of 25 years and co-parent of your five kids, the beloved you're wanting to propose to with the arrival of the mignardise, or just somebody you just met at a bar. So we've compiled a list of the 10 best romantic restaurants in L.A. that accounts for some of these variables.
It should go without saying that, if you can cook at all, staying home is a fine option. (No bouquet-carrying crowds! No valet parking!) You could also get Sichuan to-go, rent a stack of Fellini movies and lock the door, which is certainly cheaper -- and exactly as romantic as you make it. And, finally, there is the caveat that your local taco truck is possibly the best choice of all: close to home, with your car handy for making out, and you save the cash for that trip to Prague. But then, some of us are cheap dates. Turn the page.
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Don't wear your lacy picture hat, and don't even think about elegantly extending your pinkie as you hold a cup of tea at Café Livre.
S. Park tea and Algerian almond cigars at Cafe Livre
"We want to make tea service more casual and fun, take it out of the parlor," says Susan Park, director of operations at the cafe, which has just opened its Siptea and Algerian Coffee Garden. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
Instead of cucumber sandwiches and scones with clotted cream, there are Algerian almond pastries, reflecting executive chef Farid Zadi's Algerian heritage. These include Algerian almond cigars, which are crisp rolled pastries filled with almond sugar, brushed with clarified butter, baked and arranged on a plate with citrus syrup.
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Screenshot of Evan Kleiman's Twitter page
If you thumb through the latest installment of Saveur's annual 100 issue, you'll learn about Georgian dumplings, the best whisks, and extra-virgin fish sauce from the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc. Squeezed in there at 51, you'll also find Jane and Michael Stern sniffling into their Jello salad cups over the slow decline of America's great bastions of cafeteria-style dining. From Northern Ohio to Georgia though, they celebrate the stalwarts still standing -- and send a special gravy-soaked prayer winging over to Los Angeles's historic Clifton's Cafeteria.
Flickr/massdistraction pies at Clifton's
