Here’s the last of the Los Angeles pictures!  This time, it’s all about the food.

On our first day, Wendy showed us a fantastic place in downtown Los Angeles called Grand Central Market.  The Grand Central Market occupies the entire ground floor of the Homer Laughlin Building, at 317 South Broadway.

It’s a market-hall format, which means there’s a big open space in the building filled with all kinds of great little places to eat inside.  I’ve been to stuff like this in other countries, but this was one of the larger and more interesting ones I’ve been to.  The next three pictures give you an idea of what it looks like inside.

Next up in our tiny culinary tour of Los Angeles is the Original Pantry Cafe.   We stumbled across this wonderful little diner while looking for a place to dine before Bob’s Burger’s Live.

The sign on the top says that the restaurant was opened in 1924, moved to the current location in 1960,  and has been opened continually since it first opened.  If true, that’s amazing.

There is a guestbook under glass, obviously reserved for famous guests.  The page it was open to includes a number of names that I’m not familiar with, and Conan O’Brien.

While we were eating, Richard Masur came in with a small group.  I was facing away from him, but Amelie spotted him right away.

This isn’t a great picture of the cashier cage, but I didn’t think to grab the picture until we were standing in front of it to pay.   The Country Pantry has been cash only since it opened in 1924.

I didn’t know it was cash only until we were already seated, but the signage was clearly marked.  They also didn’t give us menus- all the menu information was on wall signs, so we took it in stride.  I think I slightly annoyed the waitress by not being aware of this before we sat down.

There were lots of old photographs on the walls, and Amelie pointed out that one of the waiters in the restaurant was clearly the same as the younger version of him in the black and white photographs on the right.

I dined on french toast and eggs, which is one of my favorite dishes.    The french toast was amazing.  I would definitely go back here, if I ever wound up in downtown Los Angeles again.

The third and final stop in our saunter through the comestibles of California is Pink’s, a hot dog restaurant that has been there for nearly eighty years.

This original location of Pink’s has been there since 1939.  Until this visit, I thought it was the only one.  Little did I realize that there are locations in  Ohio, Hawaii, New York, and Las Vegas.  Some are in amusement parks.  A few are temporary locations in various California state fairs.  One is in a hotel in Manila.  There’s even a Pink’s location in the Miami Seaquarium!

Still, we wanted to go to the original one.  In the middle of the afternoon, the line was manageable.  From what I’ve heard, the line can get somewhat entertaining on a Friday or Saturday evening.

Many of the offerings are named after celebrities or movies.  There’s a dog with onion rings called the Lord of the Rings that looked delicious.

I tried the  New York Dog, which had sweet and saucy onions.  Amelie tried the Chicago Polish Dog, which included mustard, relish, onions, tomatoes, and lettuce.  I don’t have a picture of mine, but it was way messier than hers.

Before we left, we couldn’t resist the Pink’s photo-op!

What’s your favorite Los Angeles dining experience?