Top 5 Hamburgers

As far as pizza goes, I'm partial to Joe Peep's in North Hollywood. They also have a Whittier location.

They claim to use NYC water. Don't know if that's true, but the ingredients are fresh and plentiful.

If you like New York style pizza, Joe Peep's Blue Collar pizza is more similar to New York pizza than the regular Joe Peep's pies, which are absolutely loaded down with toppings.

T Mob and Tvad: Thanks guys. TM: I agree with you. In Italy, where I have spent some time on sabbatical, you could buy a feshly made pizza for about $6 with real tomatoes from Naples and buffalo mozz. cheese. Simply made but choice tasty ingredients. Hard to imagine that fetches $20 here.

I travel to NYC every other week, so I am a little spoiled, by all the great slice joints--Emporio, Lazzos, La Pizza Fresca, L & M etc... Lots of cool Neopolitan style pizza places are spreading up--Keste is particularly hot--made it to #1 in New York Magazine after only being open four months. My favorite non-NY pizza places is Serious Pie in Seattle and A16 in SF. Have not taken the time to drive up to Mozza as I live in Laguna Beach and it would be a hour and half haul on a good day. San Pedro is a easy 45 minute shot so I will check your recommendation out.

I have spent a fair amount of time in Santa Maria (Jockos), Austin (The Salt Lick) and Memphis (A & R) sampling some great Q. I especially like a website called www.choppedonion.com that covers all the great backroad barbecue joints in the South. Tasty-Q sounds like my kind of joint. Just never think to go up to South Central.

Bongo,

My girlfriend grew up and still lives in Laguna up on the hill - Temple Hills Dr. So, I make it down that way fairly often. Have you tried Eva's(formerly Drew's) Jamaican on the south side of town. I haven't been in a long time, but I do remember it was as authentic, and good, as I've ever had in Southern California. Their jerk meats & Calaloo soup are out of this world.

I seem to remember Mozambique being pretty good in it's prime, especially the chicken livers in Peri-peri sauce. Actually, Peri-Peri on anything is good.

In Italy, where I have spent some time on sabbatical, you could buy a feshly made pizza for about $6 with real tomatoes from Naples and buffalo mozz. cheese. Simply made but choice tasty ingredients.

Pavich's makes a classic "Margarita" just like in Italy and it is fantastic. But, most people will recommend the "Croatian". Half & Half would not be a bad way to go first time.

D-Mob and Bong-o, I agree on the high end pizza being an oxymoron. I grew up in Chicago, where one of the few great foods was Pizza. I love Chicago, great town, but not the best food town in the US, especially in the low to mid price range.

Anyway, Houston has the worst pizza in of anywhere I have ever been. Great food in general, huge diversity because of the huge foriengn population, but man, pizza here sucks. So we have gotte a few of those "High End" pizza places opening in very nice parts of town. I have a problem paying $40 for a pizza. Especially when I think of how you can walk into those little shops off the squares in Rome and get a great slice for about $2.50. Now that's pizza!

I love NY pizza too, same type deal. Different than the stuff in Italy, and much different than the deep dish (can you say Gino's East) in Chicago, but equally as satisfying.

BTW, my company's office in Cali is in Newport Beach, right off of MacArthur. Bongo I owe you at least lunch, but beer and dinner would be better, next time I am there, for my red card rant on the rap thread. I still think rap sucks though.

For exceptionally good Lebanese food, try Carnival Restaurant in Sherman Oaks, CA.

A friend once took a business associate to Carnival because my friend loves the restaurant and wanted to share the experience, but also because the business associate was born in Lebanon. After tasting the food, the business associate told my friend "he had eaten this food before". It turns out, the chef of Carnival Restaurant had been the cook at the business associate's grade school in Lebanon more than two decades earlier! How wild is it for someone to absolutely recognize the flavor of fairly common dishes to be able to trace it precisely to a place and time in one's childhood? That story blew me away.