This is the happy hour I grew up with, a family tradition as treasured as opening presents on chilly Christmas mornings.  However, life in L.A. — what with late hours at work, traffic jams, and trips to the Parking Violations Bureau to pay near-constant parking tickets — doesn’t always lend itself to a 5 p.m. cocktail hour.  That’s why seven-day happy hours have a special place in my heart (or is it liver?). 

Sushi & Kushi IMAI has mastered the art of the seven-day happy hour.  Housed in an odd triangular building that juts out where Wilshire and San Vicente collide, the bar makes up half the seating area but maintains a welcoming, restaurant-like feel. 

The food is an improvement over my parents’ celery sticks and homemade dip of equal parts ketchup and mayonnaise.  Happy hour offerings include a house salad of mixed greens and a big bowl of edamame, each for under $2 and served by the restaurant’s friendly young owner.  Salmon/avocado roll or spicy tuna roll runs a slim $3, and sashimi (salmon, seared albacore or tuna) goes for $6.50.  Don’t eat fish?  Grilled lamb chop and vegetable tempura round out the menu.  A mere $3 gets you a large Kirin or glass of wine, or choose a large hot sake for the table for $5.50. 

When hit by nostalgia for those home-style cocktail hours just like Mama and Daddy used to do it, I head to the corner table at Sushi & Kushi IMAI.

When:  Happy hour, 5:30-7:30 everyday

Where: 8300 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, Ca 90211 

Call: 323.655.2253

www.sushiandkushiimai.com/

Related links  |  more evening fun

Seven-day happy hour at The Well in Hollywood

Ask the Comedian:  Comedy Death Ray at Upright Citizens Brigade Theater

I’m in the midst of a doughnut obsession, as you may have noticed here and here.  Since Los Angeles reigns as the undisputed doughnut capital of the world, I suppose it is a matter of civic pride.  In that spirit, here are six more standard bearers.

Dumpy strip mall + two letter names = amazing doughnuts?  Apparently.  Try:

1.  DK Donut & Bakery:  Thanks to StylishGuide.com reader and At Home at Home blogger Laure for recommending this Santa Monica gem.  Mmmm….

2.  S.K. Donuts & Croissants:  Head to Mid-city near Park La Brea and sink into a moist, luscious buttermilk bar or rich cruller.  Bonus: It’s open late for post-bar-hopping appetites.

Doughnut as architecture — these two shops prove it works:

3.  Randy’s Donuts:  The gigantic doughnut atop this Inglewood shop is like a big, fat, sloppy welcome-home kiss after landing at nearby LAX. 

4.  The Donut Hole:  Thrill the kid in you with a special trip out to a random intersection in La Puente for a doughnut that you actually drive through (see the video here).  The architecture is icing on the cake, so to speak; the main attraction is the fresh doughnuts within. 

More goodness:

5.  Stan’s Corner Donut Shoppe:   This legendary shop has been crafting gourmet doughnuts for more than 40 years.  If your timing is right, Stan himself will recommend his favorites — welcome help since he probably has more flavors than there are parking spots in all of Westwood. 

6.  Tang’s Donuts:  The bear claw — big as the real thing, fat with fluffy cinnamon-spiked dough — is worth attacking.  Nights bring an eclectic Silver Lake crowd, including hard-core chess addicts, to the grungy strip mall location.  

I’m a big believer in focus.  Tiger Woods on the green focus.  Skinny dog next to the barbecue focus.   Drill-bit/pinpoint/eye-on-the-prize type focus.

Hence I have a great appreciation for Bella Pita.

This unassuming Westwood shop has pared its entire operation down to the bare minimum.  It’s like they’ve taken everything you’d expect from a dining establishment, examined it, then figured out how to eliminate it or delegate it so they can focus on what they do best: delicious, super-cheap falafel pita. 

Boy does it work.  Take the three quick steps from the front door to the counter to place your order.  Bella Pita doesn’t cook it until you order it, so wait until your three falafel patties — light, moist and flavorful — are delivered from the deep fryer and nestled into a soft, warm, fresh-baked pita. 

That’s it.  That’s all they do. 

They don’t load your pita for you — that’s delegated.  A sharp salad bar offers roasted cauliflower, tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage and pickled turnips, hot sauce, white sauce, and hummus pumped from a ball-park-style ketchup dispenser. 

Next they eliminated variety.  The spare menu sports about six choice, tops.  Ambiance?  Gone.  While they have a clean, spacious kitchen, the entryway is shunted off to a space the size of a VW bus (only with less seating than a VW bus).  Decor?  Forget it.

At Bella Pita, get your pita, pimp it out as fat as you want, then get on your way.  Now that’s focus.

Price: $

Where: 960 Gayley Avenue, Los Angeles, Ca 90024

Call: 310.209.1050

More cheap eats that come wrapped in bread:

Six great hot dogs in Los Angeles

Six great hot sandwiches in Los Angeles

Stuart Paap is a comedian in Los Angeles who hosts a live interactive comedy talk show every Tuesday night at 8 p.m. at TheStream.TV! He also loves his dogs, likes his cats and tolerates his neighbors.

Related links | more deep fried delights:

Six great L.A. doughnut shops

Stuart Paap on StylishGuide.com

Because of this, finding great New York-style pizza joints in Los Angeles is an avocation adopted by thousands of NYC transplants, and The Coop — recommended by Stylish Guide reader Kate — delivers. 

In its Palms location since the beginning of time (in L.A. terms, the 1960s is the beginning of time), The Coop doesn’t exactly make it easy to enjoy their great, low price pizza. 

They only take cash — so hit the ATM on the way.  The friendly staff will move slower than rush hour traffic on the adjacent 10 freeway — so call ahead or stick with ordering a slice.  The inhospitable, elevator-sized counter area doesn’t offer even a lowly barstool to waiting customers — so get your pizza and get out! 

When you do finally get a fresh-from-the-oven-hot pizza, aromatic with basil-infused sauce and flour from the hand-tossed dough, squirrel the box away to your car.  Forget decency as you steam up the windows, huddled together as you slide generous slices out of the box.  Carefully lower it into your mouth baby-bird-style.  Marvel at how your annoyance at their skid-row-motel-style service fades away into grateful bliss with each bite.

Bottom line?  Come for a simple slice to eat on the run, or call ahead so your pizza pie is waiting when you walk in.  With all due respect to Teddy Roosevelt and Hip Hop, you had me at the pizza, NY.

Price: $

Call:  310.837.4462

Where:  10006 National Boulevard, Los Angeles, Ca

Related links  |  More slices:

Great Pizza in L.A.

Village Pizzeria

If I had to guess, I’d venture that my love of bakeries came from my mother.  Her idea of lunch out was splitting a sandwich five ways so we could main-line Napoleons, cream puffs, pain au chocolate and cinnamon rolls.

I’ve spent a good part of my life ever since searching for great pastries.  For rich, inexpensive breakfasts, afternoon treats, or part of a healthy lunch (according to my mother), here are some of my favorite local French bakeries:

1.  Hotcakes Bakes: When I visited the Mar Vista shop, there were actual French people running the shop.  Seems authentic to me.  Try the delightful canele.

2.  Frances Bakery: Head downtown for artful French baked goods, Little Tokyo style.  The sweet almond croissant will make your eyes glaze over — they’re that good.

3.  Delice Fine French Kosher Pastry & Bread:  On Pico west of La Cienega, a Kosher bakery with light buttery flaky croissants.  Mmmmm….

4.  La Maison Du Pain:  Two sisters living the dream — dumping corporate jobs to open a French bakery on Pico in Mid-Wilshire.  Croissants, tarts, bread – this is the kind of place where you’ll want to eat your way through the line-up.

Where else can I find great French baked goods?  Share, share, share!

Related links  |  More sweets:

Great donuts in L.A.

Cinnamon French Toast

Diddy Riese

There are occasions when a bucket of fried chicken just won’t do (even if it is as good as Golden Bird).  Maybe it is that all-important second date.  Maybe it’s just that someone else is paying. 

When I want to go out, without going “all out,” I hit these four stylish supper splurges in Midtown L.A.:

1.  Osteria La Buca:  The owners built a neighborhood Italian trattoria on Melrose – and brought Mamma back from Italy to cook.  Carbonara on tagliatelle is like a fat boat straight to heaven — worth every creamy mouthful.  $$$

2.  Meals by Genet:  A study in contrasts in Little Ethiopia: Hands-on communal dining … set on white tablecloths.  Fresh local ingredients … with spices imported from Africa.  Family-style dining can keep costs down, and the vibe makes any occasion feel like a celebration.   $$-$$$

3.  Lou:  A place famous for smoky, spicy, super-sweet bacon pieces called pig candy?  A reason to celebrate in and of itself.  You’d never guess that a super mod interior and artisanal cheese and sausage hides in this strip mall on Vine.  $$$

4.  El Cholo on Western:  Five simple words will set you up:  Cadillac margarita.  Green corn tamales.   $$-$$$

Related links | More Midtown eats:

Mao’s Kitchen

Village Pizzeria

This stuff is so addicting they should be selling it in little packets on the corner. 

Instead, the smoothies that will hook you like a junkie are sold out of bright, clean shops in dingy neighborhood strip malls.

The local Mateo’s mini-chain serves up smoothies, juices, ice cream and popsicles in the Oaxacan tradition — rich, creamy, and chock-a-block with fresh ingredients.

The best way to get started?  Choose a smoothie — something fun like orange/papaya/mango.  Consider it a gateway to their 100 percent vegetable and orange juices.  Called Vampiros, a single sip will make you feel like you’ve added a year to your life.  Beets — the not-so-secret ingredient — give them their blood-red hue and a slight sweetness (think sugar beets).  I personally know of people who would pawn grandma’s pearl necklace for carrot/beet/celery/strawberry Vampiros.

You can get your pleasure to-go with Mateo’s rich, fruity popsicles, $1.50 apiece.  Scoops of ice cream or sorbet in flavors ranging from the familiar (strawberry, cookies and cream), to the interesting (watermelon, walnut) to the exotic (smoked milk, soursop), are stimulating choices as well.

Just don’t come crying to me when you blow your paycheck on a wild, fruit-crammed weekend, and your pants get a little snug.

Price: $

Where:  Four locations:

1250 S. Vermont Avenue #105, Los Angeles, Ca, 213.738.7288

4222 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, Ca, 323.931.5500

4929 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City, Ca, 310.313.7625

522-B  E. Vine Avenue, West Covina, Ca, 626.919.2090

Pizza’s a great StylishGuide.com food.  You can feed a crowd for a few bucks a head, snack for days on leftovers — even cut pies into little squares for party appetizers.  And the town that invented BBQ Chicken Pizza certainly can boast some top-notch pie-makers.

I find Village Pizzeria’s Veggie II to be tranformative, and their homemade sausage and pepperoni pizzas are wonderful, too.  Eagle Rock’s Casa Bianca Pizza Pie has dreamy pies if you can bear the long lines, and the mad-genius combination of Nancy Silverton’s pizza crusts with Mario Bateli’s meat toppings at Pizzeria Mozza on Highland is a fun splurge if you don’t mind dinner at 4 p.m. (the only time I seem to be able to get a table).

But I need more.  Where do you go for great pizza?  I’m dying to know.

Could it be obsessive-compulsive disorder?  Or my post on making French toast at home?  Whatever it was, it meant that I didn’t spend the weekend registering voters or flossing or recycling.  Instead I devoted my time to something as crucial as the search for great French toast.

Saturday we tried a nice place that is a little pricey.  bld on Beverly serves up inch-and-a-half thick slices of brioche, lacy browned on the outside and as creamy as custard on the inside — bread pudding in toast form.  Unbelievably delicious, but a splurge at $11.

Cash-wise, I needed to take it down a notch.  So Sunday we tried King’s Hawaiian Bakery and Restaurant. 

King’s Hawaiian bread, the summit-shaped sweet bread in the “Hawaii Orange” plastic sack in grocery stores nationwide, comes from a 150,000 square foot facility in Torrance.  In the 1980s, the restaurant opened not far from the factory.  Today it is a busy place; the collosal decorative pineapple and dunk-tank-sized aquarium qualify it as a bit more interesting than Denny’s, but the feel is similar. 

The French toast is sliced from their sweet Hawaiian bread, cooked with egg and cinammon and delivered sponge-light and dreamy sweet.  French toast runs $8.75 — plus two eggs and a side of bacon or sausage. 

I knew I’d found a winner.