Category Archives: Century City

August 30, 2026 · 11:06 am

The Best LA Soft Serve Spots to Cool You Down

It’s hot outside! As we’re all trying to survive this record-breaking heat wave, here’s a special summer edition of Consuming LA featuring a ranked list of the twelve best places to get amazing frozen soft serve treats in Los Angeles. Please stay cool and consume responsibly!

12. Bumsan Organic Milk Bar (Koreatown). This little pink shop on Western Avenue serves super premium soft serve from the leading organic dairy producer in Korea. Pro tip: get the Croffle SoulMate, which combines your choice of soft serve (I love the Taro Milk Tea flavor) with a crispy, caramelized croissant-waffle hybrid.

11. Honeymee (Downtown, Little Tokyo, Gardena, Koreatown). This small chain serves creamy goodness served with a yummy chunk of honeycomb. It’s the bee’s knees!

10. Magpies Softserve (Tarzana, Silver Lake, Highland Park). As a soft serve specialist, Magpies makes some of the best ice cream in town. Their rotating flavors include Thai Tea, Roasted Strawberry, Mexican Hot Chocolate, and my favorite, Corn Almond.

9. Pressed Juicery (multiple locations). This soft serve is vegan, gluten-free and dairy-free, and made with healthier ingredients like fruit and vegetable juices, almonds and coconuts. It’s also incredibly delicious. I recommend the vanilla or chocolate flavor draped with almond butter.

8. The Bigg Chill Frozen Yogurt (Westwood). This is one of the very best yogurt shops in town, with lots of great flavors and even more great toppings, including several different kinds of cookie dough.

7. Indigo Cow (West LA/Sawtelle, Echo Park). This newer addition to the LA ice cream scene serves high-end Hokkaido-style soft serve. Get the Yaki Imo Brulee, which is topped with brûléed sweet potato puree (or pumpkin puree in October!), or the M.B.R., which is topped with mochi, brown sugar syrup and roasted soybean powder.

6. Humphrey Yogart (Sherman Oaks). Located inside Gelson’s Market in Sherman Oaks is another one of the best frozen yogurt shops in LA. They offer something for everyone (including low carb options), but their speciality is custom-blended frozen concoctions exactly per your specifications.

5. Lupaba (Koreatown). This not a frozen dessert shop, but rather an awesome new Italian/Korean pasta bar. If you’re lucky when you eat there, they will have a dessert offering of “BTS,” which is Black Truffle Soft Serve with Brown Butter, and if you love truffle like I do, it will blow you away.

4. Milk Bar (Mid-City). If you’ve never had this dessert shop’s Cereal Milk Ice Cream, you are missing out big time! The soft serve itself tastes like the milk remaining in the cereal bowl once you’ve eaten the cornflakes.

3. Go Greek Yogurt (Studio City, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Mid-City/Larchmont, Brentwood). There’s no hotter food trend right now than protein-rich, high quality, frozen Greek yogurt. The yogurt at Go Greek is pricey and the lines can be long, but it is phenomenal and highly addictive.

2. Hokey Pokey LA (Century City). Three brothers from New Zealand brought their homeland’s famous toffee-infused soft serve ice cream to Century City Mall, and we are the incredibly lucky beneficiaries.

1. Yoga-urt (Santa Monica, Echo Park, Glendale, Granada Hills). It’s vegan and a healthier option, but that aside, it’s the best tasting soft serve in the city. The Chocolate Bliss, Strawberry Serenity and Pistachio Passion flavors are all incredible, but the Peanut Butter Prana is truly to die for.

If you enjoy Consuming LA, please subscribe (it’s free!), follow me on facebook or instagram, and forward to your friends!

1 Comment

Filed under Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Century City, Downtown, Echo Park, Gardena, Glendale, Granada Hills, Highland Park, Koreatown, Larchmont, Mid-City, Santa Monica, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Tarzana, West LA, Westwood

Tagged as best ice cream in LA, best ice cream LA, best ice cream Los Angeles, best soft serve ice cream LA, best soft serve ice cream Los Angeles, best soft serve LA, best soft serve los angeles, best vegan ice cream LA, best vegan ice cream Los Angeles, dairy free frozen desserts LA, dairy free frozen desserts Los Angeles, soft serve ice cream LA, soft serve ice cream Los Angeles, soft serve LA, soft serve Los Angeles

December 31, 2025 · 10:43 am

The 10 Best Things I Consumed in 2025

Caring is sharing so it’s time again to share my annual year-end list. With the new year about to begin, I wish you all a year of good health, personal and professional fulfillment and, of course, next-level eats. So without further ado, here is my list of the top ten things I consumed and wrote about this past year.

10. Squid Ink Xiao Long Bao from Little Fatty. If you’re not eating at this super cool Culver City eatery with amazing craft cocktails and awesome Taiwanese soul food, you’re doing it wrong. I love everything I’ve had there, especially this version of soup dumplings.

Basterma Brisket Sandwich with hand-carved Basterma Brisket, Pickled Persian Cucumber, Chaman Spread and Swiss Cheese on freshly baked Pita Bread.

9. Basterma Brisket Sandwich from Iii Mas Bakery and Deli. Until they open their planned brick and mortar space serving their insanely good Armenian brisket sandwiches, you can only order to go, drive to a parking lot in Glendale and wait at a bright red door until someone emerges from their ghost kitchen to bring you your sandwich prize. But definitely worth it.

Uncle Tetsu Original Japanese Cheesecake

8. Original Japanese Cheesecake from Uncle Tetsu’s. Japanese cheesecakes are way different from their American cousins. They’re much lighter, fluffier and delicate. I’m obsessed with the ones from Uncle’s Tetsu.

7. Pork Spareribs from The Mulberry. With its hip and cozy vibe, cool cocktails and elevated Korean dishes, The Mulberry on Sawtelle is my favorite new restaurant in LA. When you go, make sure to order these perfectly grilled and mouthwateringly delicious pork spareribs.

Scallop Crudo with Hokkaido Scallops, Cilantro Vinaigrette and Persimmon

6. Scallop Crudo from Budoknoki. This modern and intimate Japanese Izakaya does everything right and has incredible food. My favorite dish is their perfect scallop “snack.” It’s one of the best crudos I’ve ever consumed.

Mama Chang’s Marinated Bone-in Ribeye SteakC

5. Mama Chang’s Marinated Bone-in Ribeye from Super Peach. David Chang (of Momofuku fame) is my favorite chef in the world and has recently opened Super Peach, his second LA restaurant after Majordomo, in Century City Mall of all places. This phenomenal juicy ribeye steak is my favorite thing on the menu.

4. Shawarma Rubbed Oyster Mushrooms from Mazal. With a good friend who is vegan, I’ve had to up my game on finding vegan fare for the past couple years and have made many awesome food discoveries. The Israeli vegetarian cuisine at Mazal is across-the-board excellent, but the best of all is their phenomenal air-fried Shawarma Rubbed Oyster Mushrooms.

“The Prent” Sandwich with Pastrami, Swiss Cheese, Cabbage Salad and House Dressing on a Roasted Jalapeño Bagel

3. “The Prent” Pastrami Sandwich on a Roasted Jalapeño Bagel from Uncle Stevey’s Bagels. There are many impressive bagel joints right now in LA, but none are on the level of Uncle Stevey’s. Their thoughtfulness and attention to detail is staggering. The Prent, which is only served on weekends and only from 10:30am until they close at 1:30pm and is made on your choice of bagel (I highly recommend the Roasted Jalapeño), is unbelievably delish.

Mala Lamb Sausage Pizza with Lamb Sausage, Kendall Farms Creme Fraiche, Red Bell Pepper, Smoked Provola, Cilantro Flowers, Shaved Shallot, Tomato Pulp, Pecorino Romano, Black Pepper, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Lemon and XXHEAT Mala Spiced Chili

2. Mala Lamb Sausage Pizza from Pizzeria Sei. This is a pizzeria for foodies and my current favorite in the city. They serve individual-sized Neopolitan-style pizzas on some the best chewy crust I’ve ever tasted. The spicy Mala Lamb Sausage Pizza is especially extraordinary and a must-have if it’s on the menu when you go.

Meat Jun Plate Lunch (Egg-Battered Ribeye Beef Slices with Meat Jun Sauce) served with Purple Rice and Potato-Mac Salad

1. Meat Jun Plate Lunch from Broken Mouth. Three things to know: 1. This Korean-Hawaiian homestyle food counter is in a low-rent food court downtown; 2. Ordering should ideally be done online in advance to avoid a long wait; and 3. The Meat Jun is transcendent and will change your life. It’s the best thing I consumed in 2025.

If you enjoy Consuming LA, please subscribe (it’s free!), follow me on instagram and facebook, and forward to your friends!

Birdy Num Num

As enchanting and rapturous as the kind of Japanese fairytale its name evokes, Hinoki & the Bird opened a few weeks ago in Century City. It’s the baby of chef David Myers (Comme Ã‡a and the late great Sona) and Kuniko Yagi of recent Top Chef fame. Located just down the street from the “Death Star” that houses CAA, Hinoki & the Bird has a style that you would expect of a hip Downtown or Venice restaurant, and not of staid and corporate-y Century City. Hinoki is a Japanese cedar tree and reclaimed wood is used extensively in the clean and modern interior. Seating is either in a beautiful enclosed patio or inside, sandwiched between the frenetic energy of an open kitchen and an impressively stocked bar.

Cocktails, such as the Gordon’s Cup (gin, muddled lime, cucumber, Szechuan pepper and salt) or the Griffith Park Swizzle (bourbon, mint, lime, bitters and absinthe), are a must. The food is Asian-inspired California cuisine. Almost everything I’ve eaten there so far has been excellent. Some of my favorites are the Beef Tartare with Pickled Jalapeno and Parmigiano, the Chili Crab Toast with Spicy Cucumbers and Coriander (pictured above) and the Salt & Pepper Marinated Calamari. Their Kale “Crispy and Raw” with Curried Almonds, Pecorino and Red Wine Vinaigrette is a delicious mix of colors and textures and one of the best kale salads I have ever eaten. I also love the Caramel Braised Pork Belly with Radish and Mustard Greens and the Miso Marinated Skirt Steak.

The desserts are incredible too, especially the Miso Mochi Rice Cream with Butterscotch and Togarashi and the Evo Parfait with Olive Oil Sable, Winter Citrus and Cinnamon Meringue. This is not surprising. After all, great fairytales always have happy endings.

Hinoki & the Bird is located at 10 Century Dr., Los Angeles (in Century City).