During my summer in LA, I went to lunch with a very senior partner and a senior associate. AFTER we sat down, the restaurant "bumped" us out of our table for one of the kids on "Malcolm in the Middle" (and not even the kid who played Malcolm). There were no other tables available, so we just had to leave. I could tell it was pretty humiliating for the partner.

In LA, it's best to hit low key spots. Lawyers have virtually no clout in that city, particularly when compared to anyone with even a vague connection to "the Business."

5:22 ITCR.

Sushi -- Roy's it s chain but nice
Avoid Cafe Pinot
Water Grill is nice
Standard Hotel also has nice clubs

Try to get a partner to take to you the California Club or the Jonathan Club.

water grill

Are they still shooting Hell's Kitchen? That could be a fun SA event.

Panda Express!

Nick & Stef's
Patina

Mendocino Farms

Don't the LA summers (and associates) have time to add comments?!

If you have time to make it down to Hollywood:

Bastide
Osteria Mozza
Terroni

Water Grill for somewhere downtown

If you have time to make it down to Hollywood:

Bastide
Osteria Mozza
Terroni

Water Grill for somewhere downtown

If you are out on your own or with fellow summers, try Phillipes near Union Station. Not a place to go with partners, but they have the best french dip sandwiches in town. Make sure you load on the mustard.

The places downtown

S U C K

Beverly Hill (right next to Century city) is where it's at.

BOTTOM LINE THOUGH IS THIS: IN LA LOOKS COUNT, SO DON'T DESTROY YOUR PHYSIQUE AND SOCIAL LIFE FOR A MEASILY $25 ENTREE.

"If you are out on your own or with fellow summers, try Phillipes near Union Station. Not a place to go with partners, but they have the best french dip sandwiches in town. Make sure you load on the mustard."

You must be a horrendously hideous slob. That place is f'ing disgusting.

6:07: Good. Avoid it. You should stick to the Rodeo restaurants.

Downtown "sucks"? C'mon gimme a break. Try living in another city for a while. You people don't know what you have.

Nik & Stefs is very good steak
Watergrill (as others mentioned) is perhaps the best seafood in the whole freakin city.
Roys is always fantastic
Cafe Pinot is good (ignore earlier poster).
Tesoro is decent
Cicada is very good.

But my favorite is Ciudad. Lousy interior but delicious food.

1. Mangia! Mangia!
2. Sarku
3. All American Philly

Honestly I prefer the food I buy grocery shopping to anything I can get at a restaurant.

That train diner on Sunset. END OF THREAD.

Try Roy's Restaurant at 8th and Fig.

The Ivy and Mr. Chows. If you are a Cravath Associate, you get seated immediately.

The downtown LA lunch scene is pretty pathetic. I'm at a big firm in LA and our limit for lunches is a paltry $20. For that, you can forget about Water Grill, Nick & Stefs and other decent sit-down places you were taken for interviews.

For the money, the best bet is ethnic food. Blossom is great Vietnamese if you are willing to hoof it to Main & Fourth. K-town is great if you have some extra time. There are several good Ramen and places in Little Tokyo. And China Town is local and has some good Dim Sum. But these options take longer and are not realistic unless you have an hour and a half or more.

Other than that, you basically have standard third-rate strip mall joints like Corner Bakery, Wolfgang Puck, CPK etc. Mendicino Farms is ok if you don't mind not having a place to sit down.

Unfortunately there is no In-n-Out downtown (that I'm aware of).

Before I went to law school, I was a bit of a rising star in the NYC culinary world. I have very little respect for what the "chefs" in LA are doing.

I typically request that we go for something basic (so it's not too hard to screw up) and cheap (so it won't sting too bad when the woefully incompetent cook inevitably does screw it up).

I've even tried sending the food back with specific instructions on how to prepare it properly, but it never seems to work.

The Pacific Dining Car.

Smokes all comers for steak or late brunch food, and only a 5 minute drive (seriously, it's only a mile or so) west on 5th/6th out of downtown proper.

Downtown doesn't suck but most of the really good restaurants are in Beverly Hills or the Westside.

Kraft, La Cachette, the Grill (BH) and Crustacean are all good lunch places. The Ivy is the quintessential place to be seen but the food sucks.

For dinner try Lucques, Sona, Melisse, Mozza (but fucking annoying to get reservations) and Providence for seafood--way better than the generic Watergrill.

Signed,

a Fatty

Other good downtown options: R-23, the Palm, Langer's, Morton's, Angelique Cafe.

If you're in Century City, your choices are far too numerous to list...

Water Grill
The Palm is good and pretty reasonably priced
Roy's is good but don't be surprised if you leave hungry
Morton's is Morton's

Senor Fish for Fish Tacos downtown.

for all you people who cant find good food right next to Little Tokyo, i don't know what to say.

for the former "up and coming" NYC culinary star, anyone douchey enough to send a dish back with "instructions" on how to properly prepare it would most likely get some extra ingredients back in their cobb salad. thats some dumb shit.

The food in LA is fucking great, if you can't find someone to take you to good place for lunch and cant keep your table when a D list celeb walks in.. fuck i can't help you. Just move go back to the Nasty Ass dirty ass East Coast.

As a former NYC associate who is now out in LA I can honestly say that LA summer lunches are not worth the time. Mendocino farms is a cheap sandwich place - there is a Roy's in downtown NY, and no one is excited to go there. All you have left is Qdoba. The person who Ciudad is great must be from a third world country.

If you were an associate in NY trying to take a summer to half the places LA summers are taken, you'd be lynched, and rightfully so.

"Senor Fish for Fish Tacos"

That about sums up LA's lunch scene. LA is terrible, but the people out there will tell you you're crazy if you'd say you want to live somewhere else. LA is the best place to live if you want traffic all of the time, crap food, hundreds of homeless asking for money all the time, "hipsters", 6 am conference calls with the real lawyers in NYC, an ocean you can't swim in because it's too cold, the most polluted city, smog, traffic and a rapist to lead your basketball team.

The thread isn't "Hate on LA."

It's "Summer Associate Lunch Suggestions: Los Angeles."

And if you hate LA, then don't live here. We don't want you in our city anyway. Enough pretentious pricks around!

7:11 - It doesn't matter what the thread title is, the blog is all about how NY is better than every other city. Secondary markets are garbage.

For anyone in Century City or Santa Monica, Father's Office! They just opened a new one in Culver City, too. The burgers are amazing as are the beers.

Oh, and LA claims to have great burgers, which is also false. It's just because everything else is crap too.

Living in Oregon I find it funny that 7:11 calls someone a prick when everyone knows LA sucks and Californians are lame.

Before you make fun of the Oregon legal market, some of us made lifestyle choices to leave big city law (while still getting paid).

Portland has the best food, best herb and the best outdoor scene. Believe me, LA snob, everyone knows that LA is not important for anything except entertainment . . . (which everyone knows means zero) Get over yourself. There is a reason we say "Don't Californicate Oregon"

I've lived back and fourth between NY and Los Angeles my entire life and career. LA food is just as good, if not better, than NY. To the person who said something about Father's Office... don't forger to check out La Dijoinaisse in the Helms Bakery as well. It's solid.

And if you think that LA is overrun with Hipsters and NY isn't you must be smoking fucking crack. Get the FUCK out of here.

To the Portland, we like the sun.. if I wanted to live in shitty weather 9 months a year and eat mediocre food I would live in Chicago.

7:30 - Compared to LA, NY is not overrun with hipsters. In NYC they are confined to a small space - Soho, Tribeca, the Village. In LA they make up half of the entire population, including the homeless. Also, I'm willing to bet your "entire life and career" consists of 23 and 0 years, respectively. Go back to studying for the bar exam.

Guiliani was no one's favorite, but downtown LA is like NYC circa 1985.

As a resident of Los Angeles, I can honestly say that there are a lot of things to hate about it. But good food is definitely not one, especially ethnic food. Aside from the places already mentioned, try:

1. Langer's (best hot pastrami sandwich)
2. Daikokuya in Little Tokyo (awesome ramen)
3. Empress Pavilion (fun for big groups for dim sum)
4. Pete's Cafe (fantastic burgers and fries)
5. The Colori Kitchen (amazing homemade pastas)
6. R-23 or Sushi Gen or Hama Sushi (for sushi)
7. Shabu Shabu House (for shabu shabu)
8. Curry House (for, you guessed it, curry)
9. Seoul Jung (for Korean food if you can't make it to K-town)
10. Grill Lyon (for French-Japanese fusion)
11. Grand Central Market (for tacos/burritos)
12. Aloha Cafe or Roy's (for Hawaiian)
13. Pho 79 (the best pho in town)

And be sure to stop by Yogurtland for the best frozen yogurt (much better than Pinkberry) and Mikawaya for their fresh mochi ice-cream.

Memo to ugly east coasters not enjoying LA,

If you don't like it here then leave. There is a reason we treat you like shit. You're fat and ugly. We don't like that look here. This isn't New York or D.C..

Take the hint and leave.

LA dood

7:42

4. You can not say Pete's is worth mentioning in a list of bestplaces to eat. Also, it's misleading to say they have fantastic burgers. They have ONE burger, the Hellman burger, which is OK, but nothing to write home about.

Overall the place is barely decent and if you find yourself in that part of town, hope there is a purple shirted bicyclist nearby.

Yeah try again sport, I'm 32 and I was born in NY, and went to LA for high school and UG, then back to NY for LS. I like how you conveniently left out the entire Borough's of Queens and Brooklyn in your "Hipster" assessment. Like I said, you don't know jack shit about either city, and probably live in Dallas or some other 4th rate city.

Take a seat and STFU please.

Adults are talking.

You people are unsurprisingly pointing out the most disgusting, corporate restaurants the city has. L.A. is not a city of decent upscale, shi-shi food. For that, go to New York or San Francisco. If you do it in L.A., you're pretty much doing it for the sake of feeling important. Cafe Pinot, Nil and Stef's Pacific Dining Car, Fire Station Number whatever -- these places are jokes compared to SF and NY business-area restaurants. And the Ivy--no locals--save for Tom Cruise and other idiot celebrities eat there.

L.A.'s bread and butter are whole-in-the wall--or even at times well-known--ethnic restaurants. Restaurants in and around Downtown that fit this description that come to mind are Senor Fish, as people above have stated; Curry House; Shabu Shabu; and the ramen place above Curry House in Little Tokyo; Langer's Deli; Phillippe's Roast Beef; Papa-Christo's Greek Restaurant; Chichen Itza (Yucatan Mexican food); El Cochinito (Cuban); Hop Li in Chinatown (I know that Chinatown has been passed over by the S.G. Valley, but Chinatown is doable for lunch, while SG Valley is too far from downtown); and Homegirl Cafe (really good restaurant run by former gang members).

If you're looking for some fancy place to be with an associate or partner and feel like "I'm an important person making $3K a week, and I need to be eating at a fancy steakhouse," there's something wrong with you and you're in the wrong city.

7:46 - Hipsters live in Queens??? really???

Did you summer in NY? Because if you did, I doubt that you would say the food in LA is the same as the food in NY. Also, if you summered in NY, I have a feeling you went to Pace or Hofstra, which means you summered at a four person firm, and went to the Olive Garden in Times Square for your one and only lunch.

please ny'ers, continue to complain about l.a.'s traffic, hipsters, food, ocean, basketball (are you sure you want to bring that up?), etc. one day you will realize that we get to experience all that because we leave the office before midnight everyday.

but don't let those of us in l.a. ruin it for you -- we still want you to enjoy being a "real lawyer" who eats and sleeps at his desk.

final crucial difference between la/ny -- la's hipsters are attractive.

YES Hipsters LIVE IN QUEENS.. Jackson Heights more specifically.

And I went to Columbia, and I summered at a V20 and a V10. I've eaten at my share of great restaurants.. up and down the Zagat guide in both NY and Los Angeles.

Its equal, with LA having a slight edge.

Any other LA people hate it when ugly fat east coasters move out here, predictably don't fit in, and then start bitching about the city?

I'm sorry, we're superficial here. I know you thought you would move out here and hang out with the cool people but that was a pipe dream. There is a reason why everyone in our cliques are hot. We discriminate.

Now take your fat derriere back to NY, bitch about how horrible it was here and pig out some comfort food.

LA is not the home of attractive people. That belongs SEC universities.

LA is full of fat people claiming to do yoga, those who eat Mexican food regularly, and those who undergo plastic surgery. As to the last group of people, pornstars do not count as beautiful people.

This is what NYers fantasize about when they move to LA

http://www.dannyschneider.com/images/coolnerdvaleriebird.jpg

This is the reality

http://blogs.targetx.com/slu/MadisonStarinieri/lonely.jpg

6:29 I nominate you for pretentious douchebag comment of the day. Congrats.

7:46 (the first one): Pete's Cafe has two burgers -- the Hellman and the Bacon Cheddar Mushroom Burger. The Hellman is the only one available at dinner (perhaps that is when you went). But if you go at lunch, you must try the BCM Burger which is heavenly. The Hellman pales in comparison to the BCM Burger, but is still a decent burger (especially if you get blue cheese on top). I've taken several burger-snobs there and they have all loved the Bacon Cheddar Mushroom Burger.

Some of us are into ethnic women, SEC schools look like Klan meetings. I'll take the Ladies in LA over those vapid and bland dyed blond sorority women any damn day of the week. And if thats what you're into.. there's always SC and UCLA.

People in LA are too busy trying to convince people from where they grew up that LA is perfect. As a whole, LA is an insecure pathetic place.

If they were successful elsewhere, they never would have transplanted to this godforsaken place.

If 7:58 is means the Southeastern Conference, is he/she kidding? The South is like a third world country, America's joke, the part of America that's so stupid they voted for Bush, they sound like they're speaking a foreign language.

Actually, never mind, you're right, California is full of fat pornstars. You would never want to move here. You should stay in beautiful Alabama.

SEC women? Listen trailer trash, you have no idea what the LA scene is like. it's hidden to you. The parties, the secret establishments, they're all of limits to you.

I'm going to say this one last time before I leave. YOU ARE NOTHING IN LA UNLESS YOU ARE IN SHAPE AND HAVE A LOOK. DON'T MOVE OUT HERE IF YOU DON'T HAVE THESE QUALITIES.

all new yorkers have tiny dicks. its been proven through countless studies. even the chicks. which is probably for the best - you don't want a chick to have a bigger dick than you. not something we have to worry about in la

7:24 Oregon can be summed up by one thing, the white guys pumping gas as mandated by law. The state is a joke...get over yourself. I don't live in LA but I would in a heartbeat over Portlandia...

Question, I'm a 3L with an offer at a firm in downtown LA. Where should I live - Hollywood Hills, Downtown, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Westwood, or the Valley.

Not downtown or the valley. HTH.

Not downtown or the valley. HTH.

8:05 -

Live in Eagle Rock. Great restaurants, completely affordable. Short trip into downtown. I used to live there when I went to school and then worked downtown. Great spot... and if you're looking to buy its very very affordable. Lots of young professionals.

8:05 - depends on what you value (commute time vs neighborhood) and what you want in a neighborhood. I live in Venice and love it, but some of my friends insist the sun rises and sets in Hollywood. Personally, I'm willing to spend a little extra time in the car to live by the beach. Others aren't.

For me, the key is finding a walkable community. There is a lot to be said for being able to park your car at the end of the week and not need it again until Monday. Santa Monica is good for that. Pasadena near old town. Culver City near the downtown area (probably cheapest of those three).

thanks 8:06, 8:08 and 8:12.

I think I'll just save my life and move to NYC

Sushi? 60 some odd comments and nobody has mentioned Westside Sushi? Granted, omokase at some of the nicer restaurants will probably destroy most budgets, but some planning and restraint, a very nice lunch can be had at any of these restaurants:

Sasabune
Echigo
Hide (cheapest of the bunch, tiny place with long waits at times)
Sushi Zo

The key in LA is to get out of downtown and find some associates willing to make the drive to West LA or Beverly Hills or Venice. That said, Crustacean and Craft are overrated and not worth the hassle.

If you want to feel glamorous and sit outside in Beverly Hills and watch the expensive cars drive by, Il Pastaio is a great lunch spot. If you have enough pull to swing a reservation at The Grill On the Alley, that restaurant has replaced the Ivy as the spot to see celebrities.

As stated earlier, try to get a partner to take you to The California Club or The Jonathan Club. If you can't find anyone at your firm that is a member, you are officially at a TTT.

How 'bout Val's Tavern in Rumson, New Jersey? Great pizza and icy cold miller lite on tap - can't be beat! Try the garlic knots!

Someone was speaking about sushi and said that "the key is to get out of downtown LA"

Perhaps there are some great restuarants on the West Side, but this is NOT true for sushi. The BEST sushi restaurants in LA are Izayoi and Sushi Gen...BOTH right downtown in Little Tokyo and probably both doable on SA budget....not fancy or sceney but the sushi is out of this world....

If you're footing the bill yourself:
Saffron Indian Restaurant
www.saffronindia.com

R12 is better sushi than Japan has. I should know.

R23 is better sushi than Japan has.

3L coming to downtown LA:

Living downtown was looking good for a while but the real estate crash has put the brakes on some of the nicer developments (e.g. the big development that was supposed to happen by the Disney hall). You still get way more space for your dollar than anywhere else.

Pasadena is an easy commute and you get more space for your dollar than on the west side, but it has a very suburban feel

Valley is the commute from hell

It's actually easier to commute from Santa Monica to downtown than from anywhere else on the west side because you can just jump on the 10 - this works especially well if you are willing to get to work before 8 am or around 10 am.

9:06, you obviously haven't been to Sushi Zo.

And anyone who raves about Sasabune doesn't know from sushi; they pre-cut their fish!

9:06:

Seriously? Did you just list an izakaya place as being one of the best Sushi restaurants in LA? Sushi Gen is close to the westside restaurants, R23 is a notch below.

Izayoi is a great place to get some grilled stuff and have a beer, but sushi? please.

As for the where to live question, I second any location west of the 405. I would also consider Silver Lake and Beverly Hills/Mid-Wilshire area if you are single and without kids. Stay away from downtown unless you want to walk to work.

Hama Sushi is really good.

whatever - nyc sucks. not because of the city itself - there are many worse cities in absolute terms - but because it is populated with the most insufferable assholes in the entire world

3L coming to downtown LA:

If you don't live on the Westside (west of the 405) you're missing the point of living in California.

The first comment should have ended the thread. In-N-Out burgers is where it is at. They say it right in Lebowski, and everything you need to ever know about life if right there in that movie.

Jar. Although that's probably better for dinner, but definitely some of the best food I had in LA.

Japantown: Sushi Gen, Sushi Go 55, Shabu Shabu, Daikokuya Ramen
Downtown proper ($$+): Ciudad, Water Grill, Roy's
Downtown proper ($): Farid's (persian spot in St. Vincent's), Wolfgang Pucks, Mendocino Farms,
Downtown misc: Blossom, Warung Cafe, Pitfire Pizza

Japantown: Sushi Gen, Sushi Go 55, Shabu Shabu, Daikokuya Ramen
Downtown proper ($$+): Ciudad, Water Grill, Roy's
Downtown proper ($): Farid's (persian spot in St. Vincent's), Wolfgang Pucks, Mendocino Farms,
Downtown misc: Blossom, Warung Cafe, Pitfire Pizza
Chinatown: Yangchow

Wow, toxic toxic toxic.

I've lived here for 9 years now. I've lived many other places before. LA's comparative advantage in food lies in Korean BBQ and other asian specialties. If you don't mind smelling like meat for the rest of the day, I suggest Soot Bull Jeep on 8th. If you can't handle that, there's tons of other places in K-town. Chosun Galbee is a little prettier than most.

For Chinese, ask someone who knows to take you to their favorite place in the SGV. Very much worth the drive, and will fit any budget.

For burgers and sandwiches, I love Oinkster in Eagle Rock. Cassell's on 6th is also kinda fun and has great fries, and the best toppings bar around. But again YMMV with that one.

In N Out is In N Overrated. As three wise men once said, "We fly fatburger when we're way out west." Better across the board, especially the shakes.

Another tip -- if you play at the $25 or $50 Pai Gow tables at the Commerce, your food is comped, and they have pretty good kalbi.

I love Corner Bakery!

stunned no one has mentioned Patina at Disney Hall--clearly your firms aren't taking you to the right places.

Hinano's on Washington by the Venice Pier.

10:11 AM, Scroll up- Patina was mentioned, albiet briefly.

1. Jeff's Gourmet Sausage Factory (on Pico near Century City; I took a group of summers there last year and they loved it)
2. Carney's (Studio City location is better than Hollywood, but less convenient for many firms)

Valentino
Harper's
The Ivy
The Palm
Engine Co. 28
Tesoro
The Grill (might only do dinner)
Mastro's
Napa Valley Grill
Phillipe's (if you are in downtown - best beef dip sandwich)
Dan Tana's
Matsuhisha
If you've got the appetite - Fogo de Chao
Also, The Blvd @ Bev. Reg. Wilshire

Pink's - best hot dogs in town, not for formal lunches but great food

and Oregon? are you kidding? There's a reason LA is LA, NY is NY, and Oregon is....well, Oregon

Doesn't anyone else find the LA stereotypes just a tad hackneyed and boring? They're about as original and witty as humor on a TBS sitcom.

Having lived in LA, NY (and even Oregon for that matter, for the equally unoriginal Oregon poster), I'd have to say that, on a whole, LA has the best restaurants. It's the ethnic variety, willingess to utilize flavor, and quality of produce. I love NY, and it's similar variety, but if you take a peak at the NY thread you see such options are depressingly ill-reflected in the average firm lunch choices. I think the average New York summer gets hung up on how much money they can spend, rather if the foods any good. I wont get started on New Yorks spice and flavor phobia, but I'm sure many Mexican men make guilt-ridden long distance calls to their mothers the minute their shift ends in a NY "mexican" kitchen.

Anyway, as for LA, I think Cafe Pinot is a lovely place for lunch on a nice day, better than most of the other usual suspects downtown. Ramen in Little Tokyo is a definite highlight (there's a place in a shopping center, starts with an "o" that is really good and spicy). A dim sum lunch in Chinatown is fun, though not LA's best by a long shot. Somebody mentioned a Yucateno place, I went to one and it was awesome. Cicada is beautiful inside, and the food is fine. Take the red line out to MacArthur park, it's easier than driving and do Langers, perhaps LA's best Deli. Bull Soot Jeep in Ktown is fun, but maybe better for dinner since you smell like smoke (for lunch, maybe Chosun). If you have a slow day (and planned slow afternoon) do Roscoe's Chicken and Waffle.

One thing LA has which, to my understanding, NY does not is a place where you can eat sushi off of naked ladies, like in the Snipes/Connery movie "Rising Sun." If you have the balls to make this happen, as I've heard people have, I respect you.

nyc has better Japanese food than LA. hands down.

Try hanging with the hoi-polloi:

LA Smokehouse on Spring - bbq joint in Chinatown.
Eastside market on Alpine - an Italian deli favored by civil service types. It has a sandwich named the D.A. with three types of meat because the former LA D.A. liked it, that fat bastard.
Pollo Campero off Olympic and Union in the La Curacao center - completely inauthentic Central American chain restaurant that's a take-off of El Pollo Loco and KFC, but it's good!
Clifton's Cafeteria off 7th and Broadway - hokey cafeteria in a even-more hokey woodland setting in a crappy part of the Jewelry District.
Angelique in the Garment District at Spring and Main south of 8th - decent french food.

Oh and finally, if you work downtown, you can walk or DASH to all of these places. Do not get in your car to go, you lazy bastard!

Ciudad is delicious - given the option, I'd go there for a partner lunch. Cafe Pinot is nice, but the service is slow. Pho 87 in Chinatown is okay. Empress Pavilion for dim sum until 3pm is fantastic, but make sure to go with at least 4 people, preferably more - otherwise you won't get to sample enough good stuff. Also, it's not exactly super expensive - it's usually not much more than $10 a person in the end, so don't waste partner lunches on EP.

The "bit of a rising star" guy can shove it. So what if our meals don't come with six kinds of flower petals or make use of African berries.. the food, especially Asian food, is good. And for a lot less than in NY.

I find that when there's violent disagreement on how cool something is - like LA, or abstract art - the haters are generally just showcasing their ignorance. Like any city, it has its drawbacks. But if you hate it, you're missing a lot of what it does have to offer.. which makes me think you must not be very good at making friends. Not surprising, given how negative you are.

Wednesday 12:24AM ---
While Santa Monica and Venice are awesome, they're about all that's west of the 405! The "Westside" is anything west of La Brea(arguably La Cienega) - that way you get Beverly Hills, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, and even Culver City (if you want it).

I miss LA, though I couldn't imagine working in biglaw there.

"whatever - nyc sucks. not because of the city itself - there are many worse cities in absolute terms - but because it is populated with the most insufferable assholes in the entire world"

You have to learn how not to be such a pussy. The single most important skill in NY is learning how to just ignore everyone, and developing your own attitude. The second is keeping your head above the water and protecting yourself, your family and your neighborhood. Once you figure these two things out NY is a fucking great city to live in. There are plenty of hot lonely chicks, no need for a car, good cheap food, and plenty of excitement to keep you busy.

As someone who's in law school I may be more idealistic than I should be, but I'm still disappointed at the number of pretentious assholes populating the field which I am about to join.

There is now a johnny rocket's. 5th and Fig.

Pitfire pizza on 2nd across from St Vibiana's.

Next door is a nice Chinese place, Lilya.

NYC is great if you are an asshole.