- Smorgasburg, the best open air
food market in Los Angeles, I'm Chris.
This is Yellow Productions.
I do travel guides that are fun in form of entertaining.
This is part of my series on Los Angeles,
and in this video, we're gonna be exploring
this amazing food market.
The Smorgasburg is part of a larger development
called the ROW DTLA, right here.
This former produce market, former warehouses,
former American Apparel factories,
Good news, just beyond that tree
they built this huge parking structure.
From the parking structure it's a short walk,
you come out the parking structure, and you walk this way.
How do you find where it is?
Well if you're here on a Sunday, you just follow the crowd.
Let's follow the crowd and head on in.
So as soon as you walk through those gates,
here on every day that it's not the Smorgasburg,
this is actually the Alameda produce market,
and here, they'll be selling produce
during the rest of the week.
But today is Sunday.
It's 10:00 a.m to 4:00 p.m.
There's 70+ food vendors that come out here,
70+ food and vendors together.
It's amazing.
It's kind of like, a Smorgasborg, except it's got a 'u'.
Why does it have a 'u'?
Well it started in New York City.
It started in Brooklyn,
actually in a place called Williamsburg,
and so they took Smorgasborg and burg, but a few years ago,
they opened it up here in LA
Food's pretty amazing, let's check it out.
First thing you notice as you walk in,
this place smells amazing.
All these places cooking up the food.
I'm sorry there's no smellevision,
but it smells pretty good.
One place I think is really neat, Yellow Business,
Sorry there's no affiliation.
I just love it, it's called Yellow Business,
and you should know that these food vendors come and go,
they're not here all the time.
So if you find one you really like, take a look at
their Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
Most of them have it, they're independent.
There's no McDonald's or Cheesecake Factory here.
They're all selling interesting things.
If you look up here,
this one sells these Hong Kong egg waffles.
And the food here is either gonna be delicious,
good for people who are foodies,
instagram-able, good if you're a photographer
or hip, so if you're a hipster, you'll love this place too.
It is Los Angeles after all
so you'll find some of the classics like tamales and tacos.
Over here they've got tacos, they've got horchata,
so if you're craving some classic L.A street food,
you'll find them here.
I will point out though, nothing here is cheap.
The one good thing, Parking is free for two hours,
and Admission is free, but because that's all free,
the prices on these things probably gonna be
a little bit more than you'll find at
that neighborhood taco shop.
But you should really check out some of the unique things
while you're here.
In particular, look at this.
It's vegan cuban food,
vegan mac and cheese,
I don't really even know how that works.
I always get questions from people
about "Chris, what's vegan and this food court
or hawker center that you ate at.
There's two, there's also vegan ice cream sandwiches.
But speaking of unique food, come follow me.
There's this place down here,
it's called Wanderlust Creamery.
This place is really cool, especially related to travel
because it is artisanal ice cream inspired by travel.
Come here take a look at some of these different flavors.
This is sweet ice cream hokey pokey, violet marshmallow,
japanese neapolitan, ube malted crunch.
I think we'll have to check that out in a little bit.
By the way, are you hungry?
I'm hungry, and I'm sorry,
I'm probably gonna get full making this video,
you'll probably get hungrier, cause this food is delicious.
Two Taiwanese delicacies right here,
Sanchos from the European desserts in the middle,
this one right here, the Hot Star large fried chicken,
this is a delicacy of Taiwan.
It's these big, fried chicken chops.
They're from Taiwan, they're delicious.
If you wanna see where they come from,
you can check out my video on Taiwan
of Night Markets in Taiwan.
What's in the middle?
This place, they sell, it says chimney cakes.
They're cakes from Europe,
really popular in the Czech Republic.
You can watch my video on Czech food in Prague,
but they're called turtle-nix or tradel-nix,
I totally pronounce it wrong, I should do that better.
And there's one over here.
Here, come this way, follow me.
This place is called the Baohaus,
kinda famous from the "Fresh off the boat" tv show book,
but they sell buns, like steamed buns
that have some pork in it.
They're really good braised pork belly.
They do have a restaurant in LA
And a lot of these places might have like one restaurant,
but if you're trying to go all over LA
to eat all these things, it'd be really impossible.
Unless you come here, and it's all in one place.
So this chicken chop is $10, and when I said
it's a big chicken chop, it's a big chicken chop.
Fresh out of the fire, takes about ten minutes to make.
Ooh, it's hot, it's hot in two ways.
It's hot in temperature and it's hot because it's spicy.
You can have spicy or original.
Hmm, there's a bunch of
fried chicken goodness you can see it.
It's a really thin piece of chicken in there
and it's got the spices on it, if you like fried chicken.
I won't eat fried chicken.
If you wanna be fresh and spicy, then get one of these.
Well to wash down that big fried chicken, what do we need?
Some shrimp from Shrimp Daddy,
I think this is one of the most instagram-able
things around here.
When I talk about unique foods, when you see people
carrying this around, you're like, "I have to go get that."
It is Hawaiian garlic shrimp, Hawaiian rice,
Hawaiian macaroni salad, some pineapple right there,
looks really good.
This place always has some of the longest lines.
This is my 3rd time here at Smorgasburg,
and, I've yet to get this
because I've never wanted to stand in the line.
I would do anything for you guys on video
so let's take a look at this.
And this is definitely one of those messy things.
You're gonna have to wash your hands afterwards.
Just like Hawaiian shrimp, the peel is on,
so it's like peel and eat,
and if you've seen my videos on Hawaii,
I've got a video of Giovanni Shrimp Truck that's there,
which does this shrimp that's cooked in garlic, fresh-fried.
They do something pretty similar here,
and I'm really excited to try this,
cause I really like garlic shrimp.
Once I take all that peel off.
that's a big plump shrimp.
Take a look at that right there, all that garlic on it.
Hmmm.
It's plump, it's so flavorful,
it's like cooked to perfection.
It's not overdone.
Let's check out the rice here.
It's a little dry.
The rice is a little dry, but it's still good.
Not as flavorful as Hawaiian sticky rice is,
and the macaroni salad,
one of the quintessential food items of Hawaii.
Hmmm.
It's a good flavorful macaroni salad,
not too over-mayonaisse-y, and, here we go,
with a little bit of pineapple.
The pineapple, with the Li Hing Mui powder on top,
gives it a little bit of extra kick.
If you'd like a crustacean slightly bigger than a shrimp,
check out Lobsterdamus.
This stall has one of the longest lines around here.
They specialize in the lobster nest.
It's grilled lobster on a bed of garlic noodles
for the bargain price of $32.
But make sure to bring cash.
This stall is cash only, actually many stalls here
are cash only or charge you a little more
if you use credit cards, bring cash.
If you want something even more luxurious,
check out Broad Street.
They have a $50 lobster roll
which has uni, caviar and truffles.
Last time we were here, we dined at The Jolly Oyster.
They've got oysters and sometimes when they're fresh,
they've got sea urchins.
If you're craving some LA style Mexican street tacos,
you'll find those here cooking up fresh,
but they've also got this place called "Goa taco",
which sells paratha tacos.
They are essentially Indian-inspired tacos with pork belly.
And they're roasting up the pork belly,
hmmm, smells and looks delicious.
(woman laughing)
So those tacos from Tacos 1986,
I think they're some of the best bargains
at the Smorgasburg, cause they're only $3,
really cheap for here, I mean, not cheap for outside in L.A,
you might get tacos like this for $1.50,
but, let's give em a try.
This is Adobada, which is roasted pork
that they roast on this rotating thing.
This is carne asada, so it's a marinated steak.
It's got some guacamole, onions, cilantro on top.
They'll ask you if you want everything when you order it,
that's everything, guacamole, onions, cilantro.
They make the corn tortillas right there in the stall.
Are they delicious?
It's a good taco, it's a smooth flavor.
I was gonna say it's not that spicy, but it's a spice
that kinda builds on you a little bit.
They do have some salsas that you can add for more spice.
Let's check out the carne asada.
That's good.
It's really good.
So the question is, how does this compare to King Taco?
King Taco is one of my favorite
taco places in the LA area.
It's moist, it's flavorful.
I think I like this carne asada better than King Taco,
which has been one of my favorites of all time.
This is more expensive though,
but I feel like the meat's tastier.
And this taco 1986 is a Tijuana-style taco,
so you don't have to cross the border
to get Tijuana-style tacos anymore.
Okay so I did come back for this ice cream after all.
Double scoop, $8 plus the cone, $9, what's the purple?
Hmmm, it's ube flavor,
so it's
essentially purple yam
or purple sweet potato.
What's this one?
This is mango sticky rice flavor
that's made with coconut milk.
Hmmm, the mango, inspired by Thailand.
It's pretty good ice cream.
I like the mango sticky rice better than the purple yam.
They're both good though.
In addition to food, there's also lots of interesting
drinks around here.
This one it's from a stall called Sip.
What's in here?
Beetroot juice, turmeric, matcha, in coconut milk,
Wow!
and there's also a flower on top.
And look at this straw.
It's a paper straw because we all know
plastic ruins the environment.
So, it's made like this to look pretty.
They tell you to shake it up and stir it before you drink it
so I'm gonna do just that,
and then it won't be pretty anymore
but I kinda had to start it like that.
I probably don't want to get like a big thing of beet.
Alright, the greens going all through out there,
and we'll drink this.
Ha, it's hard to describe.
I've never had anything that quite tastes like this.
There's a little bit of the matcha in there.
I mean the beet, this is,
I just think it's an interesting beverage to describe,
really hard to describe, maybe like a,
almost like a little bit of horchata but not really.
I don't know.
I'm really stumped at this one.
There's a yellow turtle back here though
that says, "Take life one sip at a time"
There's something else that's cool about being here.
I got spotted by a few people
and usually it works like this, a few fans, they come up
and they say like, "Oh, excuse me,
Are you the guy from Youtube?
Are you the guy from Yellow Productions?"
But another scene I was shooting, someone came up,
they go, "Excuse me, are you in the Bolo line?"
Yeah, they wanted to know if I was in line.
So, I was like, oh, no, I'm not in the Bolo line.
If you prefer to wash that down
with a beverage of the alcoholic variety, in the back,
they've got a beer garden serving ice-cold local beer.
- So another really cool thing about Smorgasburg
is all the cool people that work here.
This is Tyrone right here - Hey, what's up?
- Tyrone's been working here since the beginning,
and so, Tyrone, what's your favorite thing to eat here?
- Well, it kind of also depends on the day
so I guess the hotter it is, I try to go for more of like,
the cooler, more refreshing type thing.
There's a great acai bowl place right over here
called AmazeBowls, which are really awesome
and you get a lot of fresh fruit and stuff like that.
But then when I'm feeling something more hearty,
I go to Macheen, which is this awesome
burrito place we have here.
And you can get eggs, you can get sausage. You can do like
the breakfast route, - Yeah
or the dinner route, it's really cool.
- Yeah, that sounds good.
All right, well hey, if you come here,
check out those acai bowls and the burritos.
And lots of other things, cause frankly,
I don't have enough stomach space in this video
to eat everything here, but it's all pretty amazing.
- Awesome
- Alright, cool.
Tyrone, thank you very much.
- Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [Chris] Alright, and if you need time to settle your tummy
between rounds so you can make more room for more food,
well the center of Smorgasburg is all shops,
from jewelry to shoes.
Once your belly is completely full inside Smorgasburg,
make sure to check out the rest of the ROW DTLA complex.
They are these old warehousish-looking buildings
that they've completely remodeled but kept them looking old.
There's coffee shops, there's more restaurants,
there's art galleries, lot of interesting things,
and more and more opening every day.
If you like chocolate,
make sure to stop by Dandelion Chocolate.
They make small batch of chocolate, they've got all these
different chocolates you can taste from around the world.
It's some pretty good chocolate.
If you wanna take that quintessential LA Instagram photo,
well it's right here.
Made in Downtown LA, in front of the former
American Apparel factory, that they used to make
things in downtown LA,
but I guess they went out of business.
Anyway, other things to do around here,
this is right near the LA arts district,
which is kind of a neat, funky area.
It's not really in that direction, it's in that direction.
But it's right around here.
It's the closest thing you could go to from here.
Also, Little Tokyo is right nearby.
You might not wanna walk there from here.
The neighborhood around is a little sketchy,
but Uber is plentiful here.
They've got designated Uber pickup spots,
buses do stop in front
and this parking structure that I mentioned,
there's a gazillion parking spaces in here.
So you won't be struggling to find a place to park
if you're coming to Smorgasburg.
I think that's actually one of the nice parts about it.
Where LA, you often have to worry about,
whether your car is gonna get broken into,
or whether it's gonna be there when you come back,
it will be there when you come back
in this parking structure.
On your way back to your car, if you wanna get
a really neat picture of the Los Angeles skyline,
head up to the 10th floor of the parking structure,
and this is where you'll get that
classic downtown LA skyline shot.
And by the way, this video is part of
our series on Los Angeles, so if you find yourself
exploring Los Angeles, well you should definitely
check out the Smorgasburg for some delicious
and tasty foods, and by the way, if you follow
Yellow Productions regularly, you'll know I often travel
with Topher the panda.
I'm Chris, he's Topher,
but we've been joined by a new panda.
This one is Columbus, the three of us.
I'm Chris, this is Topher, this is Columbus,
make Christopher Columbus the intrepid, exploring trio.
And Topher will tell you, you should go watch this video
on the best cheap eats in Los Angeles.
And Columbus tells you, you should watch this video
about travel tips coming to Los Angeles,
things you need to know.
Well we won't say goodbye
because we'll see you in one of those videos.