Recommendation: Bodega Park
Home of LA's BEC.
Recommendations are like reviews, but not. I am not a critic; I’m a guy who likes to tell people where he likes to eat, and why he likes to eat there. That’s all. I recommend you eat at Bodega Park.
Bodega Park reads at first as a curated gallery of the Silver Lake breakfast scene. The house playlist is impeccable. Fashionable, eclectic, “effortless”-giving people in wide-brimmed and bucket hats and paparazzi-deflecting sunglasses pull up in red, white, and blacked out Teslas, accessorized with dogs and strollers, meeting with identically dressed friends. Severe, minimal, hard-edged decor accented in Soho black is warmed by light wood and surprisingly welcoming seat cushions. Lattes (vanilla, chocolate, Mal-cha, and black sesame) are richly, deeply flavored; the food is excellent, and to be discussed.
But on subsequent glances, Bodega Park is more than Silver Lake breakfast quintessence. It’s family-run, and the hospitality is genuine — both decidedly atypical Silver Lake qualities. While it is a hive on the weekends, on weekdays it’s practically your friendly, semi-sleepy neighborhood coffee stop. Above all it is the embodiment of the New York nostalgia felt by so many transplants and desired by so many Angelenos. And nowhere is that nostalgia more embodied than in the BEC.
Bodega Park’s Bacon Egg Cheese is the best in LA. I admit I lack the expertise to say that conclusively — but I say it confidently, because LA is not a BEC town. There are bacon and egg sandwiches of course, most of them unfortunately on brioche, and those on the Westside stupefyingly often garnished with mixed greens in a vain effort to appease the vocal segment of Angelenos who absolutely cannot go a meal without some sort of salad. You’ll also find bacon, eggs, and cheese in many a breakfast burrito. I’m not saying LA doesn’t do bacon, eggs, and cheese; I’m saying LA doesn’t do BECs. So I don’t think, in this case, “the best” is all that great a leap.
Yet like the pizza, the bagel, and that enigmatically wealthy, irritatingly hot couple you see at your friend’s New Year’s party every year, the BEC has finally become bicoastal. Unlike those others, however, there is still only one LA BEC. And that’s at Bodega Park.
But it’s bacon, egg, and cheese, right? How good could it be? Open the hot, foil-wrapped roll and behold, bisected and steaming: crispy, drippy, fatty bacon; oozy, griddle-fried egg; gooey-melted American cheese; all kitchen-common, unctuous, savory ingredients rendered more than their typical sum, enriched with generous spreads of mayo and butter. The roll — the envy of all breakfast buns described as “airy,” “pillowy,” with a “crunchy exterior” — is the MVP. It absorbs but does not sog. It collapses on the bite yet maintains its structural integrity. It crunches pleasantly without scarring the mouth. It’s a little sour. It is the perfect vehicle for the luxurious passengers within. How good can a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich be? That good.
Of course, Bodega Park’s BEC is not really a bodega BEC; it’s a BEC ode to the BEC, the romantic ideal of that irreplicable corner store breakfast of the masses, imbued with a thought, a care, and a longing that only a New York expat could summon, and a crafty expat at that. It’s unmistakably LA and New York, in a way representative of the fact that Bodega Park as a whole is unmistakably the Park family’s history and heritage. It’s West and East and Korean and American, chopped cheese and Italian sub and Korean hot wings and bulgogi sandwich and Mal-cha and black sesame latte. As always in the best food, regardless of its apparent complexity or simplicity, it is the result of enormous effort and craft and love.
But when it comes down to it, when that unassuming squat orb of foil is sitting in front of you, all that context is background noise. This is the breakfast sandwich you want when you crave a breakfast sandwich. It is great every time. So is the coffee. The music is — I don’t know how it always seems to precisely complement the morning mood. There are interesting people to look at; or god-forbid, meet. There are dogs. You cannot ask anything more of an LA morning than what you’ll find at Bodega Park.
I would love to hear some more Bodega Park love in the comments. This place rules, no bones about it (that probably should have been the entire recommendation). I didn’t talk about the Mantua or chopped cheese enough relative to how many times I’ve ordered them — both are fantastic hangover cures, btw. What’s your Bodega order?
Thanks gang. Hope you enjoy Bodega Park sooner than later.