Late Night Eats: It's 2 a.m.--Do You Know Where Your Next Meal Is?

For me, it started in high school; not because my friends and I were into partying, but because we were the dorks who put on the school plays, or who went religiously to showings of Rocky Horror. We'd be set loose into the night with our babysitting money in our pockets, hungry for some grub at places that didn't mind booths full of boisterous people with cravings for foodstuffs comprised mostly of batter and frying oil. We were, of course, the a-hole teenagers who sank a nickel tip into the plastic cup of ranch dressing and ran out the door of whatever diner we'd wandered into after midnight. I can't--or would rather not--count the number of soupy ice cream sundaes I ate in the once smoke-filled dining room of Conrad's in Glendale, a sort of all night old-folks home for indiscriminate midnight snacking. Shudder.

Of course, I grew up, and so did my night time, er, um, activities. By this I mean bar nights, bad dates, great dates (wink), parties, and concerts, followed by that same semi-irrational need to stuff your face when, by rights, you should be under the covers dreaming of kittens and chaste kisses. When the lights go down in our city, we've got to be armed with more than just the idea that in just about every zip code our late night eating options move beyond a plate of Moons Over My Hammy. So I give you LAist's Late Night Eats, a month-long look at some of the many local eateries that keep their burners on into the wee hours--or never turn them off. Every weekday we'll introduce you to a different spot--some may be off your beaten path, and some may be where we might find you in the witching hour. (But none of them are called Denny's or Carrows or IHOP, mind you.)

We can't possibly do them all, though, Los Angeles, but we know you're going to love us anyway. What we seem to be missing, I trust you'll take a moment to send me an email tip about, and we'll see where the month takes us. But first, before we tuck in heartily to what lies ahead of us in the days to come, let's take a quick look back at the Late Night Eats LAist has munched on before. Take my hand, and let's take a quick stroll through some selected archives...