The Brief

Many who visit Inglewood might only get a snapshot of the city. Maybe they caught a show at the Kia Forum (formally the Great Western) such as Prince’s legendary 30-day residence there in 2011 or took in a Rams game at nearby SoFi Stadium. But what if between spectator events and the occasional stop at Randy’s Donuts, you had no other exposure to the Wood?

That’d be a shame because the city has an enviable cultural legacy that spans the Showtime Lakers-era decades ago to its present-day status as a hub for young creatives as captured on the HBO series Insecure (The Dunes apartment, never forget):

This rich and plentiful history in a city where Black and Latino residents combined make up nearly 90% of the population is actualized in a food scene with different culinary flourishes.

This is Cheap Fast Eats Inglewood.

Wings 2 Go

Customers order inside Wings2go in Inglewood.

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We can’t take full credit for this find. That honor goes to former contributor Cesar Hernandez, who’s currently working as the assistant restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. While we miss Cesar's contributions, we thought what better way to honor him than to do a callback on one of our favorite picks of his.

What is it about the concept of a wing shop in L.A. that keeps it from carrying the same culinary importance as it does in other cities like Atlanta?

Wings 2 Go is a small but mighty wing shop that sits in a tiny strip mall along Crenshaw Boulevard, attracting wings fanatics from far and wide looking to get a fiery bite. The menu at Wings isn’t huge by most standards but it still manages to pack a punch when it comes to offering a variety of tastes and flavors. Opt for the six-piece ATL Special (hot with lemon pepper seasoning). We’ve developed a taste for lemon pepper-style wings since we heard about them from Donald Glover’s television series Atlanta. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google it.

Upon the first transformative bite of a wing, suddenly you’re Jordan after clinching his first NBA finals win in 1991, celebrating in ecstasy. The sticky, crunch-fried wing is drenched in the perfect amount of sauce and then sprinkled with galactic bits of salty-citrusy lemon pepper seasoning that will leave your lips tingling. If you’re looking to broaden your flavor horizons, there’s also a jerk BBQ, aji verde, and Cajun rub as sauce selections.

Whichever fiery selections you choose, wash it down with lemonade or sweet tea, or go for a hole-in-one with an Arnold Palmer to quench your thirst, as you’ll no doubt need it.

Wings 2 Go sits in a strip mall in Inglewood.

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Country Style Jamaican Restaurant

The goat curry at Country Style Jamaican Restaurant falls off the bone.

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Our love for Jamaican-style take-out restaurants is well documented, so it’s not surprising we have had a well-established place in our heart for a while now for the casual walk-up counter-establishment.

The welcoming and joyous atmosphere is infectious as you enter the walk-up counter inside. The walls are painted the same dark green of the Jamaican flag. Images of Black luminaries are featured next to maxims extolling a virtue-filled life.

To get the most meal for your buck, we recommend going with any one of the mini plate options. Our personal favorite is the curried goat. Stewed bone-in pieces of goat have been cooked in a dark yellow curry full of aromatic spices. The chunks of meat are spicy, juicy and fatty and fall off the bone onto a bed of rice and beans that’s also saturated in the curry flavoring.

Aromas hit you as soon as you enter Country Style Jamaican Restaurant.

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Carnitas El Artista

Carnitas El Artista uses nearly every part of the pig to make savory carnitas.

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While it might be easy to pledge one’s allegiance to the culinary wonder that is carnitas, how often do you take it upon yourself to dive deep into the different parts of the pig? Each contains its own unique textures that manage to delight with every helping.

Carnitas El Artista is where such dreams can come true as a result of the hard work of owner Gustavo Chavez and his family. The name El Artista came from Chavez’s grandfather who used to take the bus from Wilmington to visit the restaurant. The elder Chavez would be surprised when everyone around town knew his grandson and would joke that the younger Chavez was "El Artista” — or movie star.

Chavez and his family originate from Michoacán, the Mexican state known as the birthplace of carnitas, which are traditionally cooked in large copper pots called cazos.

Carnitas El Artista got its origins as a backyard business.

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Carnitas El Artista sells their offerings by the pound with the choice of different parts that include carnitas (pork shoulder), costillas (ribs), lengua (tongue), buche (stomach), cueritos (skin) or a mix of everything.

Chavez and his wife started their business in 2015 selling by the pound out of their backyard in nearby Hawthorne before moving into street vending and finally opening their restaurant in 2019.

While carnitas by the pound is a very good deal at $15 to $16, if you are looking to feed an army of family members on a Sunday afternoon, it might be a lot for a casual stop.

Tacos de carnitas are the best option in that case. Opt for the mix containing all the different parts of the pork. That manages to pack all the flavor and texture of each aspect of the protein, providing for an extremely nuanced bite containing equal amounts of the sticky, fatty and chewy all combined. Serve the meat on a fresh tortilla with crisp-tasting salsa topped with thin shards of red onion for the proper amount of acidity that cuts the richness of the pork. It’s a showtime taco for the masses if there ever was one.

Carnitas El Artista's owner Gustavo Chavez and his son, Kevin (left).

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Woody’s Bar-B-Que

The "Inflation Fighter" (3x) lunch special at Woody’s Bar-B-Que.

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If you’ve spent any time in Inglewood, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the Woody’s Bar-B-Que location on Market Street. It's not uncommon for lines to wrap around the small business, spilling out into the moderately sized parking lot.

It’s never not a joyous occasion at Woody’s as you wait in line to place your order at the walk-up window where speakers overhead play booming deep cuts from 80’s and 90’s R&B or Madlib’s Shades of Blue, helping set the mood.

Our favorite aspect of Woody’s is their lunch special menu which feels like you are going back in time to when the restaurant opened in 1975. Items such as Inflation Fighter (Pork Rib Tips & 1/2 Chicken Link), Business Man’s Lunch (2 Ribs & 1/2 Chicken Link), and Lady’s Lunch (Chopped Beef & 1 Chicken Link) are a few of the standouts on the menu. All cost $8.95 (tax and tip excluded). With each dish, diners have their choice of signature sauce (mild, hot, or mixed) that resembles a BBQ sauce but somehow manages to feel more special because it’s homemade.

All plates come in a brown paper bag, giving the vibe of the school lunch that your mom used to pack. Along with the small entree, you’ll be served two slices of white bread packaged neatly in a small plastic bag and a small container of a side of your choice. Have your pick of potato salad, mac and cheese, macaroni salad, baked beans or cole slaw.

Patrons wait for their food outside of Woody’s Bar-B-Que.

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El Capitalino

Quesadilla fritas from El Capitalino MX food truck.

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If you ask anyone who grew up in a Latino household or in anyplace where tortillas are readily available, the quesadilla holds a special place in their hearts. An easy after-school snack or — maybe with the addition of meat and/or avocado — a filling lunch. Either properly crisped over a hot comal from the stove or microwaved for a short period of time, you can’t get a more homey feel than melted cheese between a flour tortilla.

An aside: what if the quesadillas from your youth were, in fact, a gateway into a large quesadilla universe that’s actually larger than what you might have originally considered? El Capitalino achieves just that. Owner Ivan Gomez, who also owns Birreira Gomez (a fleet of trucks specializing in birria de res, found throughout South Bay and the Westside), was inspired by how he saw quesadillas prepared during a trip to Mexico City and also by his mother and grandmother who grew up making the meal.

Each of the thick corn tortillas is made by hand, usually by Ivan’s mom, Norma Ramirez. She takes the raw masa and forms it into a flat disk, then stuffs it with cheese. The tortilla is then folded and fried in oil.

After it’s done cooking, the quesadilla is removed, pulled apart and packed with a filling of your choice, which could be chicken tinga, hongos (mushrooms), rajas con queso (roasted roasted poblano peppers with cheese), carne asada or chicharron prensado. Then it’s fried with salsa made from Guajillo chili and stuffed with lettuce and cream. No matter what the filling is, you'll get a unique griddled cheesiness accented by expertly-flavored fillings that make for one of the best-tasting quesadillas that we’ve ever experienced.

Norma Ramirez presses masa into a quesadilla inside of the El Capitalino MX food truck.

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The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration must continue providing gender-affirming care to transgender inmates in federal prisons.

The decision, in an emergency appeal, maintains a lower court's injunction on a federal Bureau of Prisons' policy that would terminate hormone therapy and other treatments for trans inmates.

The order offered no explanation behind the decision. It simply read, "The application for stay presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is denied."

It also said Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would side with the Trump administration and would grant the application for stay.

A federal district judge barred the BOP from implementing its policy this summer.

A second court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, also rejected the administration's request to pause U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth's order.

That's when U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

As the federal judge's injunction remains in place, the legal battle over the policy continues.

Li Nowlin-Sohl, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union and a lawyer involved in this case, said the organization believes there are more than 2,000 people in BOP custody who identify as transgender. (The BOP stopped publishing data reflecting transgender inmates after Trump took office in 2025. It only records male or female individuals incarcerated in the federal system.)

Kingdom v. Trump represents 1,000 inmates who have a gender dysphoria diagnosis, Nowlin-Sohl explained. Of those, the ACLU believes there are about 800 who have been prescribed hormone therapy and many who are also receiving social transition accommodations, Nowlin-Sohl said.

In its request for an emergency stay on the earlier rulings, the Trump administration argued that providing this care poses several risks, including for recipients of this specialized care, who it argued would become "targets for attacks." They also said that it raises "fairness concerns" as it would "breed resentment" with other inmates.

Access to gender-affirming care is considered medically necessary to treat gender dysphoria, a medical term used to describe the deep discomfort caused by a mismatch between a person's assigned sex at birth and their gender identity. Without it, individuals can struggle severely with mental health issues such as heightened anxiety and depression, with some turning to self-harm and suicide.

Gender-affirming care can include "...hormone therapy, and gender-affirming surgeries among others," according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. (In its filings, the Trump administration questioned WPATH's standards of care, which were developed by experts in transgender health and used by organizations across the world.)

Some people who are transgender may require hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgeries; others may not require any of these interventions.

The BOP has treated people diagnosed with gender dysphoria since at least 1992, the ACLU said in response to the government's filings to the Supreme Court.

"Had BOP's doctors found this treatment unhelpful or harmful to patients or had the agency found that the treatment compromised security, surely BOP would have mentioned it in the administrative record," the ACLU wrote.

This is a "glaring omission" and appears to indicate that the government's arguments now are simply "contrived," the ACLU continued.

NPR previously covered the impact of the loss of hormone treatments on people who are incarcerated. One woman said she experienced severe physical and mental anguish when she lost access to hormone treatments.

The Supreme Court's decision is at odds with other rulings that support the Trump administration's anti-trans policy agenda.

Last June, the court ruled that states can ban transgender girls from participating in sports at publicly funded schools. And in 2025, the court upheld state laws that make it illegal for doctors and other health professionals to provide gender-affirming care for minors.

In one of his first executive orders of his second term, President Trump targeted the trans community with a declaration that his administration recognizes just two sexes, male and female. This order has been the basis for a host of anti-trans policies throughout the administration.

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