Cheap Fast Eats Artesia: 5 places to get spicy for $15

As you make your way down Pioneer Boulevard, the first thing you notice is the signage.

On a single strip mall sign, Bollywood Dance is stacked above a European Tailor, above Tacos Birria, above Nilly’s Burgers, above a Nepali and Indian Grocery. Five businesses, five communities, one address.

These shopping plazas are a microcosm of a corridor that has been quietly reshaped by successive waves of immigration over the past 40 years — Filipino, Korean, Gujarati, Mumbaikar, all putting down roots in the same strip malls, the same blocks just off Pioneer Boulevard.

Long known as Southern California's Little India and quietly becoming something more, for $15, you can eat very well here.

This is Cheap Fast Eats: Artesia.

Jay Bharat

Jay Bharat at 18701 Pioneer Blvd. — one of the oldest South Asian restaurants in Southern California.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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One of the oldest businesses along the Artesia corridor, Jay Bharat was founded in a garage in 1985 before opening its brick-and-mortar location on Pioneer Boulevard in 1988. It was founded by Usha Master, driven by her passion for Gujarati home cooking reminiscent of her childhood in Kothamdi, Gujarat.

Just three years later, Jonathan Gold paid them a visit for the L.A. Times, putting both the restaurant and the corridor on the map. When he reviewed Jay Bharat in 1991, dinner for two ran between $5 and $10. More than three decades later, the prices have barely moved.

For this particular visit, I was there to try the Undhiyu Puri ($9.49), a Gujarati winter vegetable medley. Despite it being the middle of summer, I was craving its comforting flavors — raw banana, unripe plantain, purple yam, baby eggplant, pigeon peas, green mung beans, and flat green beans, seasoned with fenugreek leaves, coconut, green chilies, cumin and a touch of sugar. The name itself tells the story: "undhu" means "upside down" in Gujarati, a reference to the traditional method of slow-cooking the dish in an earthen pot buried underground. Even in July, it tastes like winter in the best possible way.

The Undhiyu Puri at Jay Bharat — a Gujarati winter vegetable medley served with five golden puffed puris.

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The beauty of the dish is its nuance — so many different flavors and textures hitting different parts of the palate with each bite: the sweetness of banana and yam, a hint of heat from the green chiles, the satisfying resistance of pigeon peas and mung beans keeping things interesting. The restaurant encourages you to eat with your hands, so grab a puri, tear it open, and drag it through the dark spiced base. Wash it down with a bottle of Parliament Jaljeera— a carbonated cumin-and-tamarind drink that cuts right through the richness of the curry.

Honest Resturant

The Honest Special Bhaji Pav at Honest Restaurant — a Mumbai street food institution with roots in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and the only SoCal location of an 18-state chain.

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Gab Chabrán

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Honest has the footprint of Denny's and the street-food soul of King Taco. What started as a family cart in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in 1975, now spans 18 U.S. states and four countries — and Artesia is currently the only SoCal location.

Step inside and the history is right there on the walls — black-and-white photos of men in plain '70s attire, a message from the founder, flat screens cycling through the day's specials.

Try the bhaji pav ($14.99) — specifically the Honest Special, which arrives loaded with cashews and raisins folded into a rich, spiced vegetable curry, served alongside two rounds of pav. Resembling a dinner roll, the soft, pillowy bread is as much a part of the dish as the bhaji itself — lightly toasted in Amul butter, the iconic Indian dairy brand, with a slight crisp on the outside that gives way immediately. Tear it, dip it, repeat.

The exterior of Honest Restaurant on Pioneer Boulevard.

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Gab Chabrán

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The savory depth of the curry builds with each bite, the raisins and cashews adding a sweetness and body that keep pulling you back in. What might read on a menu as simply "curry and bread" is anything but — a full meal and a journey through Mumbai street food culture, by way of Gujarat, all for under $15.

Nilly’s Burger 

The single burger and chili cheese fries at Nilly's Neighborhood Burger Shop — a Filipino-owned spot on Pioneer Boulevard doing classic L.A. diner food near the heart of Little India.

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Gab Chabrán

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Nilly's Neighborhood Burger Shop opened in 2020 as a Filipino-owned burger pop-up doing classic American diner burgers — and it delivers. It’s located in a strip mall on Pioneer Boulevard that also houses a pho restaurant, a coffee shop and an Indian restaurant.

Ranil Zalameda lost his job during the pandemic and started doing what he called "backyard burger runs" in Norwalk, selling them through Instagram through the close friends feature, a couple dozen at a time. With the help of his parents, he opened a brick-and-mortar location in January 2022 and expanded in October 2025.

Growing up in Cerritos/Artesia, Zalameda attended Gahr High School and would travel with his mom to Culver City, where she worked as a bookkeeper. On the way home, they would stop at classic L.A. restaurants like Johnny's Pastrami and Dinah's Chicken. When he opened Nilly's, he wanted to bring that same spirit back to his hometown.

Nilly's Neighborhood Burger Shop on Pioneer Boulevard in Artesia.

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Start with the single burger ($9) — a four-ounce patty ground in-house by his wife's uncle, not a smash burger but a thicker-style, onions pressed in on the plancha, house-made bread-and-butter pickles, yellow mustard, American cheese, Martin's potato roll. No spread, no ketchup — a quiet act of conviction in In-N-Out country.

Then come the chili cheese fries ($9 small, $15 large). Order the small — it's easily enough for two — and it arrives topped with freshly shredded cheddar, sour cream, raw onion, and pickles. The secret is in the chili itself: pickle juice cooked in, a technique that quietly traces back to Filipino and Mexican cooking traditions.

"I think it's OK to be Filipino, but own an American burger shop. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, " Zalameda said.

A new version of the American dream, in the town he grew up in, supported by his family, one burger at a time.

Gangnam Kimbob

The House Special at Gangnam Kimbob — marinated bulgogi beef, fried shrimp tempura, egg, and pickled vegetables, rolled tight and sliced into ten pieces.

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Just off Pioneer on South St. sits Gangnam Kimbob — a Korean kimbob counter that has quietly built one of the strongest reputations on the corridor. The name is a nod to the affluent Seoul district made globally famous by PSY's 2012 megahit — a wink of second-gen Korean American cultural confidence tucked into a strip mall in Artesia.

Kimbap, or kimbob as they spell it here, translates literally to "seaweed rice" — seasoned rice and various fillings wrapped in dried nori and sliced into bite-sized rounds. Unlike sushi, the rice is seasoned with sesame oil rather than vinegar, and the fillings are cooked, not raw. In Korean food culture, it’s what Korean moms make for school field trips and travel days, a labor of love that carries real emotional weight. That's exactly what Gangnam is tapping into with their tagline: "Fresh ingredients, homemade with love, just like Mom makes it."

Gangnam Kimbob on South St., just off Pioneer Boulevard, and worth the detour.

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The Korean community has been part of the Artesia/Cerritos corridor since the post-1965 immigration wave — drawn here, like so many others, by affordable housing, good schools and freeway access. They stayed because it became home.

The House Special ($12.99) comes with 10 pieces — marinated bulgogi beef, fried shrimp tempura, egg, and a mix of cooked and pickled vegetables — served at room temperature, the way kimbap is meant to be eaten. Each piece is its own small, complete thing: savory, slightly sweet, texturally satisfying. It's a full meal that tastes like a snack.

Kiko's Rotisserie Chicken 

A half chicken from Kiko's Lechon Manok — dark, lacquered skin from the rotisserie, pulled and ready to eat at the orange patio tables out front.

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Gab Chabrán

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Just over on the western edge of the corridor, on the corner of Norwalk Boulevard and South Street, sits a towering A-frame building known as Kiko's. On Google, they go by Kiko's Rotisserie Chicken, but their Instagram tells a different story: Kiko's Lechon Manok — lechon means "roasted," manok means "chicken" in Filipino. Same bird, two names, one for the search bar and one for the community.

Whatever you call it, at $13.95, it's one of the best deals around.

Parking is tight, and you order through a window — no frills, no fuss. That's exactly the point. Beyond the chicken, the menu runs deep into Filipino home cooking — dinuguan, kalderetang kambing, chicharrón, leche flan, cassava cake.

Kiko's Lechon Manok — order through the window, eat at the patio tables outside.

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Gab Chabrán

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After a quick five minutes, your order arrives — advertised as a half chicken, but by the amount you're presented with, you'd swear it was a whole. Large pieces fill a full-sized Styrofoam container, the skin dark brown and lacquered crispy from the rotisserie. Pick it up piece by piece and dip into their signature lechon manok sauce — a traditional Filipino sauce made from chicken liver, vinegar, brown sugar, and garlic, thinner than gravy but with a deep, savory punch that cuts right through the richness of the skin. A few bites in and you'll be strategizing about how to get the rest home.