A vibrant foodie hub in downtown LA

Australia's favourite food blogger Not Quite Nigella, aka Lorraine Elliott, samples Salavdoran food and gets a  caffeine hit at LA's Grand Central Market. 

Sometimes, when you land in a new country, the best thing is to adjust to the time as quickly as possible. To do this, you set your watch and phone to the new time and take your cues from the surroundings once you land.

And never, ever look at the time zone from which you came. That's about as dangerous as feeding Gremlins after midnight.

I arrive in Los Angeles from Sydney at 9:25am. By the time I check into my hotel, the JW Marriott Downtown, it's almost midday.

The ride from the airport is pure LA, in the back of a limo reading a copy of Variety magazine. The sun is streaming through the blinds and it's a scorching hot day. Even though it's about 2am in the morning Sydney time, I'm not in the slightest bit tired because I've found something fascinating to do: explore downtown LA.

I'm at G&B coffee in Grand Central Market in Los Angeles finding myself exclaiming "That's so LA!" over and over, as if I were an LA local. The Grand Central Market, open since 1917, occupies the ground floor space of the Homer Laughlin Building, at 317 South Broadway in Downtown.

"This is hipster coffee," LA local Andrea whispers to me. "Pardon?" I inquire, not sure if I've heard the right thing. But then I look around and realise that she does mean hipster as in the trendy beard or tattoo-bearing Gen Y person. Downtown LA is the city's newest hub, attracting hipsters and foodies and part of the vibrant scene's attractiveness is the fact that it can easily be covered by foot.

Andrea warns me that the coffee here is strooong (emphasis her's). She's a regular and recommends a few things, including the G&B shake. This is a thick, creamy shake made with good quality ice cream and coffee. It is indeed strong; a nice change from drip filter coffee.

The golden needle tea is a white tea that is served unsweetened in capped beer bottles. It comes out in a light golden shade and there's also a version made with hops, although this isn't available at this time.

The coffee made with almond milk is also rich and strong. Apparently it's very LA to make your own almond milk, which they do here.

"Do you want to try Salvadoran food?" Andrea asks. Only having heard of pupusas by name but not by tastebuds, I eagerly nod yes. Pupusas are corn-based flat breads stuffed with filling.

Actually, bread is a misnomer. They're more like a pancake which is lightly crispy on the outside with a melting core of filling. We wait in line at "Sarita's Pupuseria" where Sarita herself has been serving customers since 1990. She has appeared on the Food Network several times.

We eye a place on the side counter which is full of people eating plates of steak, pupusas and stews. There are a range of drinks from lemonade, horchata and Jamaican Chia and we try a couple of pupusas and a watermelon drink.

I watch as our pupusas are made to order. From a large stainless steel bowl, they pinch off a small handful of dough and flatten it, fill it with the ingredients and fry it on the griddle.

The pupusas arrive still very hot and I take a fork and knife and cut into one. The cheesy filling oozes out and it's comfortingly delicious. But out of the two, the pork, cheese and bean pupusa is the pick with a flavoursome, soft mix of filling. The outside is just thin enough to contain the filling but not thick enough to be stodgy.

The little side salad is cabbage in chicken broth which is a crunchy answer to the soft pupusa. The plantanos solos are grilled plantains and they take on a slightly sweet, custardy texture once cooked with an ever so slightly caramelised crust. The watermelon sangria at $2 comes in a tall cup and tastes of fresh watermelon but it is on the sweet side, with syrup added.

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