Los Angeles eats with peanut, dairy & egg allergies
We just got back from our trip to Los Angeles, CA! Our kids are currently obsessed with Mario and Yoshi, and the centerpiece of our trip was the new Super Nintendo World inside of Universal Studios, Hollywood.
My husband and I wanted to make the most of our trip for ourselves as well by eating some good food. Considering the incredibly diversity in Los Angeles, we knew we were in for a treat.
A few things to note
First of all, you should know that my daughter appears to be okay with some amount of cross-contact with her allergens. So putting these restaurants on this list is not a statement that these are all 100% safe for all people who share the same allergens 100% of the time.
What I am saying is that —on this particular trip— my daughter ate at these restaurants safely, and that you may want to consider researching these restaurants further (calling to ask about cross-contact, evaluating their allergy awareness, etc.).
Restaurants we enjoyed on our trip
Bacari - Silverlake
We found this restaurant on a “Kid Friendly” restaurant list on Eater. It wasn’t so much kid-friendly to be honest, but it was a beautiful restaurant with amazing food that also happened to have a kids’ menu. It’s mostly outdoor with some loud music, and there were only a few menu items that were safe for our daughter, so I definitely recommend this restaurant with reservations. This also seems like one of those restaurants whose menu changes often.
Safe for my daughter: pork belly, baguette, beef sliders.
Other food we enjoyed: The Oaxacan pasta absolutely blew me away. It was a long fettucine-like pasta soaked in a verdant, creamy sauce that was incredibly herbaceous and bold. The brussels sprouts were great, the octopus was perfectly cooked and paired nicely with the bed of lightly-dressed coleslaw.
Warning: Please contact the restaurant to assess your own safety risk.
Daichan
Japanese restaurant in Studio City, a few minutes from Universal Studios. It’s a small, informal place that does take reservations 6:00 and earlier at the time of this post.
Safe for my daughter: My kids shared the udon (no toppings; just noodles and soup) as well as teriyaki chicken (just the chicken, sauce and rice). A
Other food we enjoyed: My husband and I ordered the black cod with miso sauce, katsu curry. Other diners in our party had the curry udon and seafood hot pot. All were delicious!
Warning: Please contact the restaurant to assess your own safety risk.
Johnny Rockets
Retro diner-style serving burgers, shakes and fries. This particular location is in CityWalk, the retail space just outside the gates of Universal Studios. The manager told us that though the French fries themselves are safe, there may be cross-contact due to her allergens being fried the frying oil next to the French fry frying oil. She said that there is some splattering that can occur. Knowing that this level of cross-contact was okay for my daughter, we decided to eat here. At this restaurant, they let us keep The Binder at our table for the duration of our meal!
Safe for my daughter: French fries (see cross-contact info above), burger patty with hot dog bun (the hamburger bun had egg), strawberry vegan milkshake. This was my daughter’s first-ever milkshake and she loved it!
Other food we enjoyed: I ordered the cheeseburger, my husband had the Impossible Burger, and my son ordered a regular Cookies & Cream milkshake with chicken sliders.
Warning: Please contact the restaurant to assess your own safety risk.
Oomasa
This Japanese restaurant is in the heart of Little Tokyo. I don’t imagine that it’s the best restaurant in the area, but it was our last meal of our trip, and we were all in the mood for some solid noodles and sushi (for the grown-ups) and this restaurant was right in front of us.
Safe for my daughter: our kids both shared the beef udon with no toppings, chicken teriyaki. The beef flavor in this udon was absolutely incredible. For a restaurant we decided on on a whim, this udon dish really knocked my socks off. Very, very good beef udon.
Other food we enjoyed: I ordered the zaru soba which was light and refreshing, my husband the combination bento box with tempura and sushi. Everything was delightful and delicious, just what we were hoping for.
Warning: Please contact the restaurant to assess your own safety risk.
SunCafe Organic
Vegan restaurant with a homey feel. It’s always tough to find a good breakfast spot, but we thoroughly enjoyed SunCafe. Multiple locations. We chose this location because it was on our way to the beach. The server told us that there were also no peanuts on the menu, so my daughter could order anything to her heart’s desire. The menu showed that they do use Just Egg as their egg substitute, so if that’s something you’re avoiding, you can let them know. They also have a pastry case with vegan goodies to go (muffins, scones, cupcakes, etc.)
Safe for my daughter: My daughter ordered crepes with vegan Nutella. I ordered the Sun French toast with cinnamon apples and vegan butter. My husband ordered the Belgian waffle, and my son had plain crepes with powdered sugar.
Warning: Please contact the restaurant to assess your own safety risk.
Three Broomsticks
Rustic counter-serve restaurant inside of Universal Studios’s Harry Potter World. Pretty good for theme park food. When I mentioned my daughter’s allergies, the person behind the counter broke out The Binder. This was good news.
Safe for my daughter: My daughter had the roast chicken, corn (with no butter), roast potatoes. The kids both had sips of the dairy-free Butter Beer.
Other food we enjoyed: My son ordered chicken tenders and French fries. My husband had a salad and I shared food with my daughter.
Warning: Please contact the restaurant to assess your own safety risk.
Veron
VEGAN. MACARONS. My kids have been watching the TV show Miraculous, which takes place in Paris. They show macarons often, and my kids have been dying to try some. I’ve looked up recipes for macarons that would be safe for my daughter, and…no. I’m not going to try to make my own vegan maracons. Macarons are notoriously finnicky. Even people who make macarons with the typical ingredients (egg) often have a hard time getting it right, so when my husband found this bakery, I knew we had to go. The macarons are 100% vegan, and also free of soy, gluten, palm oils and artificial flavors and dyes (so says the box). The day that we visited, it happened that none of the flavors contained any peanut at all, so the entire bakery was 100% safe for my daughter that day. And the most important part: they were delicious. We tried about nine different flavors and they were all just amazing. We also found out that they deliver to 48 states!
Warning: Please contact the bakery to assess your own safety risk.
Yuchun
No-frills Korean restaurant specializing in nengmyun (cold buckwheat noodle soup). This was the best nengmyun I’ve ever had in my life. The house nengmyun comes with a medium-spicy kimchi as a topping which knocked my socks off. But if spice isn’t your thing, ask for the mild nengmyun which is still excellent. The noodles themselves were dark brown and earthy, and the soup was so cold that it was slushy. So refreshing on a hot day. The nengmyun does come covered in sesame seeds, so sesame-free families beware. Their other stews and soups looked excellent as well.
Safe for my daughter: mild nengmyun (with NO egg), galbi (soy-marinated beef ribs)
Warning: Please contact the restaurant to assess your own safety risk.
Zzamong
Despite its very strange name, the noodles here are absolutely amazing. This is what falls under the “Korean-Chinese” cuisine category. I’ll explain what little I can about this: Jjajang-myun (noodles with black bean sauce) is the specialty at this restaurant, and this Korean dish is inspired by a Chinese dish with a similar name and also made with black bean paste. But the two dishes are actually quite different. Still, Koreans in Korea call jjajang-myun and the dishes that are made at a jjajang-myun restaurant “Chinese food.”
Zzamong has all the Korean food you’d expect at a jjajang-myun restaurant as well as some typical Chinese-American fare (chow mein, fried rice, kung pao). So it’s an interesting combination.
Safe for my daughter: udon (with no egg). This udon is different from Japanese udon. The noodles are not the thick, almost-translucent chewy ones you’d find in Japanese udon. Instead, it’s flour noodles with a similar shape to linguine in a chicken or seafood-based broth. Not spicy. It was delicious and highly slurpable.
Other food we enjoyed: I ordered the jjamppong, which is a spicy seafood noodle soup that has a flavor like no other. My husband ordered the gan-jjajang, which is a version of jjajang-myun that is less saucy/soupy. Instead, the sauce is more like sauteed onions that are combined with the black bean paste to make a really potent and more in-your-face flavor that is truly delicious.
Warning: Please contact the restaurant to assess your own safety risk.
