The Best Places to Get Eggs for Lunch in L.A.

When you're in the mood for eggs, tempura probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind. That is, unless you've been to Hannosuke, the tempura specialist located in West L.A.'s Mitsuwa Marketplace. Order one of the donburi bowls and your deep-fried veggies and seafood will come topped with a tempura-fried poached egg. Break it open and let that bad boy ooze over the top of everything. And they now have a second location in Torrance.

Egg worshippers have a new mecca, and it's in the form of a stand at the newly refurbished Grand Central Market in Downtown L.A. Formerly a food truck with limited hours, Eggslut's breakfast sandwiches were for a long time the stuff of legend. Now that they have a brick and mortar, you can get a breakfast sandwich seven days a week featuring fried, coddled or soft scrambled eggs. But if you have the patience to wait until after 11:30 a.m., you can't do better than the Eggslut cheeseburger, featuring ground American wagyu, cheddar, caramelized onions, pickles, and naturally, an over-medium egg just waiting to burst.

Is it a coincidence that the ramen that’s generally accepted as the best in Los Angeles also has the best ajitsuke eggs? Probably not. Marinated in soy until the outside turns a light brown, and then boiled until the inside becomes a bright orange goo, the egg at either of Tsujita's Sawtelle locations is a study in perfection, whether you go for the tsukemen or the ramen.

It's no surprise the simply titled "Breakfast" sandwich at Playa Provisions is listed under "Sandwiches," alongside a patty melt and their house-made corned beef, instead of the actual "Breakfast" section with cream of wheat and granola. Their oblong, house-made bacon and turkey sausage patty spans the entire length of the ciabatta, and is made even heftier with the addition of gruyere, avocado, vinegar-cooked collards, and a pickled habanero hot sauce. It's no wonder the over easy egg spills out the side.

Eggs are practically everywhere you look in Koreatown. Most bbq joints give you free steamed egg custard, the soondubu places will give you a raw egg to crack into your bubbling tofu stew, and there's the egg-topped kimchi fried rice at POT and the scrambled egg moat at Kang Hodong Baekjong. But none are as beautifully awe-inspiring as the bowl of rainbow colored eggs at A-Won known as al-bap. Sure it's mostly fish eggs rather than those of the gooey-runny variety, but there's also uni and cubes of omelette for good measure.

Egg-soaked tortilla chips count as eggs right? Because even though chilaquiles are traditionally a breakfast or brunch dish, Torta Company, the new food court sandwich spot from the Lotería Grill group, has figured out a way to make it unquestionably lunch. Case in point: the milanesa de pollo con chilaquiles verdes, a thinly pounded fried chicken cutlet sandwich with black beans and queso, topped with egg-soaked tortilla chips sautéed in a green chile sauce.  And, yes, it's as good as it sounds.

This new coffee shop from the folks behind Golden State doesn't really have a breakfast or lunch "menu." But from the time the tiny shop opens until 3:00 p.m. they serve up what might be L.A.'s best new breakfast burrito. There's egg, cheese, pico de gallo and tortilla chips, and you can get it with or without chorizo. But the not-so-secret ingredient is the hash, made from potatoes that get smoked down the street at Bludso's Bar & Cue. Eventually the breakfast burrito will be served all day.

Since practically launching the $7 toast movement, this tiny cafe has expanded their menu to include savory salads and entrees that wouldn't be out of place on some of the fanciest chef-driven restaurants in the city. And eggs of all shapes and sizes are worked into practically half the menu, whether they're hard boiled and mixed with greens, soft boiled and served atop chicken salad, or fried and placed atop ravioli or a squash blossom quesadilla. And you can't help but wonder whether their famous Kokuho Rose Brown Rice Bowl would be half as famous without that luscious poached egg on top.