There’s no shortage of restaurants in our fair city offering up great Vietnamese food and frosty pints of beer. Button Mash in Echo Park is upping the ante with an arcade of old school video games. (Sorry dear listeners, no producing “Good Food” this week. We are all tipsy on the east side from tofu balls and beer, mashing buttons and chasing ice cream and cherries with Charley Chuck and Ms. Pac-Man.)
We have the owners of Button Mash — Jordan Weiss and Gabriel Fowlkes — to thank for this little trip down memory lane. Chefs Nguyen and Thi Tran are responsible for the menu. (Maybe you’ve sampled their food at Starry Kitchen in its various iterations around town.) In between games of Galaga, Frogger and Space Invaders at Button Mash, Jonathan Gold recommends the tofu balls — vegan! green! deep fried! — along with the popiah, the bun cha ha noi and the almond tofu. He also digs the tangy tamarind chicken wings; find the recipe on the Good Food blog.
You can read Jonathan’s full Button Mash review on the LA Times website. Text the words “Good Food” to 69866 to get more of his weekly restaurant recommendations.