The Best Things About LA: WestSubs

Thus begins the long anticipated "Best Things About LA" series, in which we review our favorite restaurants, bars, video stores, boba shops, yoga studios and coffee shops in this town called Los Angeles. Hopefully by the seventy-fourth part of the series those readers from New York and especially San Francisco will thinks, "I guess LA isn't so bad." -KV

The Best Things About LA: WestSubs

WestSubs
3863 Overland Ave
Culver City, CA 90232
310.837.6000
10am - Midnight

(Even though WestSubs is technically in Culver City, it counts, because Culver City is technically in Los Angeles. Or at least it seems like it is.)

In that enormous outdoor strip-mall south of Venice Blvd. and north of Washington, nestled between a Radio Shack and Bally Total Fitness, WestSubs in one of those places you'd probably never find unless someone told you about it.

But that's why we're here.

Park in the big-ass parking lot that serves said retail establishiments - along with Starbucks, Togos, and GameSpot - and head in to WestSubs. Sit at one of the tables or chairs, or even outside. Unlike the trendy, industry-laden Starbucks on the other side of the parking lot, WestSubs usually isn't packed.

The staff is mostly Filipino.* They wear Hawaiian shirts and fedoras** and are nice as hell.

Not "nice" in that overly servicey kinda way, but nice in the sense that they leave you alone when you're eating one of their awesome sandwiches or sipping one of their seventy bobas with your laptop out, surfing on their free WiFi. They somehow know the exact moment to come by, not to bother you, but just when you realize, "I need a napkin/water/milk tea boba." They're so good, it's eerie.

Beyond the eerily spectacular service, WestSubs stands out for its sandwiches. My favs are the meatball (spicy!) and the BLT. The BLT comes with fresh wasabi - a feature your server will warn you of every time you order it, unless you beat him to the punch by saying, "I'll have the BLT; you guys put wasabi on that, right?"

WestSubs is also open till midnight most nights, which makes it a great place to grab a coffee or boba. plop down with the laptop, and pound out that screenplay.

Perfect place? No, I said "great place." No place is perfect. There are two downsides to WestSubs: 1. If you come too early, you get a wiff of some sort of cleaning chemical or sterilization mix, which, while ensuring you of their high sanitation standards, has the duel effect of lessening your appetitte. 2. No WiiFii between 1 and 3 PM.

Of course, you can always sit outside if you come early, and you don't always need to surf the web. But how else are you going to read about the Best Things in LA on The Literary Brothel?

-KV

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*I know some say "Pilipino," as there is no "F" in Tagalog, but I'm of the camp that the word without the "F" sound in the beginning just confuses people. For more on this debate, ask Allen Benitez, Tiffany Reyes, or your own Filipino friends.

** The fedoras - I'm just guessing now - are to distinguish themselves from all the other Hawaiian-shirt wearing Filipino guys in LA, which at last count, was numbered at six, five of which work at WestSubs. The other one is Allen Benitez.

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