Newsletter: Counter: Red sauce, Halloween and the 101

If you’re a restaurant junkie, as many of us are, then this is one of the best week’s of the year: when Jonathan Gold comes out with his new 101 Best Restaurants list. How many new restaurants are on this year’s list? And how many of them have you been to? The print booklet comes out Sunday, so we can add it to the things we spill hot sauce on in our car.

In other news, Jonathan reviews an old red sauce favorite, Noelle Carter checks out another old school restaurant that does it up for Halloween, and if Diwali is more your speed than Día de los Muertos, we check out four restaurants that are having special menus for the holiday. And when you’re home baking cookies after all that outside dining — the baking season is almost upon us — and have a great recipe, consider submitting it to our Holiday Cookie Bake-Off. After a year off, we’ve brought it back.

– Amy Scattergood

Red sauce, Lakers garb and chicken Beckerman

This week Jonathan checks in on Dan Tana’s, the West Hollywood Italian restaurant that’s been feeding celebrities, Lakers players and the rest of us for over 50 years. It’s a place where many Angelenos have dined repeatedly over the last half-century, whether for a nightly plate of chicken parmigiana or on a teenage date, as our restaurant critic tells us he once did.

1/5

A lot of the dishes at Dan Tana’s are named after people. The late Hollywood producer Sidney Beckerman’s moniker is attached to this assemblage of freshly made potato chips, tender onions and garlic, as well as to a version in which all of this accompanies baked dark-meat chicken.

  (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

2/5

Red-checked tablecloths and snug booths are integral to the atmosphere at Dan Tana’s in West Hollywood, a Santa Monica Boulevard institution since 1964.

  (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

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The Caesar salad is a staple at Dan Tana’s: cold, juicy and slicked with a powerful emulsion of garlic and cheese. It’s tossed to order across the room.

  (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

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The face of welcome at Dan Tana’s: Christian Kneedler, maitre d’.

  (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

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Dan Tana’s on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. It’s just steps from the Troubadour.

  (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

The 101, 2016 edition

This year’s 101 Best Restaurants list is out. Jonathan’s list of his favorite 100-plus restaurants came out online Tuesday, and is out in print Sunday. Check out who made it this year — there are a large number of new restaurants — and who did not, and plan your dining accordingly.

Providence is again No. 1 on the 101.

(Mariah Tauger / For The Times )

Where to eat brunch

And if you’re wondering which of this year’s 101 restaurants serve weekend brunch, we conveniently broke them down for you. (We did the same for the Japanese restaurants on the list, as well as those specializing in Mexican food. Cheat sheet? Maybe so.)

(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times )

Margaritas for Halloween

At El Coyote Cafe, one of L.A.’s oldest Mexican restaurants, Test Kitchen director Noelle Carter considers the enormous vats of margaritas that the folks there make every year for Halloween. That’s not all the restaurant has going on for the holiday, which includes Día de los Muertos: a costume party, decorations, margarita specials and lots of the food they’re known for.

El Coyote Cafe is known for its margaritas. The house margarita is made in 20-gallon batches each day.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times )

Diwali dinners

This Sunday is Diwali, the festival of lights, and Hindus celebrate the event with culinary festivities as well. Food writer Lara Rabinovitch details four L.A. area restaurants that have special menus for the holiday, including a tasting menu at DTLA’s Badmaash.

“City of Gold,” Laura Gabbert’s documentary of Jonathan Gold’s Los Angeles, is available on Amazon.

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