Food in University Park

An Indian kitchen on 23rd Street that has fed USC for years, with a menu that also carries Mexican and American plates because that is what the block asked for. The chicken tikka masala and the garlic naan are what most tables order. It is fluorescent and unfussy and the food comes out quickly.

Daily, 10am to 9pm

Gilberto Cetina's Yucatecan counter inside Mercado la Paloma, doing cochinita pibil, panuchos and a lime soup that is the reason a lot of people drive here. You order at the register, take a number, and eat at a communal table in the middle of the market. The same family runs the seafood counter across the aisle.

Daily, 9am to 9pm

A seafood counter in the same market, run by Gilberto Cetina Jr., serving kanpachi tostadas, smoked marlin tacos and an octopus taco cooked in its own ink. It has a Michelin star and was the Los Angeles Times restaurant of the year, and it is still eight stools and a counter inside a market. Reservations exist for the tables, but you can put your name down and wait, which at lunch is usually twenty minutes.

Tue to Thu and Sun, 11:30am to 9pm. Fri and Sat, 11:30am to 10pm. Closed Mon

A northern Chinese noodle shop on Figueroa a few doors up from the Nine O, doing hand-pulled noodles, pork and chive dumplings and a beef noodle soup that comes out fast. It runs to eleven at night six days a week, which makes it the latest food anywhere near the Shrine. Plastic trays and paper menus. The line at the register keeps moving.

Mon to Sat, 11am to 11pm. Sun, 11am to 9:30pm