Azra

Before

Long walk · 0.5 mi · 9 min walk; 2 min ride - Little Tokyo

Suye and Tokio Ueyama opened this shop on First Street in 1946, straight out of the incarceration camps, at the address where the first Japanese business in Los Angeles had stood. Irene Tsukada Simonian is the third generation to run it. The stock runs from ceramics and incense to calligraphy brushes.

After

0.3 mi · 7 min walk - Arts District

Opened on Third Street in 2008, in the years when the Arts District had almost nothing else. You order sausages at a counter at the front and carry the number to a long communal table in the back under exposed brick. The beer list runs to Belgian and German taps.