PRICE:
Frommer's Highly Recommended

Cha Cha Cha serves the West Coast's best Caribbean food in a fun and funky space on the seedy fringe of Downtown. The restaurant is a festival of flavors and colors both upbeat and offbeat. It's impossible to feel down when you're part of this eclectic hodgepodge of pulsating Caribbean music, wild decor, and kaleidoscopic clutter; still, the intimate dining rooms cater to lively romantics, not the obnoxious types. Claustrophobes should choose seats in the airy covered courtyard. The very spicy black-pepper jumbo shrimp gets top marks, as does the paella, a generous mixture of chicken, sausage, and seafood blended with saffron rice. Other Jamaican-, Haitian-, Cuban-, and Puerto Rican-inspired recommendations include jerk pork and mambo gumbo, a zesty soup of okra, shredded chicken, and spices. Hard-core Caribbeanites might visit for breakfast, when the fare ranges from plantain, yucca, onion, and herb omelets to scrambled eggs with fresh tomatillos served on hot grilled tortillas.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Los Angeles 2008, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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