The Best Dishes Eater LA Editors Ate This Year, Mapped

"Soulmate, a sleek Spanish restaurant with a massive outdoor patio centered around an olive tree, is a lively spot with loud music and a dressed-up crowd. While chef Rudy Lopez’s croquetas and salmon crudo with brown butter and pineapple ponzu were solid starters, the star of the show was his vegetable fideuà. Similar to paella, the fideuà is cooked in a wide and shallow frying pan; but instead of rice, the dish utilizes vermicelli noodles. Lopez’s version is a beauty, as it’s showered with a rainbow of seasonal vegetables; its most recent version has carrots, Brussels sprouts, and mushrooms. The vegetables are charred and the whole dish comes together with a tomato-and-beet sofrito and dollops of garlic aioli. —Jean Trinh" - Eater Staff