Cheap Eats 2011: Lucky Strike

Lucky Strike moved last year from a ghetto strip mall and payday lender east of 123rd Avenue to Hawthorne, but the food remains phenomenal. Jiaozi dumplings, plump with savory pork and cabbage, nestle in a pool of ruddy chile sauce. A mound of verdant Chinese chives hides chunks of pork belly studded with ginger and mouth-tingling Szechuan peppercorns. And Lucky Strike’s signature “hot pepper chicken bath” lives up to its intimidating hype, with angry-looking red chiles spilling from the plate with each stab of the chopsticks. Nothing has changed about the crusty-edged Guinness pork ribs ($10), caramelized to a rich brown in soy and Irish stout. And the “spicy noodle with pork ribs” ($8)—a knot of noodles twisting through tender pork and aromatic broth laden with star anise and the ubiquitous Szechuan peppercorns—is still among the best things I’ve ever eaten. Newbie tip: The entrance is through the doors marked “Arista.”