"The newest place on this list by far, Mama D’s is a recently opened African restaurant in Boyle Heights. The menu is filled with excellent Cameroonian dishes by the eponymous Mama’s daughter, Claudia (the original outpost is located outside Washington D.C.), and after just one look at their menu, I knew that this was going to a place where I’d need multiple trips to try everything. But you have to start somewhere, and my first visit was a chefs kiss home run. I got the Classic African Lunch - a rich, bright-red tomato stew paired with fragrant white rice, a.k.a. the ideal meal for when you’ve been staring at a screen for way too long and need something to nurse your weak, caffeine-addled, Twitter-addicted body back to health." - kat hong