This Mendocino Farms spinoff in Downtown L.A.’s sunken California Plaza features an indoor-outdoor bar, a funky patio with mismatched tables, open kitchen and huge light-up letters that encourage diners to EAT HAPPY. Their menu draws on global influences and includes a substantial Vietnamese chicken salad. This entrée resembles an unfurled spring roll with juicy slices of free-range Jidori chicken breast, heirloom cherry tomatoes, toasted peanuts, crispy shallots, shaved jalapeños, Scarborough Farms red romaine, frisee and glass noodles tossed in tangy nuoc cham vinaigrette.

Despite its side street location, this Korean restaurant has remained popular for more than three decades. The space features lime green walls, brown booths and tabletop grills framed with marble. To complement all the sizzling meat, almost every table orders Dong Chimi Gook Soo. This cold noodle soup draws on North Korean culinary traditions and features vermicelli-like noodles floating in a chilled broth crafted from fermented white cabbage kimchi and secret ingredients that supposedly include 7 Up, which would account for the effervescence. Toppings involve scallions, julienne cucumber, tomato and jalapeño.

This modern new bowl concept from Andrea Uyeda resides at the base of the massive One Santa Fe mixed-use development in Downtown L.A.’s Arts District. The corner space sports a glass front, reclaimed wood panels painted aqua, a wood bar, high top marble tables and navy blue cushioned banquettes. Miso Peanut Ramen is a salad composed of edamame, red pepper, pickled carrots, shiitake, scallions, roasted peanuts and honey miso dressing served over baby greens. Supplement with proteins like crispy poached egg, garlic herb beef, lemon ginger chicken, seared garlic shrimp or pork belly.

Chef Tin Vuong and his BlackHouse Hospitality Management partner Jed Sanford have carved out an increasingly prominent role in the South Bay culinary landscape. Their Southeast Asian restaurant in Manhattan Beach holds an L-shaped wood bar, distressed walls painted with hand grenades and automatic weapons that shoot butterflies, and design flourishes like desk lamps and geometric chandeliers. Little Sister’s Chili Bean Curd combines glass noodles with firm tofu slabs, cilantro, crushed peanuts, scallions, sprouts, and sesame soy black vin. If you want to boost flavor further, spoon on pickled serrano chiles, sinus clearing spicy mustard or sambal.

This Little Tokyo udon specialist stars springy house-made noodles and many hot and cold variations. Bonus: customers can watch masters make noodles through glass. Cold udon variations include grated daikon, salmon or cod roe, or Japanese mountain vegetables. In summer, the expanded cold menu includes seasoned beef and hot duck soup. Plum Shiso Bukkake Udon is just one great bowl with cold udon noodles, tart plum paste, shiso leaf, scallions, and bonito shavings, served with raw grated ginger and a tiny pitcher of cold fish-based dashi broth, which you can add as you like.

The Yoo family has served "Korean cuisine with a Hawaiian twist" in this Studio City strip mall since 2005. Décor is limited to wood tables, an open kitchen, and signed headshots from mostly unknown actors. Combo plates are a popular play, but don’t sleep on Ohana’s Cold Noodle Salad. Thin Japanese Somen noodles arrive on a bed of greens, tossed with a crave-worthy avocado, olive oil and Japanese mustard dressing. The salad comes topped with crunchy cucumbers and either grilled dark or white meat chicken.

Normandie Avenue marks Koreatown’s central dividing line, and since the neighborhood has caught culinary fire, that means that O Jang Dong is more or less at the center of L.A.’s food universe. Steve and Graci Yi revived their Korean restaurant in 2011. The diner-like space is fairly basic, but O Jang Dong features a large menu of comfort food that’s especially noteworthy for naeng myun (cold buckwheat noodles). Mull other dishes and you won’t be disappointed, but keep in mind that the logo depicts a man vigorously eating noodles. We’re especially enamored with hwe naeng myun - cold noodles tossed with hacks of skate meat that require careful chewing, julienne vegetables, hard-boiled egg, and a house-made gochujang that builds intensity with ensuing bites.

Taste the rainbow at this popular ramen stall inside Mitsuwa Marketplace. Each summer, the noodle soup specialist serves cold ramen with many of the same ingredients you’d find in tonkotsu, minus the broth. Ramen noodles rest in a shallow pool of tangy ponzu, with meaty cha siu, and a smatter of sprouts and sesame seeds. On a side plate, you’ll find wood ear mushrooms, bean sprouts, egg strands, julienne cucumbers, and pickled ginger. Mix as you desire, and if you want to amp up the flavor, add hot mustard.

Terra Cotta warriors in the style of Xi’an greet diners at this regional Chinese restaurant in a San Gabriel strip mall. The space features burnt orange booths, overhead LCD screens touting specials, and a cold deli case near the register. Shaanxi Gourmet has proven so popular that they’ve doubled in size since opening in 2012. The restaurant makes noodles of varying thickness and shapes in-house. Irregular noodles with considerable tensile strength form the backbone of Cold Noodle with Sesame, which delivers a hint of chile heat, nutty flavor and creamy texture.

Chengdu natives Lynn Liu and Kelly Xiao run this stylish Szechuan restaurant in Alhambra. The space includes cushioned banquette seating and art-lined walls. Chef Tony Lai presides an often cryptic, occasionally boastful menu with dishes carrying names like Finger-lickingly Juicy Sauteed Spicy Crab, Fiery Temper Quick-Sautéed Pork Kidney and Impressive Bean Jelly. These springy noodles arrive in a blizzard of hand-cut noodles with tongue-numbing chile oil, pungent fried garlic and crisp scallions.

Ho Bin Choi’s stand-alone restaurant is named for a central Korean district and has minimal décor, with a wall-mounted menu and speckled tables. Young Dong has a very limited menu, primarily specializing in sul lung tang, a clear beef bone soup that's available with a variety of mildly flavored beef parts. However, the owners of this neighborhood institution did find room to include spicy cold noodles with soba, sesame leaves, greens and rectangular tiles of carrot, cucumber and brisket.

This restaurant in a Koreatown strip mall features a glass front, wood tables and white walls lined with photos of popular dishes. Yu Chun is best known for a variety of naeng myun that features dark grey vermicelli-like noodles that contain kudzu, an invasive vine that supposedly helps to combat migraine headaches and menopause. Chic Bibim Naeng Myun features the aforementioned noodles in a spicy chile sauce bath with julienne cucumbers, hard-boiled egg, thin-shaved brisket and some beautifully funky kimchi.