Men Who Like to Travel - David Latt

Tucked away in a mini-mall on the corner of busy Venice Boulevard and Motor Avenue not far from Sony Studios,  Mayura Indian Restaurant  (10406 Venice Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90232, 310/559-9644) is a treasure. The restaurant is the love child of  Padmini Aniyan  and  Aniyan Puthampurayil.  They moved from Kerala, a state on the Malabar Coast on the southern tip of India to Culver City and created Mayura to share their culinary heritage. A friend had returned from working in Atlanta for half a year. His text said, "I'm back. Let's eat. Someplace new. And good." Most of the places that fit that description were in DTLA or farther east. I live in the Palisades. Dean lives in Larchmont. So we wanted someplace in between. I skimmed through my restaurant lists. Nothing new and interesting. I looked online. Nothing looked good. I turned to Jonathan Gold's  101 Best Restaurants  (2017). I scrolled and read and scrolled and read through a list of great resta