South el Monte, CA

South El Monte is a compact working city in the San Gabriel Valley, pressed between El Monte on its north side and the open parkland of the Whittier Narrows to the south. Few places in Los Angeles County mix machine shops, noodle houses and ranch houses on so few square miles, and that mix is the town's personality. Garvey Avenue along the top is where people eat and shop. The middle of town is given over to industry, long blocks of warehouses, fabricators and food suppliers along Rush Street and its side streets. Garvey is the reason many outsiders know the name. Pho Filet is known for its Hanoi-style bowls with rare filet mignon, and Kim Kee Noodle House serves Teochew noodle soups a few blocks away. For coffee, locals name B'Lets Roastery, which pours slow Vietnamese drip and a whipped egg coffee. The outdoors sits right at the city's southern edge. The Whittier Narrows Recreation Area spreads across the river bottom with lakes, trails and ball fields, and it is close enough that a morning walk there doesn't take much planning. Smaller city parks handle youth baseball and weekday play inside town. Daily errands mean driving. Supermarkets and smaller Latino and Asian grocers sit along Durfee, Rosemead and Santa Anita, and two freeways, the Pomona and the San Gabriel River, frame the south and east sides, which puts both downtown Los Angeles and Orange County within reach by freeway. Garvey is a car strip with parking lots out front, and the industrial core splits the neighborhoods from one another, so crossing town often means crossing warehouse streets. Even so, a bowl of soup, a lakeside trail and a neighborhood of modest ranch houses all sit close together in South El Monte.