Pedroca's Burguer
🇧🇷 BRAZIL / FREE FRIDAY FAVORITES: Los Angeles's favorite purveyor of Brazil's famous burguer has found a new and expanded home in Lawndale.
🇧🇷 BRAZIL
📍 14405 Prairie Avenue,
Lawndale, South Bay
🅿️ Small plaza with parking
🥤 No Alcohol
EDITOR'S NOTE: This week's FFF article is a hybrid, the original 2021 article has been re-written after a follow-up visit to Pedro's new brick and mortar location.
📸 All photos by Jared Cohee
for Eat the World Los Angeles
FREE FRIDAY FAVORITES is a series of articles that revisit choice restaurants featured on eattheworldla.com over the years. These will never be behind the paywall, but will update information as necessary and always be about meals that are worth returning for again.
📆 Original Article 25 January 2021
In February of 2020, Pedro Carvalho starting selling Brazilian-style hamburgers from his home in Culver City. What started as a way to supplement his finances with a passion project while simultaneously driving for Uber, the eventually busy operation moved into the nearby Brazilian Mall and turned it into a full-time job.
The native of Belo Horizonte was being visited by Brazilian celebrities, was on Portuguese-language podcasts because demand was high, and orders were taken each night through DMs until he sold out. After meeting him several times at that pizza shop pop-up in early 2021 and then again while he helped host World Cup watch parties in 2022, the news of his new spot in Lawndale was much anticipated.
While the new restaurant is quite a distance from the Brazilian Mall and probably many of his old customers, it lets him spread his wings with a larger kitchen and expanded menu. The fast casual setting and half a dozen tables allow him to finish up orders and talk to all of his guests with that signature smile.
You could spend far too much time looking for just the right selection on the menu, so better just to go right to the bottom and get a single patty X-Cabuloso ($15.99, below) or double patty X-Rapasão which also adds some shredded chicken between two burgers for a couple bucks more. These are sort of his pièces de résistance, and a great entry point into his world.
In Portuguese, the letter X has roughly the same sound as the English word "cheese," and is often used in the names of cheeseburgers. In addition, what makes this unique is the use of an egg, bacon, ham, fried sausage, lettuce, tomato, and spicy green mayonnaise. A waterfall of corn and batata palha, the small fried potato sticks, will be cascading from your burger and eventually down your hands and lap.
For a $5.99 combo upgrade, take home some nice fries and a can of soda. Guaraná Antarctica is available, which has sort of the taste of a dry cherry-spiked ginger ale, if only that cherry-ginger medley actually came from Amazonian guaraná berries.
In those early Culver City days, Wednesdays were set aside for hot dogs instead of hamburgers, but now you can get the Brazilian hot dog ($9.99, above) any day of the week. It is so simple to check off one of those things that has been on your bucket list forever: eating a hot dog with mashed potatoes!
Besides that smooth layer of starch, the hot dog also has ham, cheese, sausage, ground beef, shredded chicken, bacon, and olives. Packets of condiments come on the side, of which you are instructed to add all three. Once again, corn and batata palha cover the top and hide much of what is inside. Bring a fork!
The expanded kitchen has also allowed Chef Carvalho to offer salgados and desserts, so make sure to grab a coxinha frango ($4.99, above). This fried potato ball shaped to look like a “little thigh” is filled with spiced and shredded chicken, and can also come with catupiry cheese for a dollar more.
Even the basic hamburger ($9.99, below) is a thick affair too much for most jaws to wrap around. A stack of batata palha is always there with a nice portion of corn that eventually all falls into the wrapper as you eat it. The special ingredient on every burger is of course the delicious spicy green mayo which will be dripping down your chin and fingers.
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