LAReview
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Doubting Thomas
Included In
Until pretty recently, a coffee shop that had anything more than a few sad-looking pastries and maybe a plastic-wrapped sandwich was a rare species. Now, these kinds of spots seem to open every week. Doubting Thomas in Historic Filipinotown is one of them - and while it isn’t the kind of thing you need to cross town for anymore, if you happen to live nearby, you’ll be pretty happy it exists.
At the bottom of a new apartment building on Temple, Doubting Thomas looks just like what you’ve come to expect from these sorts of more-than-a-regular-coffee-shop spots. It’s a long white space, with mismatched furniture, people in corners looking like they’re doing important things on their computer, and people in other corners eating a breakfast sandwich at 2pm because they live very different lives than you. The coffee is good, and the staff is friendly, but it’s really the food that everyone is here for.
photo credit: Jakob Layman
There’s enough on the menu that, if you rented one of the apartments upstairs, you could easily come every day and not get bored. While you can get bacon and eggs or a bowl of granola here, you can also have a pork shoulder burrito, a big slab of toast with burrata and tomatoes, or an egg-topped beef rice bowl. The food is hearty and filling, and some things - like the burrito - are truly fantastic. Others, like the rice bowl, end up being a little boring - but not so much that one of their housemade pastries (made with whatever fruit they got at the farmers market) can’t make up for it.
One of those is enough to make you never want to step back in a regular coffee shop again.
Food Rundown
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Thomas Breakfast Burrito
Pastries
Sage Sausage Breakfast Sandy
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Tomato Toast
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Shakshuka
photo credit: Jakob Layman