Jonathan Gold brings ‘Udon’ to the Los Angeles Film Festival

Even though El Parian is only a few blocks from L.A. Live, the Mexican restaurant might as well be in another country for many of the patrons of downtown’s sports and entertainment hub.

Perhaps best known for its birria, a roasted goat in broth, El Parian also serves a celebrated carne asada, both dishes accompanied by hot, homemade tortillas. But if you’re catching a Lakers game at Staples Center or a Los Angeles Film Festival movie at the new Regal Cinemas Stadium 14, the preferred south-of-the-border stop is typically Rosa Mexicano, the Los Angeles outpost of a New York-based group of nine restaurants serving (in all seriousness) “Hamburguesa con Queso.”

Jonathan Gold wishes it weren’t so.

Gold, the Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic for the L.A. Weekly and an artist in residence at the L.A. Film Festival (LAFF), which kicks off Thursday, has long championed eating establishments not likely to feature valet parking, celebrity chefs and Château Pétrus-heavy wine lists. Although Gold will praise some prominent, high-end restaurants — his current downtown favorites include Drago Centro, Chaya Downtown, Ciudad and Rivera — he’s more at home in authentic, paper-napkin places like El Parian, where he recently was washing down his birria with a cold Bohemia. “I’ve been coming here since 1981,” Gold says of the restaurant on Pico just west of the 110 Freeway.

In his role at the LAFF, which is centered at L.A. Live, Gold will try to do for a little-known movie what he has been doing for obscure restaurants.

Asked by LAFF artistic director David Ansen to present a particularly meaningful movie about food, Gold avoided the obvious candidates: “Babette’s Feast,” “Like Water for Chocolate,” “Big Night,” “Eat Drink Man Woman,” “Mostly Martha” or some titles Ansen and Gold considered together, including “Tom Jones,” “The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie” or “The Grand Bouffe.” “But he didn’t want to do the obvious,” Ansen says.

“Los Angeles film culture, is about so much, and so much more,” Gold says, nearly choking on a jalapeno in his goat broth as tears form in his eyes.

So Gold instead selected “Udon,” an obscure 2006 Japanese film about a failed comedian (Yusuke Santamaria) turned food journalist. The plot hinges on how the writer’s magazine story about noodle stalls in Kagawa sparks a national udon craze. Gold will present “Udon” on Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Downtown Independent theater.

“It was unknown, and people hadn’t seen it,” Gold says of the movie, almost sounding as if he were singling out some new place for Punjabi chutney. “Udon” was never released in the United States; Gold stumbled across it on a flight to the Philippines and was smitten.

“Everyone’s problem with this movie is that there is too much food in it,” Gold says. “Which I don’t think is a problem for this audience.”

He says “Udon” was a big release in Japan but somehow “not worth distributing” in the United States. The film’s udon tourism plot, he says, “really isn’t that far-fetched. In Italy, you have 200,000 people showing up for truffle festivals.”

“It fits Jonathan’s personality,” Ansen says of “Udon.” “He’s always been a populist.”

That populist streak informs Gold’s picks for some of the restaurants he recommends for LAFF guests, particularly for good Japanese noodles.

If you want the best local udon, he says, you’ll need to travel to the South Bay and visit Kotohira (“an amazing specialist, whose noodles are exactly the kind shown in the film”); Sanuki No Sato (“an udon-intensive izakaya”); and Ichimiann. Downtown, he suggests Suehiro (“a beloved, ancient dive — I’ve been going there since I was a teenager”), the shabu-shabu restaurant Kagaya (udon “is not really a course; they just give you some noodles toward the end to cook in the simmering broth”) and Honda-ya.

His other downtown picks include Nickel Diner, Bottega Louie, Daikokuya, Cole’s, Philippe the Original and Tiara Café. “And if people end up going to Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill,” Gold says of the L.A. Live restaurant, “they’ll be happy. The food’s really good.”

As for L.A. Live’s Rosa Mexicano, Gold says, “I’m almost mortally offended that they got a Mexican restaurant from New York to come here.” He understands why the fancy people who come to the sports and entertainment center might not want to walk over to Pico Boulevard to visit El Parian.

“You’re probably not going to die,” he says, “but those four blocks are not that much fun.” The roasted goat, on the other hand, sure is.

john.horn@latimes.com