Nevermind liquid courage, it's all about liquid comfort. The lentil soup at Carousel--L.A.'s most incredible Armenian dive--is like a step back in time to the days when grandma would make a pot of soup from scratch. (Only now she's Armenian and cooking in a kitchen hidden inside Hollywood's Hye Plaza.) With a texture that lies somewhere between a puree and a porridge, the turmeric-colored soup is a burst of cumin-tinged creaminess with just a hint of lemony tang. It takes everything I've got to resist gulping it all down at once, but there's something to be said about drawing out the experience one spoonful at a time. No wonder it's been a specialty since 1983.