Real in L.A.

Eat. Meet. Shop. Do Good.

It’s the motto of  Mercado La Paloma, where you can, well, do all those things.

Eat food from the Yucatan, Oaxaca, Michoacan, Thailand or have a  good ol’ American burger.

Meet friends, pull a few tables together, and have a leisurely meal or rent the mercado’s community room.

Shop for gifts from Oaxaca or the Yucatan, get a garment altered, buy insurance or groceries.

Do good because the mercado is a project of the Esperanza Community Housing Corporation and serves an incubator for new businesses and a bit of economic development for the Figueroa Corridor south of downtown.

The second floor of the building is home to half-a-dozen nonprofits, including the Program for Torture Victims, which produced We Are Here.

Esperanza was founded by one of those remarkable women drawn to Roman Catholic religious orders who do so much good work: Diane Donoghue, MSW, a Sister of Social Services.

But you don’t need to know all this to enjoy the wonderful food at Chichen Itza, the mercado’s Yucatan restaurant where we ate recently. My mouth waters as I remember the pollo pibil, chicken marinated in achiote, sour orange juice and spices, then cooked in banana leaves.

“Honey, let’s eat at Mercado La Paloma tonight. I’m hungry.”