adventures of a tired coder

Well, we had to do stuff in between meals. Neither one of us was really up for a big touristy weekend, so we mainly did a lot of walking in different places. More walking = more space for food, right?

[Santa Monica Pier]

Our first little walk was through downtown Santa Monica down to the Santa Monica Pier. We walked through the shopping area (I made a Sephora stop because my skin needed more lotion than I had anticipated… stupid 3oz liquid/gels rule) and stumbled upon the Farmers’ Market. On the beach next to the pier, it looked like some sort of ultimate frisbee tournament was going on. There were all these straight lines of backpacks forming field boundaries on the sand. Cirque du Soleil was had its tent up, but the show wasn’t opening for another few days. The pier itself was full of tourists, but it’s still fun to see something like that full of life and energy (in contrast to Seattle Center’s now defunct Fun Forest).

 
[Venice Beach]

Okay, maybe it’s just me, but when I used to think of Venice Beach, I imagined a crowded beach full of sophisticated California movie star wannabes. Something like Waikiki in Hawaii. Laugh all you want. Yeah, it’s so not like that. The boardwalk is more like the most touristy street in a Mexican resort town, except with a lot more drugs. You’ve got all the T-shirt shops selling things that I can’t imagine anyone actually wearing in public. Then all the weird (and occasionally good) art. And finally, all the marijuana doctors, offering you a medical marijuana card for something like $40. Excellent. We did see a rather funny incident. Probably peeved by all of the “doctors” making offers to him as he walked with his two young children, a man finally stopped and talked to one of them. He asked if he could get cards for his two kids because “he has back problems and she’s psychotic.” Haha. Well, Venice Beach is a nice place to watch the sunset or do a beach walk, but I’m not sure I’d want to hang out there on a regular basis.

 
[Getty Center]

The last time my family was in Los Angeles, we visited the Getty Villa, but not the Getty Center. So it sounded like a good thing to do on this trip. One nice thing about both of these attractions is that they are free, and you only have to pay for parking (or take public transportation). Perched on a hill, there are great views from the gardens of surrounding areas, and the gardens are well crafted and peaceful to walk through. There were a number of buildings housing galleries of paintings, photographs, decorative arts, etc., organized by time period. There was also an interesting temporary exhibit called Pacific Standard Time, featuring art from Los Angeles in the period following World War II.

[I put together a video of textural pictures I took, mostly in the cactus garden]

Our final attraction was the Huntington Library, which we visited mainly for the purpose of seeing the botanical gardens. It’s a real pity we didn’t know about this place when my family was here because my mom would have loved it. Even though it was wintertime and many things were not blooming, there was still a lot to see. Mike’s favorite (and I can see why) is the Cactus Garden, which is full of succulents from around the world. Maybe that doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a huge space, and there’s such incredible variation in the plant life that it’s difficult not to be amazed. The Japanese Garden was under construction, but we visited the Chinese Garden, the Conservatory, and observed a few blooming roses in the Rose Garden. There are also a few art galleries in the main buildings, but we wanted to spend our limited time in the gardens. In a few hours, we probably still left with more than half of the grounds unseen.

 
[Huntington Library Botanical Gardens]

While I’d still say that I’m not very well suited to living in Los Angeles, I can definitely understand the appeal to those who choose it as their home. Beaches to enjoy all year round, beautiful gardens, and plenty of good food and culture. We didn’t see any movie stars (Mike spotted plenty when he lived there), but they were probably all preparing for the Golden Globes.

Right before Snowcopalypse 2012 hit, Mike and I spent an extended weekend in Los Angeles. He lived there for a few years way back when, so he’d get all nostalgic as we drove and walked around (to the point where we were in a parking lot and he was like, “Oh, I remember these stairs…”). Both of us really like food, so it’s unsurprising that some of the things he’s most eager to revisit are restaurants. There were only so many restaurants we could hit without our stomachs exploding so there was no way to visit all of his favorites. We did a nice mix of both old and new.

[mole tamale from Monte Alban]

Mike pretty much vetoed in In-n-Out suggestion (fine, I will go to the Bay Area soon and get it then), but I did insist that I wanted a tamale. And good mole sauce. So he found a little Oaxacan place called Monte Alban that reputedly had a delicious tamale with mole sauce. It did not disappoint. I don’t necessarily prefer the flatter, banana leaf-wrapped Oaxacan style tamale to the more common corn husk-wrapped one (they’re just different shapes to me), but the tamale itself tasted great, and the mole was rich, sweet, and flavorful. There’s a similar one that I’ve had at La Carta de Oaxaca in Seattle, but it’s twice as expensive (and possibly not as good). I also tried a yellow mole empanada with cactus, but the flavor of the sauce was a little weird for me. I wish we had more places like this in the Pacific Northwest because there was a lot that looked good on that menu that I’d want to try.

Along the same lines, we had a huge lunch at Versailles, Mike’s favorite Cuban restaurant in the area. The name bothered his dad a lot because he couldn’t figure out what connection the name “Versailles” had with Cuba. This small chain of restaurants is known for its delicious garlic mojo sauce, so we split the lechon asado (roasted pork in mojo sauce) and the signature dish, the “Famoso Pollo Versailles” (roasted half chicken in mojo sauce). They came with rice, black beans, and my favorite thing at a Cuban restaurant, fried plantains.

[California roll “sushi” burger from 26 Beach, photo from Yelp]

We ate at 26 Beach twice in one day based on Mike’s friend’s recommendation. It was breakfast and dinner, though, so the food was completely different. He eventually realized that this restaurant was one he remembered from when he lived there, but he had forgotten the name and it had changed locations. The breakfast menu had a long list of delicious looking French toasts, but alas, I’m not one for sweets in the morning, so no Tiramisu or S’mores (?!) French toast for me. They had a lot of other interesting things, like scrambled eggs over pasta and rice. That seemed odd so we instead requested the Chorizo scramble with potatoes instead of rice, and it was tasty.

For dinner, there were a bunch of “normal options,” but what the restaurant is most known for are their burgers, which are gigantic. They’ve been voted the best burger in LA before, so they’re doing something right. You can get things like a PB&J burger, a Bombay burger (with coconut curry and mango chutney), or their famous “sushi” burgers. There was a California roll burger and spicy tuna burger, but the wasabi aioli sounded a little weird to me so I opted instead for the Mori Eel burger, which was challenging to eat gracefully but also quite delicious.

[“The Original” at Killer Shrimp]

I’ve heard Mike rave a lot about a hole-in-the-wall with a line around the building called Killer Shrimp. It had closed down a few years back, but he realized when planning for this trip that a new location had opened up, so it was something we had to go do. He ended up preferring the atmosphere of the old location to the sleek, modern look of the new one, but it’s nice to be able to eat inside. They’ve also added things to the menu, but the thing they are known for is a bowl full of spicy, herby broth with 13 huge prawns, served with French bread, pasta, or rice. The bread is the way to go, it’s perfect for sopping up the yummy broth. I’m not a huge fan of eating messy things with my hands, but for this meal, I’d make the exception.

[Kale salad at Gjelina]

SoCal seems like it should be all about healthy stuff, and up to this point, I had gorged myself on huge plates of meat, spicy shrimp, and a giant burger. Enter Gjelina, a restaurant I’d heard praised a lot on Chowhound. Dinner reservations were supposedly difficult to come by, so we chose to go on a weekday lunch instead and had no problem getting in. A few days back, we walked through the Santa Monica Farmers' Market and saw a booth giving out free food samples. It was a kale salad, and I generally hate kale, so I let Mike eat it first. When he said it was good, I tried, and much to my surprise, it was. The secret, the guy said, is to let the salad sit for about 10 minutes after adding the lemon juice because it softens it. The recipe is available on True Food Kitchen’s website. With this in mind, we ordered the kale salad at Gjelina, and it was pretty tasty. Mike ate a lamb burger, and I had pappardelle with wild mushroom ragout. There were a lot of other yummy-looking things on the menu, like a mushroom, goat cheese, and truffle oil pizza. Be aware, however, that “changes and modifications are politely declined.”

Our last meal was at Sushi House, a hole-in-the-wall sushi place that Mike used to love because they had a reggae theme. Sadly, ownership might have changed, and now it’s just a regular sushi restaurant that has a few Bob Marley posters (all that remains of the theme). The food was good, but the charm was gone.

It was a lot of fun eating our way through a small part of Los Angeles, and hopefully we return to do it again soon!