Downtown Beds is located at the butt end of a 17th-century palace. It’s got its own three-story space with a sub-courtyard. Jesters, black sheep aristocrats, and shackled infidels probably lived and died back here.
The hostel offers free bicycles to use during the day (bring your own lock).
Cooler, 20 to 30-something crowd, and more local vibe.
I got my own room for 99% of the time until an employee wanted to take a siesta in a bed next to mine.
Since it’s connected to an ultra-deluxe hotel, the hot water stays hot!
Cool main room with long futon couches and projector.
Sadly operated by Hostelling International, which kind of standardizes (Americanizes) the hotel’s offerings. It comes with the typical H.I. breakfast fare of jam, bread, coffee, and bananas. They also offer Jumex juices.
The Spaniards must have been scared of Indian arrow attacks because these 17th-century walls will survive a dozen apocalypses and still be left standing; the building is heavily fortified with solid concrete, brick and rock so the wifi is impossible to penetrate any of the rooms outside of the main room.
Beware of establishments in Mexico offering private car services in lieu of taxis! They have their own private car service. I asked the front desk for a taxi and they gave me a private car. It was 200 pesos to ride to the airport from here in one of their private red cars. If you’re not afraid of using their taxis, it would be at least 100 pesos cheaper to go outside and hail a taxi.
Weird disconnection between the ultra-fancy hotel, restaurant, shops, and this hostel. I felt like a peasant on board the Titanic!
Casbah Café – CLOSED
$$ Coffee & Tea
3900 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90029
I really detest this place. The decor is annoying and the drinks are pricey but taste like cheap instant versions of the drinks that they’re supposed to be.
Looks:
2/5
The decor has a washed-out pastel-like motif of what North Africa is supposed to look like. The colors are horrendous and the furniture constitutes mismatched cheap or tattered tables/shelves to hold other things on, primarily their store items. Their store items are so random and out of place and look like a bunch of colorful stuff from a swap meet gloriously thrown on a table for everyone waiting to go to the bathroom to shrug at while waiting to go to the bathroom. The crevices and scratches in the concrete are black and dirty. The high ceiling probably saves this place from smelling musty. A possible one extra star, but I decided against it. The wobbly lightweight metal outdoor tables have very poor balance underneath their dying vine caves on the slant of a hill going upwards.
Drinks:
1/5
For the area, I’m surprised they can get away with serving the poor drinks that they do. I’d expect poor quality drinks in a gas station town, not Silver Lake.
The chai constitutes an overly sweet instant chai powder and is about a dollar more expensive than the price listed on the wall, which I asked about. I guess the disparity of price is part of the disorganized motif. The sweet powdered chai with heated milk is about the same price as a freshly brewed chai at Intelligentsia next door.
The iced coffee is so incredibly bad, I couldn’t drink it. Given the benefit of the doubt that this isn’t brewed Folger’s instant coffee, the coffee has an aftertaste as if the grind is stale or lackluster. It was incredibly hard to drink. I tried even drinking and swallowing this drink really fast to not let the aftertaste attack my taste buds like they were. I left most of the drink behind which I rarely do.
Overall, I hate this place. I hate it being located in an area I pass by all the time. Please close down, please close down!
Dana Hills Year Book Staff
Education
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
You know everyone in school so you’re really surprised you lost the ASU election to that airhead Michelle; you dropped all your AP science classes and now you’re on the verge of being rejected to UCSB. Although you are an efficient vice president of Key Club and you’ve played soccer since 8th grade, you are untrustworthy beneath your smooth facade. You worry about your goals so you wait in line to talk to the school counselor.
The counselor advises you to join DHHS yearbook because of your grades in AP Literature and Comp. Of course, you didn’t tell your counselor you plagiarized virtually every essay you’ve ever written including the one you are about to hand in on “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. You really don’t know how to write well, but you do know everyone in school. So you join.
People pity the yearbook that year. Michelle is spelled “Michael,” quotes are missing and baby pictures are transposed so the football player who got a scholarship to Cal is mistaken for the girl with Alopecia who lives at a “dirty” apartment in the Clem. But your stint on the yearbook got you accepted to UCSB! You go on to play soccer for the team and everyone will remember you. You’re smiling on Facebook. You’re satisfied and your hair got lighter. Go, Gauchos!
Por Siempre
$ Tacos, Vegan
Calle de Chiapas 169
06700 Ciudad de México, CDMX
Mexico
It’s been years since I have been so excited about writing a review. As far as vegan street tacos are concerned, Por Siempre (Forever) crushes all other taco places I’ve ever been before and I can’t ever look at tacos the same way again.
For one, this is a NIGHTTIME street taco place. I came to the Roma Norte during the day to find this place closed. I was so bummed out, I had to come back later at night. I knew a place like this would be busy, so I came back shortly after they opened at 6:45 p.m. and there were already about ten people waiting for their food.
I got the Big Bebe and the Al Pastor, both of which are incredible. But the Big Bebe, however, is unbelievable; it has like so many flavors of spice, that I don’t think I could do justice describing what was going on on top of my tongue. I believe both came with seitan/trigo and not soy, but I am not sure what kind of fake meat was in that big baby. I want to go back tomorrow, so I might write an update. They also offer free salsa, nopals/nopales/cactus, and potatoes to put on top of the tacos.
I am glad that there are so many soyrizo fans, as then I know they won’t run out of the options that I am into if I ever stay in the DF again. I am not against soyrizo per se, it’s just that every place in LA seems to offer it and it tastes like a boca burger, chili, and Worcestershire sauce blended together.
Posh South Beach Hostel
Hostels
820 Collins Ave
Miami Beach, FL 33139
This place is Fascist Summer Camp.
I had artwork up at this event for Art Basel and decided to stay in Miami Beach. If you read my reviews, I stay at A LOT of hostels all over the world. I usually like to stay at the nicer ones with cool amenities, like the beautiful pool on this one sold me quickly. The atmosphere in the kitchen area is great and the ice cold pool is at least as beautiful as it looks!
However, the rest of this place somewhat sucked.
I booked this place back in August because I knew Art Basel would sell everything out fast. They have a requests section after you pay $50 a night for this hostel. I requested a bottom bunk because I am kinda old now and don’t have the monkey-like flexibility of climbing up and down ladders as I did 15 years ago. And that’s actually exacerbated by having a somewhat awful back due to a bad bike accident that has seen three chiropractors and a year’s worth of physical therapy.
When I got here, the first thing I sensed was that this place was insanely understaffed during Art Basel week. The guy who helped me was really busy. I had to wait about fifteen minutes for him to finish up as he was working the front of the hotel this was connected to. An older couple came in after me to check in to the hotel part of the building and he helped them out first since I’m steerage. Eventually, he signaled me to follow him upstairs. I told him I requested a bottom bunk and without hesitation, he unapologetically responded “it was a request – and we don’t have any.” I could forgive if they’re just insanely busy because of Art Basel and if they’re understaffed. But what’s the point of having the requests section listed on the website if no effort is made to fulfill them? Sin esfuerzo! It’s a beautiful place but just the entire first impression made me feel like I was staying at a $15/night public youth hostel. I was paying almost $250 on their glitchy and outdated credit card machine with a loose wire while signing a long waiver with two pages worth of rules: ‘NO SEX – that’s what a hotel is for!’
When he finished, he rushed me downstairs through a long and winding series of beds. My first reaction is that it looks like a Turkish refugee camp. All the blankets, towels, feet, heads, clothing, and shoes hanging from almost 50 beds in one large room were a bit overwhelming. I was almost running to keep up with him! This is the first hostel I’ve ever stayed at that doesn’t have individual rooms. I am not against this idea but its execution is a bit crazy. I hope their Haitian cleaner gets paid well to keep up with all of this, as she was doing quite a good job for how insanely busy it was.
Since it was one large room and we still have two primary genders, they have a guard with a flashlight doing the rounds every night to ensure there is one clothed person per bed. There are no curtains on the bed unlike some hostels with large rooms. And there is basically a lot of security protocol at the entrance and pool area for that very same reason. If you want to have sex here, the best bet is the showers all the way to the back.
Breakfast is awful coffee, hot water, earl grey tea, orange juice that tastes a bit like Tang mixed with actual orange juice, very low grade processed white bread, cream cheese, butter, jams with high fructose corn syrup, apples (sometimes) and it comes with styrofoam plates and cups and no recycling bin for them.
Posh is a misnomer and pricey for what it is not. But at least it’s clean, incredibly located near South Beach, and has an awesome pool and kitchen/tv area. The management/workers are a bit mean but I appreciate that they’re not pushovers and they need to be tough because the sheer size of their one large room of beds must be insane to control at all times. The lack of private dorm rooms perhaps is a problem too.
Useful: 5 Funny: 2 Cool: 0
12/7/2016
Comment from Indira G. of Posh South Beach Hostel Business Owner
Hello, hello Chris G.! Thanks for taking the time to write out all of your thoughts and observations on Posh Hostel! We value your opinion. It’s a bummer some of our policies were not what you were expecting when choosing Posh Hostel. We do have strict rules that all guests must abide, as we want everyone to enjoy their time here in Miami and with us here at Posh! We’re sorry your time wasn’t the glowing 5 star one our guests so often write to us, raving about. Kind regards,
Ruby’s Diner
$$ Diners, American (Traditional), Venues & Event Spaces
30622 S Coast Hwy
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
Things to think about:
The kitchen is all the way on the left hand side of the diner, while the seats are all the way on the right side (or upstairs.) The food will be cooler than other Ruby’s locations because of the sheer breeze of walking the food from the kitchen to the tables.
If you complain about the coolness of the food that was whisked in the breeze, there is a microwave located between the kitchen and the tables. The microwave cannot be seen from the tables, except for the horrible table that’s located next to the bathrooms and the servers doors. I pity anyone who has to sit there.
There was never a golden age of this Ruby’s location! I laugh at all of the other reviewers that claim it was sometime eons ago, before late 2000s. I worked here in the 90s and people were still complaining.
Most of the servers are confused teenagers. The prettier ones get better tips.
When you see long lines and waits, do not act condescending when a confused teenage server as indicated in #4 takes longer than 5 minutes to ring in your burger order with complicated modifications. Guacomole burger with no guacomole, anyone?
Ruby’s is not a 50s diner. It is a 40s diner.
I’m not sure if Ruby is still alive, but the real one once visited this location. I saw her when I worked here over a decade ago and she looked like an old lady from an Alfred Hitchcock film. But there was another old lady that pretended to be her at this location, too. She looked more hipsterish (in old lady standards) and always wore a beret and was always hanging out her with her 50-year-old son or lover. She was bipolar and either extremely nice or mean.
Due to the sheer volume of people that come here at any given time, I made more money in tips here than anyone else I knew when I was 17. I often got out of work at 12 or 1 a.m on a Sunday morning with $$$ and smelling and looking like grease, while my friends were in the middle of having fun and partying. It was awesome, um.
The London Particular
££ Cafes
399 New Cross Road
London SE14 6LA
United Kingdom
I don’t make enough money to eat here, but I make enough money to drink here!
London Particular offers my favorite lattes in all of London. I don’t know what it is about it, but their brew is incredibly good, strong; and goes well with soya and their lattes are delicious. It looks like an amazing coffee shop but is more of an eating place. The ambience is incredibly nice. If they could bulldoze the fish and chips shop next door, they should. They’ve got one huge communal table in the middle, with two or three tinier high tables that seat two, barely any seating. There is outside seating, which is nice in the afternoons when the sun comes in. Granted their wifi is free but it isn’t really a place to write an epic novel in, as it gets busy fast. It’s a good place to sit for 30 minutes. I’ve often bypassed coming here because of how busy it was, but I’d certainly come more often stay here longer if it had more seating!
Casbah Café – CLOSED
$$ Coffee & Tea
3900 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90029
I really detest this place. The decor is annoying and the drinks are pricey but taste like cheap instant versions of the drinks that they’re supposed to be.
Looks:
2/5
The decor has a washed out pastel-like motif of what North Africa is supposed to look like. The colors are horrendous and the furniture constitutes mismatched cheap or tattered tables/shelves to hold other things on, primarily their store items. Their store items are so random and out of place and looks like a bunch of colorful stuff from a swap meet gloriously thrown on a table for everyone waiting to go to the bathroom to shrug at, while waiting to go to the bathroom. The crevices and scratches in the concrete are black and dirty. The high ceiling probably saves this place from smelling musty. A possible one extra star, but I decided against it. The wobbly lightweight metal outdoor tables have very poor balance underneath their dying vine caves on the slant of a hill going upwards.
Drinks:
1/5
For the area, I’m surprised they can get away with serving the poor drinks that they do. I’d expect poor quality drinks in a gas station town, not Silver Lake.
The chai constitutes an overly sweet instant chai powder and is about a dollar more expensive than the price listed on the wall, which I asked about. I guess the disparity of price is part of the disorganized motif. The sweet powdered chai with heated milk is about the same price as a freshly brewed chai at Intelligentsia next door.
The iced coffee is so incredibly bad, I couldn’t drink it. Given the benefit of the doubt that this isn’t brewed Folger’s instant coffee, the coffee has an aftertaste as if the grind is stale or lackluster. It was incredibly hard to drink. I tried even drinking and swallowing this drink really fast to not let the aftertaste attack my taste buds like they were. I left most of the drink behind which I rarely do.
Overall, I hate this place. I hate it being located in an area I pass by all the time. Please close down, please close down!
Pansophie Personality & Color
Life Coach
2033 SE Harrison St
Milwaukie, OR 97222
Alex Hall and I are not friends anymore because she flaked on me the morning of my 12/14/16 gay wedding. She requested that her review be given 5 stars after having 4 stars, but I am going down to 3 stars because I still have no idea what the fuck she was doing.
Alex Hall does not see dead people but she knows how colors that emanate from the body correspond to personality types. The wizard behind the curtain and her powder pink shop of color therapy mostly help balance people who have health or psychological issues with assessing their chakra colors and suggesting practical solutions, but going to Pansophie is also a good way of helping anyone else who is in need of a color consultation. So what does that mean?
Keywords:
Holistic Fashion Consultant
Holistic Interior Designer
Holistic Life Coach
Holistic Etc.
While getting a color consultation here suggests a need for the participant to believe mysterious chakra colors are floating in front of him or her, the chakra colors are really only a method of assessing the personality types and issues through a mixture of these colors. You take an online test first. The result of the online test is then translated to what you should do with that information through a consolation with the person who runs this shop. I believe the consultation is crucial in understanding the assessment. This kind of stuff is not ‘new age’ but follows ancient methods of assessing personalities and diseases through the constitution of the body. Think along the lines of the ancient Greek and Roman doctors and philosophers assessing personalities and diseases through the four humors: black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm. It worked on ancient people for hundreds of years.
Alex Hall will not assess your bile but upon purchasing an exam and consultation through her website, you take an exam that you answer the best possible answer from two questions that it poses. The store section of her website is actually a little difficult to navigate because the site manager is apparently lazy (cough) but you can call Alex Hall and she can direct you on how to find and purchase the exam. The issue I have with the exam, and like most psychology consultations and classes I have taken, is that it seemingly ascribes to the dualist approach of talking with people. If you are an atheist/humanist or physicalist who believes that it is not possible for a body to coexist with a soul or within a spiritual realm, you will think this test is biased. However Alex Hall said that the exam actually has a balance of questions that will not affect one’s results based on the answers they give. Since I believe we access everything in our unconscious through things we interact with, watch and know in the present, my violet is very low. These questions that assess the level of violet in the body, for example, depend on the subject believing that one accesses his or her knowledge or creativity from some kind of higher power. If you have taken many years of psychotherapy and/or are overly self-absorbed like me, being submissive to a higher power seems to be very limiting, except sometimes in sexual play.
A day after I took the online test, I received my phone consultation. Alex Hall went through a general description of all of the chakra types. The seven colors that constitute one’s chakra system include red, green, orange, blue, violet, indigo and yellow. If you have general knowledge of chakras, the descriptions of the colors she gives are not very different. However, the new thing I learned about colors that each of the chakras has negative qualities on top of their general attributes. The ‘negative’ attributes are low functioning aspects of each color like anger, bitterness, PTSD, etc. I received a personalized chart in a PDF file that constitutes the percentages of how open each aura is after I had taken the online test. I also received a percentage of how much of the negative colors constitute the openness of each aura. It was a percentage within a percentage! Hall thoroughly went through each of the seven types for about 40 minutes with a focus on my own percentages. Having someone spend that much time with someone else is always a rewarding experience. Since I learned my green is also very low (lower than my violet), the best thing about this consultation was being suggested that:
I should always use, wear and imagine more turquoise.
Get more shoulder rubs.
Use pine oil.
Write more love poetry.
My life probably won’t change much until I boost my green chakra but I feel like buying a turquoise t-shirt and writing a love poem may actually be a very wise investment.
Vons
$$ Grocery
4520 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Their ‘world class’ customer service is laughable!
So their cashier-slash-bagger Michael didn’t give me one of the three groceries I’ve purchased with my friend. I had to call into the store and see if they had the pasta that Michael apparently put into another bag that he didn’t give us. It was irritating. Why put two items in one bag and one item into a whole new bag? My friend biked back to retrieve the third item. And I complained to Vons’ online customer service about the incident.
Vons Customer Service Team wrote me back:
Thank you for your recent correspondence regarding items left at the checkstand. We apologize for any dissatisfaction this may have caused you and appreciate the opportunity to respond.
You expressed your concerns regarding the cashier, Michael. At Vons we strive for world class customer service and a positive shopping environment. This incident certainly does not reflect our standards to this commitment.
At your earliest convenience, please return to the store with the receipt and speak with a Store Associate at the Customer Service Booth. We will be happy to rectify the situation.
I come in. The store associate guy at the Customer Service Booth, like, shrugged. “Uh, you got your bag back, and he probably was really busy.”
Rectification from ‘world class’ customer service team:
Straight to The Point Professional Piercing
$$ Piercing, Jewelry
2807 E Speedway Blvd
Tucson, AZ 85716
I waited two months to review my nipple piercing experience. I found the results are great! In fact, I am seriously considering posting a picture of my new 14g stainless steel barbells to show how good they look but only so few people would want to see detailed pictures of hairy pierced man nipples.
I was biking up and down Speedway Blvd in Tucson and stumbled upon this shop. The guy who owns this shop was eating lunch and I inquired to him about piercing my nipples. He said he can do this and to come back in a few hours. I did. The entire procedure took fifteen maybe twenty minutes and it cost less than or about $100, which was more than other places but worth it. The place felt like a sterile doctor’s office with zen-like quietness and minimal furniture. The experience of piercing my nipples was not as painful as I’d expect either.
I am impressed with his method of piercing with a type of plastic surgical tubing that heals up faster than the more traditional surgical steel. Everything healed up within a month of him putting them in because things heal faster with plastic!
While the piercer/owner from Portland was nice enough and I received a thank-you card (which was accidentally mailed to my neighbor who then knew of my piercings), it is perhaps in my cynicism to be averse to receiving advice from a self-proclaimed ‘life coach’.
Since we were physically close to each other as he would need to be when piercing, we struck up a conversation. We talked about why I was there (academic reasons) and like most people who have recently finished their college or postgrad degrees, I was confused about what to do next and told him I was working the same exact music venue kind of job I did at 18 before I went to college. This is when the life-coaching began to shine through…
He took a patronizing stance that sounded antagonistic about going to college and it getting in the way often with what people really want to do in life. While I can agree with this position in essence, thanks for reinforcing this fear I already have that I wasted ten years on my life! He didn’t get his degree and told me he went on to be a successful shopkeep while making tons of money, but sticking to his passion of piercing. I mean, fuck… It made me feel like I didn’t have my life together, but at least I got nice piercings!
Alchemy Tattoo
$$ Tattoo
2854 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
I have officially completed my left arm sleeve at this place!
I work with people who worked with Mike (“Burns-y”) who worked at my work prior to me and subsequently became a tattoo artist who now works at this shop. If that wasn’t confusing: the tattoo I got was simple, clean, sharp, and good. Everyone who doesn’t like morbid things says it’s their favorite tattoo of mine.
I come to the shop one day. Mike wasn’t in but a ton of other tattoo artists and the owner were. They were scrambling to come up to the front and greet me. I told them I was looking for Mike. Everyone in the shop let out an exasperated “…oh” as if hopes for making a tattoo sale were just mashed. I came in about four times after, never formally, to look for Mike. I finally saw Mike the second time I came in and we talked about a ship tattoo. He seemed interested but asked me to come in sometime in the coming week to talk more about it. Afterward, the 3rd and 4th times I came in and he wasn’t there. I ask the owner of the tattoo shop about his whereabouts and he shrugged and told me to come in later or to email him and he’ll email Mike. He told me he didn’t have his cell number (possibly he didn’t want to give it to me). I then just got it from a coworker. We finally met up on a Friday. He was less enthusiastic about the ship idea on my chest and having anxiety about it actually. He said that it would look weird, he couldn’t do it, it would take too long and asymmetrical things (I wanted an asymmetrical ship) wouldn’t work on the chest. His reluctance kind of freaked me out, so being a friend-of-a-friend kind of person that he was, I didn’t want to just leave him with nothing. I thought about other nautical-related things and decided upon a compass on my top arm/shoulder area, next to my chest. It worked out for him (he’s a symmetry nerd, something very architectural about how he works), and was happy. He began drawing up the tattoo on the flash and we began tattooing about an hour later.
Things I would like to point out as I waited to get tattooed: The owner of the shopping complex, an older Asian woman, is really hyper-vigilant in an unnecessary way. I was hanging out in the back parking lot on my cellphone and she harped asking who am I and what I was doing there? “Uh, I am just loitering. Mind if I lay on your open tarp and tan for a fucking bit?” And if that isn’t enough, I believe it was she who has a parrot that also similarly harps. I thought it was a schizophrenic girl until one of the tattoo artists pointed out that it actually wasn’t.
The tattoo on the flash and the initial layout was unsurprisingly crisp. He used a very fine gun needle to tattoo me, which was the first time someone used something so crisp. It was almost like a lithographic print. He got extremely upset because I am jittery and my arm sometimes twitches almost spastically, not in a dramatic way, but in a way that his precise drawing became somewhat flawed when he added additional details to the tattoo that weren’t being traced from the flash. Don’t blame me if you can’t hold my spastic arm tight enough and make a mistake when free-hand tattooing. In any event, I came in and got some ink. It’s imperfect but it is crisp and looks like what it was meant to be. Good!
Saigon Sandwich
$ Vietnamese, Sandwiches
560 Larkin St
San Francisco, CA 94102
All of you Tenderloinians who wrote about how huge this $3.75 bahn mi sandwich is must collectively weigh 100 pounds! ‘Large’ is an overstatement and my ability to eat three of these amazing sandwiches would prove it.
I am from Texas. Just kidding. But this sandwich is definitely not from Texas, nor is it underwhelming nor small in any way. It is a perfect hefty size.
Hefty might be defined in terms of thickness versus length. Saigon Sandwich’s bahn mi sandwich is larger than a burger and a little smaller than half a sub from Subway. Unlike a Subway sub, it makes up in VOLUME. While VOLUME, in phallic terms, is very important, the same holds true with sandwiches. You can have a really long veggie-filled baguette with delicious innards but if the sandwich isn’t thick, I mean PACKED, spilling out from every angle, you can certainly enjoy it but it wouldn’t be very impressive. I prefer both though. Like, the same holds true with the best of the best burritos. I want to hold a burrito the size of my foot and feel almost uncomfortable at the end. With this bahn mi, I want to have to catch every leaf, carrot, daikon, tofu spilling out and me catching it with my mouth and have sauce dripping all over because I don’t feel uncomfortable at the end. There’s no way a pickled veggie sandwich, unlike a burrito, can ever do this to me.
The freshly prepared and amazingly tasty fried tofu is something I cannot get enough of, as well as the incredibly fresh vegetables. The service is very fast too. The lady working there made five different sandwiches for five people in less than two minutes.
My Village Café
£ Vegetarian, Vegan
37 Chalk Farm Road
London NW1 8AJ
United Kingdom
If it was MY village, there wouldn’t be so many cows in it. This is literally the cheesiest vegetarian restaurant I’ve ever been in. Who puts cheese over falafels? KURDS.
Well maybe not, I’ve never been to the border area of Western Asia and the Middle East so I am not for certain how much cheese exists there. I once I had a dream I was in these parts. I was wearing the wrong traditional hat and clothes, and everyone was laughing at me at border inspection when my little plane landed.
Anyway, this Kurdish vegetarian restaurant was perhaps more interesting in an ethnographic sense – the decor was very effectively un-western in a way that appeared actually authentic. I last went here about a year ago and the servers/workers were wearing headscarfs and traditional garb, similar in a way that seemed like something that they’d wear any day of the week.
But the food, the food had something left to be desired – it was cheese-filled (not printed on the menu) and jejune, I actually felt like nothing from this village came into existence outside of a plastic container at Sainsbury’s. It was very, in American terms, blah.
But really, I will keep in mind to ask for a falafel with no cheese if I find myself in Northern Iraq.
Photofusion Gallery
£ Art Galleries
17A 17a Electric Lane
London SW9 8LA
United Kingdom
Photofusion is an upstairs photo gallery and printing place with a buzzer to keep the local buzzards out. Let’s step in the time-traveling dome back to 2011 when I had four art prints printed at Photofusion. Hello? I said to the buzzer. We’re not open. Then I say something, something, something. Then the words “buy”, “purchase”, and “spend money” released the lock to the door and got me upstairs.
I walk upstairs to an empty receptionist table beside an empty gallery with boxes for an upcoming exhibition (see next paragraph). An older woman walks over to sit at the receptionist table three or four minutes later and points me over to the back printing room, which was in a hallway. The quality of the matte prints with mounting was incredible and the price was incredible(-y high). Oh boy, did I drop £££ for prints that sold for ££ from a coffee shop a few months later. Even with my Goldsmiths student ID, discount was negligible.
Photofusion hosted a Vivian Maier exhibition that showcased a good portion of her work in 2011 and was her formal debut to the UK. Vivian Maier was an American street photographer who was ‘discovered’ after some dude who had purchased a ton of her negatives began pimping out digital scans of her negatives on Flickr and various websites until NPR did a story about her. Then she became famous for a hot minute. They showed many of the prints done in black and white from the 50s and some later ones from the 70s in colour. Their staff photo hipster, who seemed forced to be put on wine duty, was so standoffish, she acted appalled that you didn’t pour your own drink, would pour a drink at her end of the table, which was a wide table, and left it there.
Rating:
3.5-ish – somewhere between “A-OK” and “Yay I’m a fan.”
Gabriella Cafe
$$ American (New)
910 Cedar St
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
There’s an Aphex Twin song called ‘Come to Daddy’ that reminds me of this reaction I have when they finally delivered my food. I was anticipating a vegan requested plate that had I emailed the chef a few days before and about fifteen minutes after my friend got his food, mine had cheese smothered all over this damn plate.
This was after forty minutes of initial waiting. Before I reacted, the awful server disappeared back into the mood lighting atmosphere, forever. I was running around this empty establishment with the plate in my hand wanting to kick tables, lamps and the decorative bric-a-brac and the few old-timers dining here. I found someone, not the server, either in or near the kitchen almost looking at me as if I landed at the front of the kitchen from Mars. I was irate but polite enough to bite my tongue. It took another fifteen minutes to either de-cheese this $30 vegan-requested pasta option or boil more pasta, sauté more vegetables and drizzle olive oil on top of it.
Paul Cocking, the cook or manager here at the time who probably resonates with his last name, wrote me a few days before that a vegan option can be provided before I booked a reservation on Open Table. I don’t like to make people go out of their way to provide something BASIC but warn them to have something available, as the guy emails me in caps that the “CHEF CAME FROM MILLENIUM AND WILL PROVIDE.” I was unaware that the “chef from Millennium” would provide a Barilla pasta with sautéed vegetables and olive oil and then dump cheese on it. EVEN AS SELF-PROFESSED HORRENDOUS COOK, I COULD HAVE MADE THIS AND IN LESS AMOUNT OF TIME! Whether it was lack of preparation or not in accommodating me, I would be willing to entertain eating an expensive $30 gourmet Barilla vegetable pasta with olive oil had everything else not happened because I was here with someone else for a birthday dinner. Watching one person eat while two people are hungry kills the mood for both people.
This was quite a while ago and I don’t think I have ever been more repulsed by a restaurant’s existence, ever. I wrote about this bad experience on Open Table, and their lack of response reified never directly writing reviews to people who don’t care to read them. In summary, the two plates not only took a long time to arrive, they came at different times, they were small, one was messed up, nothing extravagant and pricey as hell. We went to Saturn Cafe after this $65 joke meal and had taquitos and milk shakes delivered at the same time and for about 1/10th the price, and that were actually filling.
The Refinery – CLOSED
$ Coffee & Tea, Cafes
413 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90401
The Refinery is a large grey cube amongst the obnoxiousness of the gaudy shops along the Promenade-adjacent Santa Monica Blvd.
Omg, you are next to the beach, have a panini, have a smoothie, have a diving fin?!
No, you don’t care that you are four blocks away from the most touristy part of Santa Monica Beach and next to the massive amount of foot traffic due to the Downtown to Santa Monica 704 Bus Stop because you are THE REFINERY.
I think of an industrial NIMBY on SimCity when I think of the word ‘refinery’ and I see the smokestacks and refining crude oil and chemicals billowing smoke to create a haze, an atmospheric change when I come inside.
Your cold brew is perfect, your foreboding roominess, lack of a crowd, and sumptuous large empty spaces are amazingly sobering. This is what drinking coffee should make me feel like, and you succeed in sucking out all of the electric atmosphere out of your surroundings. I feel like a cold industrial complex, ready to battle the waves on my surfboard.
Groundwork Coffee Co.
$ Coffee & Tea, Breakfast & Brunch, Caterers
1501 N Cahuenga Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Smoking is for melancholic people who smell bad. And somewhere in the 400-year-old European tradition of smoking and public houses came a place to hold the spittoons of black bile. It was called the PATIO. The Spaniards called it el PATIO.
There’s zombie-like and bloodthirsty desperation that smokers have to light a cigarette on the patio, and they will interrupt your conversation, rip your pocket open and throw quarters at you to light upon the patio. I am on a patio almost every day and there is a ring of being let down when the cigarette ends. The problems that are released with the smoke don’t quite fully make it out of the throat and stay stuck in it. The friends want to go home, people are being kicked out and coffee doesn’t quite resolve it. But why the patio is important is that it is kind of an abject and quiet object, a place to let the collective stream of smoke and hubbub be released. So it helps until it doesn’t.
Groundwork USED to have a patio, two patios, sort of. One at the side of the window along Sunset and one in front at Cahuenga. Up until about a year ago, it was good. Then they got rid of the tables on Sunset, then the tables on Cahuenga disappeared. Maybe homeless people used to take over the areas more than the baristas at Groundwork would like, but things were mellow when the homeless weren’t kicked out. No schizos spitting at people behind the windows (there’s a guy on Sunset who spits at the window if he sees you in it), no threats of arson, no flailing milk carts. But now the chairs were replaced with an empty windowsill, no more sitting outside, no more gazing at Sunset and Cahuenga Blvd. No incredibly hot, beating light.
I got seasonal affective disorder having to be inside. All of the windows at Groundwork want me to be outside. And while I could still see everything outside, I can’t interact with it! I enjoy drinking their Venice blend (the medium one). But the strong roast is good too. And I can deal with a lot of metamorphic changes that they made to simplify their look, but the disappearance of the patio and the pour-your-own-coffee bar feels like they threw the baby out with the bath water.
‘Keeping it simple stupid’ is a very zen concept and I do like that sometimes they leave containers of their salads, wraps or sandwiches that didn’t sell on the windowsills at night. As I was biking away on Sunset one night, I told some homeless guy asking for change that there were salads in front of this place and he was completely unimpressed with the idea of having to walk two blocks for a container of salad and didn’t move. Hollywood.
Masa of Echo Park
$$ Pizza
1800 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
A couple of weeks ago there was a drunk driver that made a sudden turn from Sunset to Lemoyne and slammed into the sidewalk area in front of Masa. He or she took down a big tree, a bike rack, a mailbox, and a street sign; and was able to continue speeding away. That awful accident reminded me that I needed to finally eat here. So a day or two later, my friend and I jumped over the fallen tree, which was still laying there, and tried the 45-minute-long preparation time vegan deep dish pizza for two people.
It was an incredible goo of their own non-Daiya cheese, some kind of vegan cheese I’ve never tried before, and certainly more delicious than the two vegan pizzas that Two Boots puts out. It was big enough for three or four people to finish actually. It came on a tin and was an inch to two inches high. Actually, if I was hungrier at the time, I might have been able to finish more and not leave three slices left on the tin.
The pizza just takes a really, really long time to make! I wouldn’t substitute deliciousness for a speedier pizza in this instance. So come here with someone else who you can talk to for that long. It’s probably better for a date but I was with a childhood friend with 15 years’ worth of stories to potentially discuss over dinner. The service was fine and the dining experience was fine. The price is also pretty reasonable. It came out to $25 including a tip for two people.
Under the Mango Tree
$$ Coffee & Tea, Juice Bars & Smoothies, Acai Bowls
737 5th St
Miami Beach, FL 33139
There is not a thing more special under the mango tree than under any other kind of tree.
I came in here at exactly 3:59 pm. when two women were switching between shifts. I could sense I came at not the greatest time. Neither was very friendly, said hello, or even acknowledged I was there but I didn’t need very friendly. Someone finally came over and I ordered my bowl and tried to find a comfortable seat to sit down at. All of the furniture was kind of small and flimsy. I felt like a bull trying to sit in a dollhouse. I am a thin man of average height at 5’11 and everything required me to bend over and hunch. The tables or footrests (I concluded they were tables because my feet can easily knock them over) were a foot above the ground. It wasn’t comfortable to be on a laptop here so I basically gave that idea up.
When I began to eat the Marley Bowl I ordered, it was a bit underwhelming. The bowl is not that big and not filled to the top. I find it funny that everyone said that these bowls were mind-blowing. But I am Californian and we experience the best of everything, so I get that they may be the queens of the hill here but they were about what I expected for $11. The Marley Bowl comes less with hints of peanut butter and spinach that I hoped for but the acai is delightfully creamy. And it comes with a sparse amount of granola, not too much, which is good. It also comes with BERRIES on top of it, which I would have preferred more peanut butter and spinach as the berries were kind of flavorless distraction (compared to the acai) to the overall flavor.
Useful: 2 Funny: 1 Cool: 1
12/4/2016
Comment from Patricia O. of Under the Mango Tree Business Owner
Hi Chris! You will be happy to know that we now have a new location with much-improved seating (in fact the inability to furnish properly due to the small space of the shop was one of the main reasons for our move). Based on your description you were sitting in what used to be our “glamorized” storage room, as being a shop with less than 400 square foot, we had to be creative in squeezing in as much seating area as we possibly could. In our new location, we now have a functional workspace and more comfortable seating.
Sorry, you were disappointed in our Acai – we actually get a lot of positive feedback from Californians so we don’t agree that we are not in the “queen’s” league. Brazilians love our Acai too and we all know they are the King’s of the hill (insert wink face to communicate our silly light tone since the internet is not fully evolved yet). Regarding the Marley Bowl, everyone has a different peanut butter tolerance so for the addict we recommend adding an extra dollop of our organic PB for only $1.50 to really get the hit. As for the size, most people find it a satiating serving, however, we have multiple options ranging from only $.50 cents to $2 to make the bowl significantly larger depending on your personal appetite.
Regarding the lack of friendly service you received, we really apologize you were not welcomed. I am sure you read our many other reviews that show that we normally excel at this. We hope to make every guest feel happy and satisfied and are disappointed you did not experience this! We would love to show you a true Mango Tree greeting if you give us another try at our new spot next time you’re in town!
India’s Clay Pit
$$ Indian
309 N Virgil Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90004
Cooks please -taste- your food before bringing it out! I got a really bad stomach ache here after eating their undercooked brown rice. My partner told me that it was ‘al dente’ but it was hard enough to give me sharp stomach pains for the rest of the night, which then dominoed into a kind of -yuck- laxative effect.
Now let’s talk about their food food. I don’t appreciate how things are hit or miss here. While my non-vegetarian acquaintances attest to enjoying the meat dishes here, their veg stuff leaves a lot to be desired. The veg curries and vegetables make me wonder whether they are pre-made, while the cooks focus all their energy on freshly preparing the meat items. The spinach/saag essentially tasted as flavorful and fresh as those Indian TV Dinners that you buy in a box and heat in an oven. It tasted like spice added post-hoc to the blandness.
The baingan bharta (eggplant) made thawing a frozen Indian meal actually seem desirable. It was the only time I’ve ever not enjoyed eating that dish out of the five or six Indian restaurants I’ve tried in Los Angeles. It tasted like curry that was coagulated from a flavorless, old eggplant and then pureed into a slop oblivion. I hope that they consider taking it off their menu while sorting out their freshness issues and preparation of their vegetables.
Since I found the curries to be pretty mediocre, I stuck with okra the most recent time I visited and it was better. I am unsure if I lack confidence in their food is fresh but the spices that the okra was prepared in tasted a lot better than the okra itself – it was shriveled. Okra offers a kind of crispness that their dish seemed to lack. Due to the other unfortunate circumstances I had with their food, it leads me to believe that their okra was not fresh either.
We were also served lackluster samosas that were not fresh – they tasted cooled, hardened, and dry in the center. Samosas are amazing when they melt in your mouth and this was the first time I ever got a bad samosa from an Indian restaurant so was taken aback. The hardened daal tasted like clay in the center. But fortunately, we got the pakoras, which actually tasted as good as they’re supposed to taste! Their naan and roti taste fine too.
In the end, it’s a shame that I was pleasantly surprised about getting something good here. I really want to like this place but unfortunately, their vegetarian dishes were at best as good as frozen saag from a TV dinner. It is a shame because I find the paneled ceiling to be beautiful here and hate to see it wasted on mediocre food.
Erin McKenna’s Bakery
$$ Bakeries, Vegan, Gluten-Free
236 N Larchmont Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90004
Apparently, they have enough time to flag an image I drew last year of my experience with one of their aloof workers (or non-experience since she never actually turned around) to get it deleted from Yelp yet not have time to say, “hey I’m sorry our shitty day-old vegan biscuit almost killed you. We will personally ensure that you don’t have to have conversations with the back of any of our aloof employees’ heads ever again.”
By the way, if their staff went on to bigger and better things since my last visit in mid-2013, good for them. I hear there are smug non-profits out there that hire people to teach people how to knit sweaters out of used grocery bags. Still not returning, but thanks for being bothered enough to flag a drawing posted over a year ago.
Useful: 5 Funny: 6 Cool: 2
10/8/2014
Previous review
I remember a skit in I Love Lucy when Lucy McGillicuddy bellows as a disgusted patron at Aunt Martha’s Homemade Salad Dressing for a television commercial skit that Ethel and Lucy were doing to dissuade customers from buying more of their popular salad dressing: “What’s Aunt Martha trying to do, poison me?!”
This is the exact scene and phrase that came into my mind after eating their day-old ‘vegan butter’ biscuit with a stale bagel they offer at a discount price (which is actually still more than the price of a warm bagel you can get next door).
What’s BabyCakes trying to do?!
If I was more punk and dumpster diving, I would need to be so hard-pressed and hungry for food to eat this thing for free. This biscuit was so disgusting that somehow (whether as a direct result of this place or not) I got the stomach flu a few hours later that day and whenever I burped, it left the aftertaste of this damn biscuit. It was stale but held a buttery popcorn taste of oil that may have kept it lubricated and in one piece before crumbling in my mouth like a massive Ortega Highway rock slide.
But to be fair, I’ve had vegan cupcakes and/or a cookie in the past that wasn’t so stale-tasting or bad either. Although nothing tastes fresh-out-of-the-oven warm, their prices beg for otherwise and point to that kitchen in the back of the store that is interestingly never being used, at least when I visit.
“Expensive rice flour dude”, said one of their aloof employees. All of their employees I have encountered here are uniformly unfriendly, as if some social dynamic in this tiny space begs for employees to be mean vegans. Maybe it’s in the size of the space that makes them unfriendly. The time before, some artsy woman who appears as if she can’t wait to quit this stupid bakery gig to start her own knitting boutique is trying desperately not to engage with me as I looked at the scant selection of goods in the display in front of her. After four minutes, I decided not to ask the back of her head, which was two feet away from my face, about a cupcake I saw. I should have blown wind to her head to demand her attention.
Perhaps it is in the rice flour or non-GMO oils why these creations never taste exactly fresh, but I must point fault to things that are well-intentioned, pricey yet still taste like gluten-free geology. Read less Useful: 6 Funny: 12 Cool: 2
10/1/2013
Comment from Erin M. of Erin McKenna’s Bakery
Hi Chris! We just read your most recent review and found your older review (We’ve never flagged a review, so are not even certain how that process works. We’re sorry if a picture you drew was taken down). We’re so sorry you had a bad experience. We will remind our employees that customers shouldn’t have to talk to the back of their heads! It just isn’t right and we’re sorry that you had that kind of reception.
India’s Clay Pit
$$ Indian
309 N Virgil Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90004
Cooks please -taste- your food before bringing it out! I got a really bad stomach ache here after eating their under-cooked brown rice. My partner told me that it was ‘al dente’ but it was hard enough to give me sharp stomach pains for the rest of the night, which then dominoed into a kind of -yuck- laxative effect.
Now let’s talk about their food food. I don’t appreciate how things are hit or miss here. While my non-vegetarian acquaintances attest to enjoying the meat dishes here, their veg stuff leaves a lot to be desired. The veg curries and vegetables make me wonder whether they are pre-made, while the cooks focus all their energy on freshly preparing the meat items. The spinach/saag essentially tasted as flavorful and fresh as those Indian TV Dinners that you buy in a box and heat in an oven. It tasted like spice added post-hoc to the blandness.
The baingan bharta (eggplant) made thawing a frozen Indian meal actually seem desirable. It was the only time I’ve ever not enjoyed eating that dish out the five or six Indian restaurants I’ve tried it in Los Angeles. It tasted like curry that was coagulated from a flavorless, old eggplant and then pureed into a slop oblivion. I hope that they consider taking it off their menu, while sorting out their freshness issues and preparation of their vegetables.
Since I found the curries to be pretty mediocre, I stuck with okra the most recent time I visited and it was better. I am unsure if I lack confidence in their food being fresh but the spices that the okra was prepared in tasted a lot better than the okra itself – it was shriveled. Okra offers a kind of crispness that their dish seemed to lack. Due to the other unfortunate circumstances I had with their food, it leads me to believe that their okra was not fresh either.
We were also served lackluster samosas that were not fresh – they tasted cooled, hardened and dry in the center. Samosas are amazing when they melt in your mouth and this was the first time I ever got a bad samosa from an Indian restaurant so was taken aback. The hardened daal tasted like clay in the center. But fortunately, we got the pakoras, which actually tasted as good as they’re supposed to taste! Their naan and roti taste fine too.
In the end, it’s a shame that I was pleasantly surprised about getting something good here. I really want to like this place but unfortunately their vegetarian dishes were at best as good as frozen saag from a TV dinner. It is a shame because I find the paneled ceiling to be beautiful here and hate to see it wasted on mediocre food.
Electric Lotus
$$ Indian
1739 N Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Yelp is asking me for tips about the atmosphere of Electric Lotus. Good question. Electric Lotus is NOT ‘Divey’, ‘Hipster’, ‘Touristy’, ‘Trendy’ or ‘Upscale’. And it is more ‘Casual’ and ‘Intimate’ than it is ‘Romantic’ and ‘Classy’ because I come here for their inexpensive $4.99 vegetarian lunch special, which feels pretty ‘Casual’ during the day. Although I can see how it changes at night, I also checked off ‘Intimate’ as I am usually the only person amongst other loners, a grim gathering of single men eating Indian food in a large dark restaurant.
Electric Lotus could be brighter or more vibrant, but for the price, it doesn’t bother me too much. It offers lots of seating to have their cheap and delicious vegetarian lunch special offering, which usually includes chana masala (garbanzo beans), saag (spinach), basmati rice, and salad. All of their food is really good, freshly prepared (at least) by that morning and vegan, unfortunately, they do not have any substitutes for a non-dairy salad dressing (they don’t have oil for salad dressing – they once looked at me as if I was crazy for asking and offered cooking oil) so often I get a lot of lettuce leaves to eat with the masala sauce, which is fine. Their vegetarian lunch special sometimes has daal (lentils) instead of one of the aforementioned, but more often than not, it is usually chana masala.
Fast enough service and quite a large plate of food for the price!
MooShoes – CLOSED
$$$ Shoe Stores, Accessories
3116 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
MooShoes is an awesome vegan shoe store that is a great addition to Los Angeles. I was in and out with a pair of vegan Doc Marten boots in a matter of six minutes. Their online store showed me everything I needed to know about those shoesy woosies before I came in to try them out. In fact, what I like about this store is that everything is basically laid out online so I can do my research and find exactly what I want to look at. I am uncreative, I hate being surprised, and I would hate to fall in love twice.
Two of my vegan coworkers told me about this store after they were sporting some awesome boots. So I had to get a pair myself. I tried the boots that I found online on and they were an incredible fit. Not only that, they are the most DURABLE non-leather leathery shoes I have ever owned! Most vegan shoes I have worn over the course of 15 years last perhaps a year or two with my feet because they are made out of canvas or rubbery materials that are slightly stronger than a pencil eraser. Everyone who complimented my new boots is surprised that they are not leather.
The store is very physically attractive and carries its own weight in terms of atmosphere and vibe. The woman working at this location is very helpful and nice. My only suggestion is for them to make it more apparent that they are located here! I bike past this location almost everyday and did not realize it had been here for three or four months before someone else pointed it out to me. They should have tables, serve yerba mate and raw vegan carrot cake or something, so they can get more foot traffic.
Hollywood/Western Red Line Station
Public Transportation
5450 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Hollywood and Western Red Line Station is a station that, yeah, has a Starbucks across the street from it and offers a strangely large and wide pattern of 1990s-esque glossy tiles, but beyond that, it is great station to LIVE near.
While navigating Hollywood/Vine and Hollywood/Highland Red Line stations is to get by a lot of confused tourists, and Sunset/Vermont Red Line is getting by a lot of wheelchairs for the hospitals, and Vermont/Santa Monica Red Line is not tough to get by, but located in a general area that’s tough to get by. Hollywood/Western is uncrowded and easy to get in and out of.
It is small and fast to get to the actual terminal. In the two years I have been using this station, no homeless person or person hanging out at plaza area of the station have bothered me here. Actually most of the vagrants hanging out at the plaza really don’t stay here very long because I think security or police kick them out often.
It takes me 6 minutes to get here from my studio:
I look at my iPhone app that tracks the LA Metro called ‘Next Ride’.
I run or bike three blocks down Hollywood Blvd.
I go downstairs.
I fill my card at the machine.
I go through the turnstiles.
6a. If I have time, I check my phone at the large empty space after the turnstiles. Reception is good there. When I feel the wind of the train blowing and hear it coming, I go downstairs.
6b. If I don’t have time, I run down the second flight of stairs.
Right side goes to Downtown. Left side goes to North Hollywood.
I take the train.
There will be crowds of people that will be lingering or confused at the other neighboring stations, but not over here. It is mostly a residential station, thus there is no reason to linger. For those who want to visit something from here, Griffith Park is nearby.
University Inn
$$ Hotels
950 N Stone Ave
Tucson, AZ
I REMEMBER when I was 18 years old and helping my dad pack up and move from New Jersey to Southern California. He was getting a camper hitch put onto the back of his car at a Uhaul dealer in a rural gas station town off of the turnpike while I was exploring the area. I entered a nearby diner with two big piercings in my lips and crimson/black hair; and the staff paused with a confrontational frown and after a beat, the closer of the two told me that they can’t serve me, they don’t have to-go and bye.
So lo and behold, some ten years later, after traveling the world, losing the face piercings, getting piercings below the face and getting tattoos, I find myself having the same exact prejudice-based-on-looks experience here by some asshat who owns or manages University Inn in not-so-rural Tucson. I booked this place on Priceline a few weeks before I came to Tucson and apparently if you accidentally put your credit card information wrong here, the owner or manager can decide that he can charge you higher than the quote that Priceline gives.
He said that it costs so much money to run a hotel and having to deal with the stress from people like me who leave wrong credit card numbers and not show up because it happens so often, and these Priceline discounts take so much money away from his business (why advertise on Priceline?), therefore I must pay $7/night more than what Priceline quoted. Not only that, I then was lectured about this being a quiet, clean hotel and emphasizing that I am not allowed to set the air conditioner below 74 degrees.
After paying more money than what was advertised on Priceline and being given a condescending lecture, I got the room and called Priceline about the incident and their accounting rep was surprised that he refused to honor the Priceline quote. She called the hotel and made them honor the deal listed on the website. She then came back on the line with me and told me that University Inn told her that it was a mistake and that they didn’t mean to make me pay more than the listed offer and told me to go back to the lobby to gladly get the difference refunded. I went back to the front and basically the guy walked quickly from the back area to the front of the lobby and I got lectured at again, he said that he is doing this as a courtesy and it was still my fault.
I am pretty sure if I was wearing a polo shirt or a suit and had a smiley demeanor like the other three Yelp reviewers to this place, I would not have been treated like I was going to be doing a lot of drugs, partying and recklessly turning up air conditioning. I actually hate too much air conditioning and only had sex once while there, so poor assumptions all around.
Casablanca Coffee Lounge – CLOSED
$ Coffee & Tea, Lounges, Sandwiches
5718 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
I’ve come here enough times to warrant a solid review. I actually like this place and how they play 90s rock in the background all the time but I really, really do not like one of their workers.
I’d like to let the younger guy with dark hair who worked Sunday morning August 11th know that giving me $3 change in quarters as a passive-aggressive gesture can cause a chilling effect on this small business.
The cafe was completely empty. I got an iced coffee and asked if I could have some soy with that. He said that soy is 50 cents extra. I told him not for iced coffee. I get iced coffee almost every day and never was I charged for adding soy from here. I presumed he was new because he told me this and I have never seen him before. It wouldn’t have been a big deal to me because it really isn’t but how he reacted to me was what made me want to run out of there really fast.
When I told him there was no soy charge for iced coffee, he got very bent out of shape and proceeded to give me I quote a ‘dab’ of soy milk on top as if I asked for something very exquisite that he was doing me a huge favor for. The total was $2.23 and I gave him $5.25. I assumed he gave me the wrong change or that he charged me the 50 cents anyway because he gave me all quarters back. I said he gave me the wrong change. He said no, pulled out the calculator and argued that I hid my quarter underneath the $5 bill “so I passed it back to you.”
I told him he’s crazy and should not be a barista. He said have a nice day.
Koreatown
Local Flavor
Wilshire And Western
Los Angeles, CA 90010
My motto for K-town is follow a bad idea once, shame on Koreatown. Follow a bad idea twice, shame on me.
Shame on me for losing my bike lights twice after parking and double-locking my bike in Koreatown but not taking off the lights. Shame on me for going to not one, but two Koreatown Coffee Bean and Tea Leafs in a day. Shame on Koreatown for having a heavyset guy who looks like he’s never been on a bike before yell at the top of his lungs that my bike was his stolen bike but not running after it as I rode away. Shame on Koreatown for having such an unpredictable variety of Korean food restaurants that you can order Korean chicken nuggets at one place, and bibimbap in another. Shame on me for sleeping in my friends’ walk-in closet on top of a damp mattress sheet hat smells like flu in a ratty Craftsman house set in a MS-13 neighborhood to catch the morning Wilshire/Vermont red line that I didn’t pay for, twice.
Koreatown is perhaps Los Angeles’ Oakland. I hate Oakland. But I respect it for having as much of a supportive community as the 4.5 star review average here indicates. People swear by their inexpensive room rents. There are a lot of art galleries going on in big gutted old buildings that become lofts for people to spend that extra $100 saved on rent. My friend who records ambient wind on cassette tapes for a living has lived in his K-town studio for over ten years.
Koreatown does not have a baseball team like Oakland but if it did, I probably wouldn’t begin watching sports so fast. But reading the dozen five-star Yelp reviews that wax poetic the amazing Koreatown clear up my personal rainclouds on a rainy day because Koreatown is teh best town.
O’reilly’s Tattoo Parlour – CLOSED
$$$ Tattoo
1108 Mission St
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Five Stars for Jason:
I worked with Jason for six months between 2008 and 2009. He tattooed my entire lower sleeve on my left arm. Jason is incredibly talented and very focused on detail and was really into the tattoo he was making, which I appreciated most. The tattoo came out incredible. Even after four years, I still get asked who worked on me. He designed a raven motif with incredible detail on the feathers and roses he gave it.
O’Reilly’s Tattoo Parlour is very clean and always smells it. It’s a converted home with perfectly polished wooden floors. I still remember their old-timey tattooed freak show pictures in the bathroom walls, which was incredibly interesting in itself.
Less than Five Stars:
A few months after my tattoo was finished, I was hanging out at Cafe Pergolesi and met a barista who was in the process of getting the SAME EXACT bird motif as mine on the same place of his arm as mine. The artist he was working with (not Jason – can’t remember his name) also worked at O’Reilly’s. Whether copying previously done tattoos and putting them in the same places that other people have them may be common, I was not expecting to ever meet them! To describe the feeling better: I felt like I was in a situation where I wearing the same dress as someone else to prom.
Coca-Cola Store Las Vegas
$$ Hobby Shops
3785 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89109
Globalization sucks but exploring the tastes of 16 drinks from around the world was one of the more adventurous/less conventional things to do on the Vegas strip. This review will be based on the flavors of 16 drinks, all owned by subsidiaries of Coca-Cola. The cost of two trays of 16 drinks is $7. Flavors seem to change weekly. They’re not all soda.
Beware:
Bypass the paraphernalia. The stand is on the second floor. Go upstairs.
Seating is not guaranteed. Since it’s Coca-Cola, breeder families flock to the bottle like flies to sugar. They occupied the front three tables near the stand. The parents looked more bored than their 7 kids, all of whom were playing with toy cars and plastic Disney characters on the tables. None of the toys were from the Coca-Cola store.
You are given two red trays stacked one on top of the other. Don’t worry. Unless you are super clumsy or somebody pushes you, you will not spill the stacked trays.
Sitting on the floor is an option. We sat on the floor with four trays (two trays each) of drinks because there was absolutely nowhere else to sit in the area. Although I didn’t mind sitting on the floor, it may be highly problematic if the sitter is old or disabled. We were one of three groups sitting on the floor.
The flavors:
We were given two pieces of paper that indexed each of the drinks we were trying. We took a pen out and wrote some notes about the flavor of each drink. I recommend taking a pen out and making notes about the flavors of things you’re trying. It makes you think about and remember what you’re trying. The following list highlights the drinks from the notes I wrote.
Tray one:
Inca Cola (Peru) – Sweet, good
Sunfill Mint (India) – Tastes like Scope mouthwash
Stoney Ginger Beer (South America) – Reminds me of ginger candy
Aquarius Citrus (Taiwan) – Not fizzy, like a watery orange juice
Delaware Punch (Honduras) – Rich berry flavor, tastes like cough medicine
Vegitabeta (Japan) – Powdery flavor, like it was pre-mixed
Smart Watermelon (China) – Light taste, subtle flavor, good
Kinley Lemon (England) – Way too tangy, too much lemon/lime
Tray two:
Lift Apple (Mexico) – Reminds me of apple cider, prefer apple cider though
Fanta Kolita (Costa Rica) – Overwhelming and conflicting flavor, way too sweet
Krest Gingerale (Mozambique) – Blah! Yuck! Not a big fan of gingerale
Bibo Kiwi Mango (South Africa) – Not sparkling, a little too sweet
Bibo Pine Nut (South Africa) – Very sweet, not a fan of pineapple
Little Shanghai – CLOSED
$$ Chinese
1010 Cedar St
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
I have never, ever, tried a more delicious tempeh meal than that from Little Shanghai Chinese Restaurant.
Specifically the Gan Sao Tempeh which is the very last thing listed on the menu and is one of only two tempeh options here. The crispy tempeh is stir-fried with vegetables and hot peppers and served in a thick sweet sauce that has the same consistency as molasses. The texture of their delicious tempeh wins me to come here on a weekly basis because it isn’t undercooked nor is it chewy or tough. It’s hard to compare the texture to any other I’ve tried because I’m generally don’t eat it.
So this review is simply based on a meat alternative that is made out of soy beans and brown rice. Tem-peh from the latin soy beanus and brown risis. I have looked at their tofu options and they look similar to other Chinese fried-tofu-mixed-with-vegetables fare. Definitely and without hesitation come here and take your risk with tempeh and my word that you will not be disappointed.
Hot Java
$ Coffee & Tea, Breakfast & Brunch
2101 E Broadway
Long Beach, CA 90803
The only time I’ve ever gotten a pedicure was on whim with my mother many years ago. We were at the shopping center and the experience was so disturbingly prissy and over-the-top that I have taken a solemn oath never shall I have uniform toenails again.
Hot Java is the footsie male’s ottoman. You can find the archetypal footsie here wiggling his manicured toes in $40 designer flip flops. Toe wiggling is a come-hither approach to grabbing the attention of the guy across the ottoman. I’m not sure if it’s a phallic gesture within the foot fetish but there is a ton of wiggling action here.
Besides toe wiggling as an instinctual mating dance, Hot Java hosts a ton of kitschy artifice, ornate rugs, a fake fireplace and gender assigned bathrooms to make things confusing. The layout is like that of an old aunt’s disorganized living room. Thanksgiving is good and all but there is no pool table or video games. I want to go home!
I don’t understand the point of gender-assigned bathrooms in this coffee shop. I’ve seen more men exit the women’s bathroom than the men’s. The arbitrary labels are ridiculous especially for those in larger proportion of the queer community who figuratively skirt the gender label. I never used the men’s bathroom myself. The women’s bathroom must install a unisex urinal for those who pee both ways!
Union Station
Train Stations, Trains, Metro Stations
800 N Alameda St
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Skip the sentimental stuff about art deco, who cares? And my cute anecdote about a bathroom encounter – someone who put their hand underneath my stall while I was peeing and me peeing on their hand, thinking that they were grabbing for my backpack (I deduced they were actually schizophrenic because that didn’t stop them), this station is good. It’s clean, pretty straight-forward and gets people in and out, like a station should.
I bike and don’t drive in LA. I primarily use Union Station for utilitarian purposes, step aside reviewers who reviewed this station based on one experience they had here.
Bus from Union Station directly to LAX (or LAX to Union Station) – $7
The bus is in front of the station, there seems to be no uniform bus that takes you to and from LAX/Union Station. They accept credit card only at a kiosk next to the buses, but sometimes, if you give $7 cash to the driver, they’ll let you on. It happened to me once, whether she pocketed that money and was actually out of protocol, I have no clue.
Access to Metro Red Line to Hollywood (or Purple Line um to a Koreatown-ish area) – $1.50
This is in the underground area, get a ticket or refill the TAP card in the semi-underground area where the machines are. There is a place there to tap your TAP card. If you want to go to Hollywood, make sure you listen to the loudspeaker, or you may end up in the Koreatownish area of Wilshire/Western. This can also take you to other downtown areas, but why not just walk to Pershing Square? It’s really close.
Metrolink and Amtrak trains to various places – $ – $$$
There are actual people who can help you get a ticket here, on top of machines. The Metrolink is CHEAPER than Amtrak but serves mostly the vicinity of Orange County/Riverside and Greater LA. Amtrak seems to be able to take you elsewhere, should you want to go to Chicago like they did back in the 40s.
There is ABSOLUTELY nothing within the vicinity of Union Station except Little Tokyo, which is not very fun after 4 hours. You have the rest of downtown if you’re without large bulky suitcases, but if you have bulky suitcases, there is a Starbucks here.
Coffee + Food – CLOSED
$$ Coffee & Tea, Breakfast & Brunch, Sandwiches
5630 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038
This is the first time that I’ve visited Pricey + Tax since my review two years ago.
I am writing this review from inside the busy cafe right now. Everything, like the chairs, tables, and layout, seems more integrated and there are about 25 people sitting inside this cafe as we speak and about 10 people outside. If they added a second story or made more room in the back kitchen/back patio area, this place would be as busy as Bricks and Scones!
Cyndi F, who I believe owns this place, wrote a message to me on Yelp two years ago after I posted my review to justify the lack of prices on the walls:
“We are sorry about not posting prices – our menu changes every day and our prices are pretty LOW in comparison to everything around us (gratitude, osteria mama) so it has not really been an issue for anyone. But we can see how important it is for people who are coming for the first time – know what they are getting into.
Have a great day and hope we get another chance to woo you with our coffee + food. Best, Cyndi”
Well, in the end, 1. I come back and am wooed by their coffee. And 2. they DID put prices up on the walls so there happily goes the ‘too daunting to put prices up due to the ever-changing menu’ theory. The cold brew is not ‘LOW in comparison’ like the owner insists but more reasonably comparable to/ slightly pricier than other places – like $5 ($4.50 + tax) and as legitimately good as cold brew gets. It’s got less of a bite than other cold brews I’ve had and more of a light roast kind of taste.
All in all, it’s gotten better.
Useful: 2 Funny: 0 Cool: 2
4/16/2015
Previous review
Pricey + Tax.
Menus that do not include prices make me feel uncomfortable. It not only seems like pretentious nonsense but it puts me in an awkward position to have to inquire about prices, and then feel guilty about it. When it’s a chalkboard, and a price could easily be put next to the item, I feel like there’s a level of intent in what they are doing. And this puts me in the predicament of not feeling like the type of customer they’d want in their shop.
I am updating this review from two to three stars. The $4 americano was good. There is decent seating here along with the storefront windows if the tables are being used. This place seems to have a strange way its space flows, as if it would make sense that once you enter in, you’d be greeted by a barista behind a counter, rather than a refrigerator. The people who work here are friendly.
Barnsdall Art Park
Parks
4800 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
I got to see the grand re-opening of the Hollyhock House, aka Aline Barnsdall’s Egyptian-style mausoleum. Her morbid fortress is much adieu about something! It is constructed with the modernist wand of Frank Lloyd Wright and is actually a lot more spectacular on the INSIDE than the house looks on the outside
I came here because I actually was passing by Barnsdall Park at one in the morning on my bike. I saw all of the cars coming inside and I recall reading that the Hollyhock House was renovated, the mayor came and cut the rope and there was a free ‘self-guided tour’ of the house all night. I knew I would never ever pay for a guided tour in the future, so I thought this was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Barnsdall’s big open casket looked like how a flapper with money would want to languish in the afterlife – probably not with all the gawking people. I wanted to take photos but my phone died as I waited in line for over two hours, between 1 am and 3:30 am, to go inside and see it. It was a non-stop all-night viewing. In fact, I believe other people are currently waiting in line to see it as I write this.
The one word that comes to mind when I viewed the Hollyhock House was ‘horizontal’. Even though the building was up high, everything inside emphasized being straight on one plane. It really brought my eye to see the cool angular furniture and then the panoramic views of the flickering lights of nighttime Los Angeles from below. Since everything that I saw was level, you are sort of met with the windows to the sky and the electricity below. I wonder whether Barnsdall had the same kind of view here 80 or 90 years ago, whether the lights emitted from early 20th-century electricity were the same kind of brightness and look. The house looks Egyptian with its architecture and golden tones from the wood floors, so being elevated on one plane seemed otherworldly and afterlife-ish.
Barnsdall Park, I still hate you. I think the car-centric navigation to and from the park has a lot left to be desired. But I’m kind of realizing that the one-directional ‘grand driveway’ helps perpetuate the foreboding fortress-like architecture of the Frank Lloyd Wright building looking down on the little people of East Hollywood below.
Useful: 5 Funny: 1 Cool: 4
2/14/2015
Previous Review
I don’t think I could dislike a park more than I do Barnsdall Park. I truly hate Barnsdall Park. It’s awful.
Can we bulldoze the Frank Lloyd Wright fortress, parking lot, and fences and add trees and have a large hippie hill for people to camp, dance, drink and lay on? The fortress-like architecture and the fortress-like structure (psycho-geography) of the park make hanging out at Barnsdall park feel like lunch at Macy’s Plaza.
I’ve been to a few events besides the Farmer’s Market here on Wednesdays (from noon to 6 pm) and I live close to the park. Most of the events require me to walk up the stairwell to the buildings. When I go to an event and hang out here, the event is never very good and usually pretty confusing. People are either crowding the door to an event that is encompassed inside of a boxy midcentury institutional-style building with no windows. Others are lingering in the periphery of the institution along with the pillared foyer to nowhere.
The areas that most of these events are housed at feel like they are a moat to the Hollyhock House, which is a sour relic of Frank Lloyd Wright. The actual Hollyhock House looks like a boxy Egyptian-styled mausoleum. It looks like a morbid fortress. At first glance, it looks like one of the more dreary examples of Frank Lloyd Wright’s catalogue raisonné. At second glance, it looks like the kind of place that old flappers with money go to die – see Lady Barnsdall’s big casket for $7!
Barnsdall Park is like a dystopian Parc Guell in Barcelona. Most of Barnsdall Park, like Parc Guell, is for walking up that hill, although, unlike Parc Guell, it’s not really made to walk into or out of, it’s made to walk WITHIN it. The first thing one has to encounter when trying to enter is the huge foreboding poles along Hollywood Blvd. that serve as fences and block walking people from entering except on two opposite sides that open exclusively for a parking lot that it wraps around. If you want to enter, walk through the parking lot. The only time that parking lot is ever really useful to everyone is when there is that farmer’s market on the bottom of it. If you try to enter or exit from the stairs at the non-Hollywood entrance, the Hospital alleyway, good luck because that area is littered with no trespassing signs.
Tatsu Ramen
$$ Ramen
7111 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90046
If it was the 90s and Tatsu used automated phones instead of iPads to order ramen, this place would definitely suck. “If you would like an automated lunch, press one, o diga en Español marque dos, or to speak to a ramen representative press zero.”
Unfortunately, automated phone messages are not dead yet. They just have yet to be replaced by iPads. If we ever take a look back at life in the 2010s, Tatsu is the kind of place that will epitomize the decade. This is the first time I have ever ordered a meal (and a free water) with an iPad by myself.
As I was biking eastward on Melrose from a job in West Hollywood, I parked my bike and actually wanted a sandwich at All About The Bread next door. I decided I wanted to take a look at the menu at Tatsu but saw the line of iPads and I couldn’t resist trying it out. If it was just a menu, I probably would not have even ordered anything.
As I was clicking on the iPad, I ordered the vegan hippie bowl. I checked the item and then came the modification list with a bunch of modifications to un-hippie. Want pork? Want beef? How about cheese? You sure you don’t want cheese? No cheese. Tofu, green onions, and spinach. I showed my receipt, got seated, and got my bowl. It was as good as I expected it to be. The delicious broth offered a hint of ginger with perky noodles and good tofu in a fat kid’s cereal-sized bowl.
But the iPad! I imagine it will become more and more common to use an iPad not just as a cash register, but as a robot.
Muddy Paw Coffee Company
$$ Coffee & Tea, Bakeries
3320 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
There’s something really furry about this store; I feel like when I bike past here on Sunset at 2 a.m., people are dressed as dogs inside, pulling on each others’ leashes and dry humping.
I will go no further than to say the two times I got a cold brew here were radically different. I came in here about a year ago, and the older guy who was working here gave me quite a disgusting iced coffee. It was served from a large plastic milk carton and tasted like brewing Folger’s and pouring it in said empty milk carton and letting it sit in a refrigerator for an hour.
I came here this past week, asked for a cold brew and the girl with really thick glasses gave me an iced Americano in a plastic cup, which was filled 1/3 to the top. There was so little of this coffee that ice was piled on top of the little coffee in it! I felt cheated but confused as to whether this is a normal drink. I get iced coffee nearly 365 days a year from all the places in the land and never have been given a cup of iced coffee 1/3 full. First-world problems, huh? Too bad it was good too!
I remember when this store was originally a clothing store with a coffee stand in the back and it has come a long way since then. I mean, now they love dogs, got rid of the clothes, and moved the stand.
Samba Rock Acai Cafe
$$ Acai Bowls
291 Water St
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
You were an empty acai cafe when I first met you. The Airton Senna, the acai mixed with peanut butter, is definitely the best acai bowl that I have ever tasted. Nothing can compare to it. I used to sit in this cafe back when I was going to UC Santa Cruz in 2009, eating this acai bowl when nobody else was here except for the one nice Brazilian woman who ran the shop. I wondered whether they would stay in business.
Now five years later on, you’ve got the world at your feet. Their delicious Airton Senna acai bowl still tastes like the peanut butter and jelly mouth-gasm mixed into a bowl with granola, strawberries and banana for the same price as it was 5 years ago – $7.50 (no tax) for a hefty regular-sized portion.
Unfortunately, everyone else loves this place too. And they do annoying phone orders, so smart people call up and basically cut ahead in line of everyone else who is waiting to order a bowl. The one cashier also takes phone orders, so whoever calls up gets their food order placed in front of everyone else who is waiting in line. I considered ‘cutting in line’ by calling in my order while waiting in line, because the cashier stops whatever she was doing to put in the phone order before taking another person in line. It’s pretty maddening because I gave myself 30 minutes to catch the 17 bus at Water and Ocean.
I had to wait 25 minutes. 25 MINUTES for an acai bowl. It was absolutely swarming with people. The five workers scrambling to make orders looked like Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory, working against a losing system. The conveyor belt was too fast and they were running out of room for places to put those paper receipts!
I had less than 5 MINUTES to eat this acai bowl at the bus stop at Water and Ocean. That wasn’t a problem though! I recommend coming here with at least an hour to kill because this place is way too popular now. Management, please nix phone orders, at least on busy weekends, as this place definitely does not have the capacity to smoothly carry them out.
Useful: 5 Funny: 2 Cool: 2
4/28/2015
Comment from Vanessa W. of Samba Rock Acai Cafe Business Owner
HA, Chris, you RULE, great review….!
But pleasekno that we’re ONIT w/the phone/togo orders, and we’re CONSTANTLY workingon making our systems better, but can only work on one new thing atatime!!! Sooo be ready because starting NEXTWK we will have a ‘togo’ line, and right NOW we are figuringout our systems for having a diff phone answerer than the one at the cash reg!!! We’ll C U nextime you’re in SANTA CRUZ, ORRRRRR when we’ve expanded to having some in LA!!!
ronw + Vanessa
owners
Annenberg Space For Photography – CLOSED
$ Art Galleries
2000 Ave Of The Stars
Los Angeles, CA 90067
I know two people who are in the current Emerging exhibit, and yes it’s an EMERGING exhibit, so don’t expect Mary Ellen Mark or Ansel Adams prints to parade around these quarters. It’s a bunch of teenagers, 20-year-olds and some 30-year-olds who know how to use an SLR camera and are … ’emerging’. The photos are supposed to show the relational aspects between photographer and subject. Like preteens photographing other preteens, etc.
As for the two people I knew, Ryan Pfluger was a MySpace friend from back in the day, who appropriately (inappropriately?) did provocative MySpace portraiture of his friends. Some guy’s MySpace photo from 2007 got onto the walls of the Annenberg as part of the exhibit. Justin Maxon, the other photographer I went to school with ten years ago and took a few photo classes with. He used to spend all day photographing homeless people smoking crack and shooting up heroin around Civic Center in San Francisco. I spent a couple of hours with him once. It was invasive shit, click click click click, as smoke from a crack pipe was billowing from the guy’s mouth. The guy seemed so unaffected by the intrusive camera lens a foot away from his face. It was kind of incredibly weird. The actual photo in the exhibit was of a grainy, dark photo of a family living in derelict conditions.
This exhibit showcased people mostly born after 1980. What was funny is that the photo selections they had of these two particular people were not photos I would have chosen of theirs but I suppose were not necessarily bad selections. Just ho-hum, in my opinion. It makes me think about the tons of other photographers on exhibit and how their other photos could potentially be more interesting than the ones the curator chose, which then makes me wish that the space was even larger to show more examples. As for the documentary, there was a documentary playing at the time I went and it was of a pretentious teenage girl talking about her amazing discovery of photography. She was waxing lyrical about the machine and how it was the only way she is able to connect to people: her, her camera, and her friend.
Annenberg Space For Photography is free. The space is not big. But it is free and worth visiting.
La Barata/Cosas Baratas
$ Discount Store, Furniture Stores, Electronics
5527 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90038
I just Google Street Viewed Cosas Baratas / Cheap Things to make sure this is the same store I was thinking it was. I don’t think anyone would know the name of this place by the name itself. It doesn’t have a sign on top of it. But this is the store that I recommend EVERYONE to come to who’s moving to LA for the first time. They’ve got furniture and housing supplies for possibly the least expensive you’ll find anywhere. And it’s big!
I tell people, hey if you need a mop, need a coat rack, need a cheap bicycle, go to this place on Santa Monica Blvd. next to the big abandoned Sears. It has 98¢ painted on it, I think? No it’s the big one. Now this is where Google Street View has helped me to describe it: It’s got like a lot of glass windows that has a massive display of wrapping paper, shelves and tiny microwaves underneath a hand-painted 98¢ ITEMS over a repurposed mid-century sign that’s painted blue. A hand-painted FURNITURE slopes downwards and into the store towards old vinyl signage of television brands SONY / SANYO / FISHER / ZENITH that then leads to TV / VCR / STEREO at the top of the door. I don’t think they’ve got any of these things anymore. Minus possibly -a- TV.
I recently got a collapsible luggage here. Well one wasn’t enough so I came back yesterday and got ANOTHER collapsible luggage. (Who in LA has the room for a 2×3 feet box to sit on a shelf for 11 months out of the year?) The guy who runs the store gives commentary on everything in his store. He speaks English, by the way. It’s funny. And it’s probably the only place outside of downtown LA that has got maybe twenty different types of luggage in very ample supply. They’ve got shelving, beds, like everything for the econo-couple. They’re what killed big Sears across the street! I hope
So if you happen to see an ancillary Cosas Baratas / Cheap Things sign, as you’re strolling eastward on the south side of Santa Monica Blvd, then you missed it. But if you back up, not in a car, and see a lot of glass, a 98¢ sign, and advertisements for nonexistent televisions, then you’re here.
Useful: 7 Funny: 3 Cool: 4
8/16/2018
Danny A. sent you thanks for this review Business Owner of La Barata/Cosas Baratas
Hop Woo BBQ & Seafood
$$ Chinese, Seafood
845 N Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90012
I have been here more times because of Groupon than have any other restaurant. I also have come here a lot prior to the days of Groupon. It seems like anyone who gets their MFA from an art school in Los Angeles is required to have some type of performance or exhibit in this area, hence when I run in them artistic circles, I usually end up there – then here or Hop Louie or Full House.
Their vegetarian food offers the quintessentially soggy vegetables that I’ve come to experience as being authentic at least to the way restaurants prepare them Chinatown. The mixed vegetables to schezuan eggplant to hollow vegetables from Hop Woo taste like they’re boiled with a plump texture underneath a slick layer of oil on top of them. I don’t dislike them. I just prefer how they prepare the soft tofu this way for their ma po tofu. The ma po sauce is very tasty and the dish is probably my favorite here. It tastes very salty though but for me, I like it however wouldn’t particularly recommend it for other people as I tend to like saltier saucy things.
The atmosphere is nice enough for groups but the service here is hard to describe. They don’t have bad service per se. They’re just consistently not focused on the human. I found that to be the case too when I went to a cafe on a layover in Guanzhou, China, so I think it’s just the way things are done. They’re usually as distracted by setting or bussing tables as they are taking orders, which often takes about 15 minutes to do after being seated. However they usually immediately give you tea, Spanish peanuts and crackers to munch on. I guarantee you that tea will go cold by the time they take your order so drink up first.
They’re one of a handful of places that don’t have restrictions towards how many Groupons you can use here. So they never give me a hard time about redeeming Groupon. But if you do the Groupon, print it out as they will hold onto your phone for ten or fifteen minutes while writing down the code, processing it, and simultaneously setting or bussing said tables.
LA County Department Of Registrar
Public Services & Government
14340 W Sylvan St
Van Nuys, CA 91401
Beware if you ask to get married in a civil ceremony the same day as you submit your marriage certificate, you will be met with a middle-aged registrar clerk who will look at you as if she got jabbed with a thumbtack on the back of her neck. Their 20 square foot chapel with vertical blinds is booked a month in advance so you can either book your 15-minute wedding a month later from here or from a fine (actually, a not-so-fine) list of other locations in LA County.
This place is a bit like coming to a nice Department of Public Social Services with a line that takes only about an hour to get through upon entering at 8:45 am. It has no security checkpoint as the people who matter are all protected behind glass windows. You enter from a line directly to your left once you enter the front door. From there, you get a mixed bag of fiancees, people who appear to be couples, and a scattered few lacking proofs that they were ever born, waiting in line.
In many ways, this hour-long line seemed to be the path of least resistance whose who want to get hitched perhaps without the trouble of the expensive wedding industry or society. When I was there, I noticed a few people looked so incredibly young to get married with very nervous body language, perhaps due to disapproving parents, religious guilt, or baby. There was also a handful of same-sex couples and transgendered people wanting to get married too. Some people in line were dressed in suits and gowns. And some were dressed in jackets and jeans.
YEE: Brunch at US Bank Tower
Yelp Events
633 West 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Much of this 4 3/5 star review constitutes the gratitude I have towards Katie and everyone else who helps her put on these events. This is the best Yelp Event I’ve ever been to. It was pretty fun to finally get to see the reason why that awesome little coffee shop Barista Society doesn’t exist in the lobby area anymore and was moved all the way to the back of US Bank Tower.
The Skyspace experience, which consisted of watching videos while going up elevators, definitely felt overly dramatized for what is essentially a great rooftop view of the (soon to be) second biggest building in the vicinity. The clean and stark white decor and minimalist furniture felt a bit like a VIP Lounge at an airport and definitely held onto the vibe that this is still a bank tower but hey – we’re dedicating a handful of floors to try and be a bit Hollywood. I am glad that this event allowed me to slide down that slide of theirs, which was what I was very excited to try and do.
US Bank Tower Slide –
I watched a silent film from 1920 and that was a time when the ambitious slides existed! Back then you had slides that will make you fly 15 feet in the air. Now there are too many rules to slide down a one-story slide that made me feel like a lame child. You sit on a metal slide on top of a dirty burlap blanket. Hold the blanket with both hands! Hold the blanket with both hands Christopher! Not worth $8!
Elite Mimosas –
Mimosas were awesome. There were mimosa servers at the very beginning who evanesced soon after the first 20 minutes. The blonde female bartender was awful and very argumentative about Yelp Elite members’ requests. I got a really simple mimosa so no complaints here but some Asian girl (I realize that this event was 80% Asian girls) in front of us asked for more juice in her mimosa and the woman went off about how she can’t do that – that’s NOT how a mimosa is made. It was funny to witness and I am certain that nobody took her to the side and told her that this was going to be a jungle of bitchy writers.
Food –
Fruit at the croissant table and the salad at the Eggs Benedict table were delish – coffee was good too. Somebody posted a picture of the bagel stack amongst the other food and wrote ‘as good as it looks!’ They probably did not try those bagels! Those bagels were stale and realized why that stack stayed pretty high the entire time I was there! I probably was the only person who was hopeful and gave it a go twice – I tried two of them – poppy/sesame medley and plain and they were dry and crackly. The bussers who found bagels dangling on top of mimosa flutes were the unfortunate ones who found my bagels.
People –
I didn’t talk to anyone else but my chaperone and a couple of people visiting the tower unassociated with the event – but they seemed happy to have come here and pay. So I think that this thing definitely suits its purpose for those visiting and trying to see the sights, you can definitely do that here.
Cafe Home
$ Korean, Coffee & Tea, Salad
3377 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90010
I don’t understand why Dole Whip is served by the most sketchy places. The last time I saw Dole Whip being served was at an ice cream shop in Palm Springs with a loudmouth owner who carries a bad attitude (see his epic snarky owner comment on my previous review of Lappert’s Ice Cream.) What I learned from that guy while he was talking a mile a minute was that Dole Whip IS vegan – so I knew I had to try it – just not at his shop!
There are literally only three places in Los Angeles that serve Dole Whip so I got to try it yesterday at this cave-like Korean cafe called Cafe Home. It was a bright August afternoon and I walk into this extremely dark cafe. After readjusting my eyes, I quickly made a note of the un-popularity of this place after seeing a long line of people outside the door of their neighbor the Boiling Crab versus only two or three people sitting at one table in this cafe. At the end of this dark and empty cafe was a confrontational ajumma – an older and unsmiling Korean maitre d’. I was walking towards her and she was walking towards me. I didn’t want her to get too close, so I quickly said that I’m here for Dole Whip. She stopped and turned around and went behind the counter and then barked that the smallest Dole Whip they have would be $5.50. Although a small Dole Whip from this place was $3.25 on a menu posted on Yelp from 2013, I find that everyone now thinks they’re on a trendy stretch of West Hollywood so the ridiculous 60% price inflation didn’t bother me too much.
What bothered me was that when she served it to me in a soft serve, she served the soft serve in such a way that it was hollow in the center. And I am especially disappointed because the Dole Whip was actually good – so I would have very much appreciated it if it wasn’t hollow in the center for the price I paid. I literally poked my spoon into the ice cream and it deflated. Dole Whip has the potential for it to be a trendy flavor served for similar prices at other much nicer shops as it is vegan and deliciously holds a kind of consistency between sorbet and actual ice cream. It’s just a shame that the most off-putting shops outside of Disneyland carry it. I just hope to one day be able to find this stuff at a place that I am confident doesn’t have old fossils to give me a hard time or try to rip me off.
The Wayfarer
$$ Hostels, Hotels, Venues & Event Spaces
12 E Montecito St
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
I believe most people would pay a lot of money for the fantastic experience of a nice place if they could. But most people can’t and if few can spend fifty or sixty bucks a night and share a room with four other people, it makes it worth it. I am one of those few people.
I’ve stayed at pretty standard to the most upscale ’boutique hostels’ in over ten countries. I’ve stayed at the ‘best hostel in the world’ located next to the Praca Do Comercio in Lisbon, Portugal, in which everyone who gets a bed gets a personalized home-cooked breakfast. This place comes CLOSE to having all the amenities of a good kick ass hostel. The scenery is beautiful, the spaces are clean and the location is perfect.
But THREE issues keep this place from being five star:
Communal Kitchen needs to stay COMMUNAL
UNLIKE hostels, the hotel allowed this large group of old white geezers to throw a party and take up the entire communal kitchen on Sunday night, October 2nd. NO hostel I’ve ever stayed at would ever let something like that ever go down and I suggest to management to not let people take over entire COMMUNAL areas for their private party.
Water Issues
The self-described ‘heated pool’ wasn’t and perhaps a 75 degree October day would invite anyone to take a dip in a cold pool but with expectations of dipping your toes in something warmer – that’s just false advertising. Secondly, I can’t stand the way that these new showers are built that are level with the floor of the entire bathroom. It’s totally pretentious and the drain did not (does not) work well in Room 102. So with a bathroom floor that’s level to the drain, it floods within a minute and my pants and underwear got pretty soaked.
I’ve Had Better Food At Hostel Hostels
Considering this place has A LOT of little kids running around here, I am surprised they don’t have more nutritious breakfast foods like the better hostels I’ve stayed at. ALL of the jams are of poor quality and have high fructose corn syrup in them. All the breads except the wheat bread were pre-packaged and stale tasting. The wheat bread was definitely pre-packaged but pretty yummy. And the bananas were more brown than yellow. They do have good coffee from Seattle’s Best. But no granola.
Dou Dou
£ Buffets, Vegan
6 Kentish Town Road
London NW1 9NX
United Kingdom
This might be one of the last ‘Tai’ vegan buffets in London; there used to be one in Bloomsbury that closed down. And another in Soho that closed down. I actually remember seeing more of these shops everywhere a decade back. While the food was actually tasty food, there was a tawdry sense of forwardness to get people in the door. The servers were barkers, once they got you in the door, they would hand you a plate and go back outside. And you could hear them yelling outside, pointing to the customer, me, eating their food.
I figured that they probably didn’t give a damn that it was vegan, but made the buffet vegan because they can leave out the food for a long time because old vegan food can’t really make people sick. It doesn’t spoil quite like milk or meat.
Anyway, I am unsure why this one is the (almost last one) standing but hear, hear. It’s got all the textured veggie and soy protein favorites that I have come to like from the other Chinese/Thai-style buffets. It has got, my personal favorite, soy chicken and other soy juicies. Everything is fresh here. Along with stir fried veggies, cold cabbage, fruit and really good rice. Why oh why is there no more of these in not-Camden Town? I mentioned before that sometimes the food is left out for a while. This place seems to freshen up at least a few items an hour. Nothing tasted like it was out, waiting for me to eat it, too long.
Imperial Spa
$$ Day Spas, Massage, Saunas
1875 Geary Blvd
San Francisco, CA 94115
I know now why most of the people who give this place rave reviews seem to be women. The men’s and women’s massage/acupuncture/steam/spa rooms are segregated but the men’s room doesn’t have the relaxing hot stone room, which is a huge bummer, in Korean. It also seems to have way less amenities in general. If you’re a man, you won’t get to lay on hot rocks nor get to gain equilibrium of your body’s energy or whatever wishful pseudoscience the hot stones are supposed to do. The men’s section has six plastic chairs for that instead.
I came into San Francisco after a long bus ride and felt gross. I checked Groupon out and I saw that this place had a Groupon deal going for sixteen bucks. I thought, a hot shower and relaxing steam room, why not?
After giving the woman in front the Groupon and then entering their really nice and spacious locker room and vanity room, the first thought I had of the spa, steam, and sauna rooms was a big fat underwhelming sigh. The entire steam and sauna area is about the same size of the locker room! The room is a 500 square foot room that is as tall as it is high. Why did you make such a grand locker room for such a tiny space?!
The room contained a tiny cold water pool, a tiny sauna, a tiny steam room that wasn’t very hot, and a decent-sized sauna that was incredibly hot. The steam room and sauna could comfortably seat six smaller framed men and a few more for standing room. There were five or six showers. One was kind of broken, two were out of shampoo, and one had a plastic chair with a bunch of towels hanging on top of it. At least one of those showers worked fine. There were also three or four sitting showers with buckets filled with shaving cream water and toothpaste.
I am glad I found that Groupon a few minutes before I entered because I now feel slightly jipped instead of incredibly jipped. I spent less money on two-story Korean spas with six rooms in Los Angeles. At least I got to shave, brush my teeth and sit in some hot bubbly water for a couple of hours before feeling refreshed and leaving.
Sweet! – CLOSED
$$ Candy Stores, Pop-up Shops
6801 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
I was looking to do Valentine’s Day present shopping early so I came here. The first time I came at 10:15am and it wasn’t open. The second time I came at 7pm and it was empty and perhaps closing down. It reminded me of being bored at The Disney Store when I was young with parents trying to kill time. It’s incredibly gimmicky and it’s got a very mountainous and colorful terrain of candy – a psychedelic equivalent of the candy that you’d find at Ralph’s or the drug store. Nothing stood out as interesting or vegan.
I have a non-vegan partner who likes chocolate so I came here to make a couple of do-it-yourself chocolate bars in a glass-encased kitchen manned by 15-year-old chocolatiers. I made two dark chocolates: I used raspberry filling with blueberries. The second I used Nutella (listed as chocolate hazelnut spread) filling on the second with tiny marshmallows, bananas and toffee bits.
I wanted to substitute tiny marshmallows with marshmallow fillings and the teenager was like no that absolutely can’t be done. Their rules for no substitutions are incredibly strict – with warnings on the walls, the order forms and the window. I can see people wanting to hang out and do substitutions all the time because this store is a bit of a tourist trap, but this place is supposed to be fun. So why not let us eat our damn cake? I have nothing else to say except mind the Yelp check-in deal. Apparently nobody uses it to order chocolates and I confused the guy upon presenting it to him. But it saves you an entire dollar upon buying two of these chocolate bars.
He told me it would take 30 minutes and before I could ask if I can leave and come back, he closed the window. I said hey! He either couldn’t hear me or was possibly ignoring me as he was doing the bars. But there is really no way to call these people unless they physically see you at the window or knock on the window. Since I was the only person in this chocolate lab with tables that had no seats for waiting and a large figurine of the Pillsbury dough boy around no trespassing tape, I assumed I didn’t have to stand there for 30 minutes and left. Upon coming back, I see a striped bag behind the window and assumed it was mine. I stood in front of the window and another teenager hardened by Hollywood comes up and looks at me with a deadpan expression. I didn’t know if he thought I was ordering or what. He didn’t say anything so I did the talking, two sentences worth of explaining how I wanted my bag, until he gave it to me.
POV Digital Lab LA (Traction Place) – CLOSED
Shared Office Spaces, Venues & Event Spaces
830 Traction Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90013
3.0 star rating
I came here for POV and a hackathon that was run by a bunch of hacks.
What I signed up for is building a website for a collaborative project group run by a project coordinator who had no idea what she was doing. I never met this person before so did not know what I was getting myself into when I signed up to join POV. We basically had a bunch of people who were getting paid by PBS to lecture and downright yell at us every hour and telling us that our project is very under-developed during the entire weekend. Yeah DUH we’re trying to make the best thing that we can in the little time we have possible. Stop bothering us! They basically would stop us mid-sentence and ask us what we’re doing and impart their hack wisdom every hour. It continued into the filmed presentations. And then it continued in the emailed comments a month later. That’s my hackathon in a nutshell and it was un-fun.
It wasn’t helped that it was hosted in this very stark shared office space made up mostly of concrete, glass and plastic. The perks of Impact Hub LA don’t include the uncomfortable office space with flimsy plastic chairs and very few power outlets. The perks of this place don’t include the one clean bathroom that they have that is located in very corner of the building in an adjacent hallway and the other dirtier bathroom shared by a bunch of other offices in another hallway behind it. The perks of this place don’t include it only having one entrance and exit via a fire escape to and from the cool Arts District location it is in behind the large parking lot. It is a very closed off place and has no outdoor patio area. It is as inviting as a large university classroom to get a cold computer science-y job done. Actually it not so fondly reminded me of this cold sterile building called the DARC (Digital Arts Resource Center) building that made us feel like we were in the ‘darc’ as it was a very white, cold, concrete cube with no cell phone reception that our studios were located in during my MFA at UC Santa Cruz.
Shame that they don’t incorporate more art into tech in their awesome Arts District location but it is what it is. If I were needing to work here in the future, I’d rather ‘create’ my own desk and code while looking at paint splatter and smelling art dust in one of the large art studio spaces with wifi nearby.
Clean & Done!
Home Cleaning, Home Organization, Personal Chefs
Los Angeles, CA 91607
I really don’t mind the actual job that their cleaner Ahmad did. But my partner is LIVID that Ahmad didn’t listen to the instructions he was given on thoroughly cleaning the floors and spending less time on the easier non-‘deep cleaning’ work like wiping down furniture and counters. Ahmad instead spent an hour and 40 minutes on wiping down stuff and 20 minutes on quickly mopping for their, as described on their site, 2-N-1 ‘deep cleaning’. I told my partner that he should have been on the cleaner more from the start. So lesson learned: if you want a specific chore done, tell them to do that very thing first!
After my partner complained to Clean & Done, their stance is to defend the cleaner and blame the client for ‘grossly underestimating’ what two hours of cleaning a 300 square foot studio apartment constitutes. I had to hear my partner vent all last night about how management blamed him. I’m like baby shut up, they write obnoxious responses to everyone. However they offered free 15 minutes of service next time as an acknowledgment that Ahmad should have listened better.
My problem with this business is not the cleaning or the owner responses but that they basically are an on-demand service with very, very few stable contract workers. When I purchased the Groupon, I immediately signed up for the service on their website. You sign up for a time slot on their website that you’re probably not going to get. When you don’t get the time slot you initially requested, they make you text or email them your alternate availability, since they don’t have an online system set up for this, unlike Cozy Maid’s system. Each time a time slot that you requested is not fulfilled, you get more texts and emails about them not being able to secure staff. I received eight of these messages. They apparently have no staff during the entire weekday who want to work mornings in the middle of LA (Hollywood). I spent a week and a half receiving these texts and emails until they gave me an available time slot for a weekday afternoon that I DIDN’T say I have availability for, but I was so desperate to get anyone to do this job, I begged my partner to do me the favor and sit for this guy.
It makes a lot of sense now that the owner and management are so defensive of their workers because they have so few of them to begin with! They probably are scared to death of nobody cleaning for them if they rebuke them for doing a shoddy job or not listening. If you know of anyone who is looking for a job, you should probably suggest they work for this business! You set your own hours and nobody will blame you for being lackadaisical as long as you’re wiping something!
Michael Levine Fabrics 26
$$ Fabric Stores
920 Maple Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90015
Michael Levine is a last alternative kind of fabric store. When I can’t quickly find what I want along the perimeters of Los Angeles St. or 9th Street, I end up coming here. Usually, I am lazy and willing to spend a few bucks more than I would at a smaller fabric store. It is probably the biggest fabric store in the area. It is as good as the other big fabric stores I go to, but it feels a bit more indie and cooler than the other ones. I think I am mistaking their clutter, griminess, and haphazard organization for being cool. They don’t have aisles here, more like a maze of intertwining tables.
I have come here for three or four Halloweens. I am helping make an abominable snowman costume this year. Other years included a homemade He-man, and a brony. It usually has everything I need! One particular thing that stands out for me is their selection of dyes. I love their iDye. I had a pair of cotton shorts that I got from Urban Outfitters for $10 that bleached in the sun within a month. I used a cool blue-grey-ish color, mixed the iDye in a pot, mixed the shorts in the iDye, stirred for an hour, and ended up with a pair of jet black shorts. Be careful!
Melrose Hostel
Hostels
646 N Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90004
I needed a place to stay on the cheap between subletting my studio in Hollywood and flying to my studio in Madrid. I called them up and I decided to stay here because the guy, possibly the owner, who I spoke with on the phone was incredibly friendly. He told me about a 5% discount on their website and bicycle parking on the roof. It is cheaper than any of the other rates offered on other websites. It was like $28 a night! It’s against their rules to be an Angelino and stay here, so I used proof of my travels and Spanish residence to create a loophole that I could jump through.
This hostel is small and it’s furnished like a Boba shop. They’re located in the middle of Koreatown’s furniture row and the decor looks like an amalgamation of leftover furniture of nearby stores that have gone out of business. They’ve basically got three rooms with 14 beds each: Men, Women, Unisex. There is a common room on the ground level with a television, a refrigerator, a communal table, and a couch. The Men’s room is a bit cheaper than the other rooms, and it was full every night. Since LA is synonymous with homelessness and a lack of affordable housing, it’s probably not surprising to find a share of older people who normally wouldn’t stay at hostels anywhere else in the world sharing bunk beds here. Each of the rooms has got lockers. They seem like repurposed high school or gym lockers from 40 years ago with lock mechanisms that you sort of have to wiggle the lock in and out of.
The breakfast is very delicious with fresh watermelon, blueberries, strawberries, cantaloupe, bagels (prepackaged), bread, orange juice, and coffee. However it runs out at 8 am and depending on who’s working that morning, it takes a long time to refill. PARTICULARLY – the Asian woman who wears sandals absolutely hates refilling the breakfast. She gave me an attitude and raised the orange juice and milk cartons when I asked if she could refill the one small coffee maker that they use since it was empty for like the 15 minutes I was there from 7:45 – 8 am. Yeah, it’s unusual that one worker is in charge of checking people out, refilling breakfast, and basically everything – so get another person to keep an eye on it!
There are a few other bicyclists who stayed here too. They got a system of which you could lock up bikes at the top of the hostel. They’ve got an incredible rooftop that is mostly used as a smoking patio, sadly. But it is also used for lounging. And then the bikes. I’m saying this as someone who works out obsessively, it is tricky to get a bicycle up those steep steps to the rooftop! I can see a weaker person completely losing their grip. You not only have to walk up stairs, but maneuver the bicycle along a winding passageway and hunch where the ceiling gets low, while keeping the bike high enough to not hit the stairs. But I believe this is on whoever brings a bike, because you need to possess at least a semi-advanced level of competency to bicycle along any part of Melrose. Melrose is absolutely narrow and horrifying to bicycle, especially where the cars are pushing past you to get onto the 101 onramp, and Western, which is less crazy but doesn’t have a bike lane either.
LEVEL
Airlines
380 World Way
Los Angeles, CA 90045
Months ago, I booked a flight to Barcelona from Iberia Airlines. It was a nice and inexpensive $530 direct round trip flight. What Iberia did was morph my return flight into this new discount airline called “LEVEL”.
LEVEL is like a transatlantic Spirit Airlines. The ten-hour flights offer no free drinks, no free food, everything extra. I didn’t quite know this. So if you’re hungry or starving or want pillows or blankets, that’s on you peasant. But on top of that, the lines at the gates for these flights are very long because the planes are filled to capacity. There is one incredibly long and slow single file line. Both times it splintered with people coming from the left and from the right due to a general lack of direction of the line. You think you are about to enter a plane but no. The actual LEVEL planes at both LAX and Barcelona are not at the gate but parked at the far edges of the tarmac. The lines lead through the airplane gate to a shuttle. After getting through the line, the shuttle is a 15-20 minute ride to the edge of the airport, with people filled to the absolute capacity in these things.
The employees at LEVEL’s Check-In are incredibly defensive about an aisle seat request. “This is a low cost airline,” was said first to me. “We choose your seat.” I had three employees at the gate ignore me for about fifteen minutes until I addressed them really loudly. I almost surprised myself at how annoyed I sounded. I had a question about paying in cash. “I don’t know. He can help you,” the woman said and walked away. Then ten seconds of me staring at the guy. “I think so.” The guy said, not looking. I hope they’re just apathetic, not rude.
One thing that Iberia updated was having personal movie consoles and it’s cool that it now has personal movie consoles for the 10-hour journey, but they’re the glitchiest movie consoles on any transatlantic flight I’ve ever flown. Mine crashed twice and took about twenty minutes to reboot after a black screen. I couldn’t buy food or drinks. Everything was “sold out”. Even their tiny €4 bottle of water. So I couldn’t order anything. Their stellar staff didn’t know what to do about it either. The woman was irritated that I tried to give her cash without ordering from the console. She was determined that my glitchy console was working until she saw everything was sold out and literally didn’t know what to do with just cash. I wonder about the nightmare that would follow if I only had a credit card and it declined. I am going to have to take a mental note not to die of hunger or starvation in the future before embarking on what’s revealed to be a discount airline. By the way, everything is sold in euros.
It’s almost worth an extra hundred dollars to fly with an airline that provides food and drink, employees with a way higher morale, and planes that actually land at and fly from the gate. I like to save money but would seriously reconsider ever booking a flight with “LEVEL” Airlines again. I am usually pretty fair with discount airlines, but this was a pretty awful flight from such a new airline.
Aer Lingus
Airlines
200 World Way
Los Angeles, CA 90045
Aer Dingus has many empty seats. It has an outdated movie viewing console. It plays a propaganda film at the end of each flight puffing the joys of Ireland like an over-inflated balloon.
I was on a roundtrip flight to Barcelona from LAX. I got one of those cheap flights for $500-some-odd dollars with one of the stops on the flight landing in Dublin. My other flights were British Airways and American Airlines, which offer updated movie consoles and seat partitions that go all the way up. However, they are filled to the brim in comparison.
The joys of having such an empty flight include having my own row. You really can’t enjoy having your own row because the seat partitions only go so high at a 45-degree angle. But I still wanted the woman sitting next to me gone. And she wanted me gone. Fortunately, we were on the same wavelength but I couldn’t go anywhere since I had a vegan meal coming to my seat number.
When she left, I stretched out my leg a little bit and watched Swiss Army Man. My partner was dying somewhere in the back of the plane due to eating day-old fish tapas in Barcelona, complaining about not laying comfortable on a row of chairs with partitions at 45 degree angles high. So if you want to actually lay down and sleep on transatlantic flights, like on Virgin Atlantic, American, and Air New Zealand when they’re empty, you can’t do that too comfortably on this one. Not sure how sustainable these empty flights to and from Ireland are, since I doubt they make any money on most of them, but their emptiness makes it a very comfortable and inexpensive way with getting to and from Europe.
Clifton’s Republic
$$ Bars, Venues & Event Spaces, Dance Clubs
648 S Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90014
Clifton’s Cafeteria looks like it’s been through a rock tumbler but still offers an old-timey kind of charm about it. All of the old pictures of how it used to be are not here anymore. This isn’t a how-it-used-to-be place anymore but an old cafeteria that is repurposed by branding and marketing to offer generic American buffet-style food at not-cafeteria prices. I enjoy the over-polished urban decor with mood lighting because it is pleasing and acts as a window to its authentic past behind its new Las Vegas veneer. So, fortunately, for me, seeing old concrete walls behind what was cleaned and stripped off feels a little authentic by it being like a museum presentation piece.
You begin your journey by walking left from the host stand to the first-floor cafeteria. You see a carving station, $meat (however much sliced-on-demand meat is), $3 cups of quinoa, $6 soups, $6 ‘side salad’ and $11 ‘dinner size’ salad. And everything else that is at least $3. Freebies include that you can grab water in a paper Coca-Cola cup and bread rolls are free. You carry a tray, and are responsible for grabbing a napkin and forks first.
We sat on the second-floor bar. My friend grabbed a Manhattan from a very slow bartender. I finished my $6 small side salad while he was waiting for his drink. The salad was good and I added onions, mushrooms, cucumbers, spinach, carrots, and vinaigrette. The guy doing the bar was either kind of new at his job or doesn’t have a bar manager who carries a bullwhip. I work at a music venue with bartenders that fill a drink in one hand and place napkins on the bar in the other, while simultaneously taking new orders. It took about ten minutes for him to get his drink with three other people there. After he finished his drink and food, we went back to the bar. I then took out my iPhone timer to see how long it would take for this guy to get him his check and credit card from the computer at the bar. It took four and a half minutes while serving two more customers.
We didn’t have time to try the third-floor bar but went upstairs to look at it. It is incredibly attractive. It offers a lot of beauty and quietness and feels a bit more upscale and not like a place for high traffic like the two previous floors. The only thing I thought was of how something feels subliminal about the image on the tv screen of a cathedral at the very center of the third-floor bar. What are we supposed to pay reverence to?
Stir Crazy Coffee House
$ Coffee & Tea
6903 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038
I really, really like this place to work. It is always comfortably dim. It is impressive that it sustains the same amount of dimness no matter what time of day or night it is! There are a lot of outlets and the wifi is probably the fastest of any coffee shop I have been to. I think the old guys are funny. Oh, and the drinks! And I think the spicy chai is the best in Los Angeles and never-ending coffee with free refills is incredibly well priced and just as well made.
There are a lot of older guys who fawn over the one particular barista with glasses who reminds me of Lisa Loeb. Seriously, I believe more than half the people who are regulars here come here because they have a huge boner for her. They disappear when the guy with the accent is working later at night. It seems that older guys would not be oblivious that she is just charismatic in a nerdy way to everyone but perhaps they love any positive attention they can get.
After I ordered a drink, there was one 50-year-old heavyset guy with long slicked back and grayish curly hair that came inside quite eagerly. He walked in as if he could not wait to be talked to, the door banged and he loudly began to pace back and forth behind me, like a large lion pacing back and forth in a cage. The steps he made on the wooden floor echoed with his hubris. He was spreading his fat body out, anticipating on talking to the barista while she was making my soy chai.
I concluded that it definitely was some kind of alpha male thing because after pacing back and forth three or four times, he could not wait any longer and went next to the register in front of me. He asked how she was doing while she was turned around. She said “ok.” And he proceeded to say something cheeky about how well his business was doing and then assured her that he will be back later.
USA Hostels – CLOSED
Hostels
711 Post St
San Francisco, CA 94109
I actually wasn’t going to review USA Hostels on Post in San Francisco since I only stayed here one night in March. But since I discovered yesterday on Hostelworld that management wrote back a smug ‘most people enjoy our atmosphere’ to my comment about it being a party hostel with an awful common room in the basement, I felt like I should expand my comment via Yelp. I only discovered their comment after reviewing a couple of other hostels during my Europe excursion. I also believe in some places not being for everyone – and this place holds true for me (and Cori N. on Yelp who similarly had a negative experience with regards to the amount of aggressively loud party people staying here).
I stay at a lot of hostels and this is by far the most overrated place I’ve been to. Besides the mishap of them having overbooked my room with one other person (the issue was remedied by me going to reception to get the guy out of my bed) and breakfast virtually having run out an hour after it began, my biggest issue was the main common rooms of the hostel are in the dim and narrow basement and all the couches either face the washer and driers in the laundry room or the pool table. Most hostels I’ve stayed at only have breakfast in the basement and have common rooms on other levels because it’s more breathable, enjoyable, and comfortable. HI City Center – my favorite hostel in San Francisco – has common rooms on two levels – the main area and the mezzanine. It’s incredible and pleasant.
When I say ‘narrow’ here – I mean the ceiling in the dim basement is really low. Their laundry room, which is about the size of a bathroom, is ironically the most comfortable space to do work. They’ve got washers and dryers on one wall and cozy couch chairs and tables three feet away on the other wall. Mind you, I am indeed saying that the laundry room is the MOST comfortable part of their common area. The kitchen, lounge and eating area are all one big room for partying. All of the couches in that lounge face the pool table. So if you decide to sit there, you are basically joining in on Game Night, which is the night I stayed.
When I went down into the dim basement on Game Night, there was this miasma – a heavy odor – of sweat and beer in this unventilated, narrow hallway and low-ceiling basement. It was only 11 pm! There were a ton of 21-year-old guys yelling and beer cups everywhere. I work at a really popular music venue so I am around people who like to unwind that way all the time. BUT THERE ARE NO OTHER COMMON ROOMS for people who want a quieter space to go on their laptops, except that laundry room, and there were literally two people on each couch chair and people sitting along the wall to avoid those loudmouths with beer odor. There is also the drafty waiting room in front of reception, which is basically as comfortable as the heavy fluorescent lights it is situated in.
I initially felt like I just stayed at the wrong place, but after reading the reply left by Ria S. to Cori N.’s review, I know that I stayed at the wrong place. This is probably a reply left by the same person who posted the comment to my review. If you really want to tout and celebrate your amazing diversity of guests, why is it set up so every couch and room is facing a pool table and beer?
I lived in San Francisco and there is nothing about this place that offers a semblance to the city. It is a very generic, culture-less party hostel. And that’s fine if that’s what most people want. But if management wants to leave a comment on MY review that pats themselves on the back about their beloved hostel with a spacious basement, then this is my response. I recommend anyone who reads my review to stay at my favorite San Francisco hostel HI – City Center as it has an awesome local staff and atmosphere, but if you are scared to navigate the Tenderloin, then try HI – Downtown. It’s got a cool common room on an upper level, it’s next to Market Street, and has got an amazing breakfast with SF bagels that don’t run out.
Araya’s Place – Thai Vegan Restaurant
$$ Vegan, Thai
8101 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90048
Avaya’s place is more like a 3.5 out of 5 stars. The food is not bad. But I am rounding down to 3 stars because it simply was too expensive and average tasting for Thai vegan.
Avaya’s place serves the standard watery red tofu curry that you could find at any given Thai restaurant in Los Angeles. Thai Patio or Red Corner Asia, for example, have the same watery red curry that they serve in a similar portion for half the price of Araya’s $10 lunch special. No Bueno in Thai. You, dear reader, may say that “those places are not vegan though.” My rebuttal would be to name other Thai vegan examples, like The Vegan Joint or Vegan House, which would give you a heaping big bowl of curry with rice for the same $10 price. And their curries are thick and way more flavorful.
Don’t get me wrong, there was nothing majorly wrong with Araya’s red curry. The tofu was firm and the vegetables were fresh. The red curry though tastes pretty weak and uninspired. I asked for extra spicy. The chirpy younger woman who was serving me, I don’t know her name but I’ll call her ‘Gabby’ since all she did was talk to the other table she was serving for the 20 minutes I was there, told me that they’ll make the curry an extra spicy ’10 on a 1 to 5 scale’. The curry tasted like it had a lot of spice added after the curry was cooked. It wasn’t ‘extra spicy’ but the level of spiciness that I have come to expect from most Thai places not serving a Thai person. They also serve Thom Kha soup and similarly put the spices in post hoc, and it’s similarly unmemorable.
All I have to say is that this is surprising to me that it’s a 4.5 out of 5-star average rating. I guess I had high expectations coming in here, but this place would not stand a chance to hold that 4.5/5 rating in my Thai Town hood.
The Broad
Art Museums
221 S Grand Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Finally, LA has a thorough art museum that highlights the contemporary art besties and worsties that all art majors in college come to intimately know. Broad (pronounced ‘Brode’) has got an entire fleet of artwork from pop to conceptual art that makes a statement towards globalization, mass-production, and iconography.
Julie Mehretu, one of her map-like abstracts, and one of my living favorite artists.
The people who didn’t book two to three months in advance have to wait 30 to 40 minutes on the line that wraps around the building. Everyone essentially gets in free but the un-ticketed people will not get to see the mirror lights exhibit, which I think was once at Tate in London without any ridiculous line. So go to London instead of wait in line! The mirror exhibit is a fun, immersive experience but it is not worth booking two months in advance to just see that.
The art gallery is two stories and 1 1/2 stories worth of art, but it takes about 90 to 120 minutes to thoroughly see and hear everything. One thing that isn’t enforced though I think should be, and I should have been reprimanded for doing is NO photography. There are camera phones on every angle of people and their friends trying to take photos (especially of the Murakami and Koons stuff), that it becomes an inevitably losing game of not getting caught in someone’s picture and becoming featured in Yelp photo number 1451 of the Brode.
Artist Glenn Ligon’s physical description as an Antebellum runaway slave.
MatchaBar – CLOSED
$ Coffee & Tea, Vegan, Breakfast & Brunch
3534 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Matcha is fine but there’s an epidemic of banality and too much storage space on people’s phones. I am glad I didn’t eat here because when I sat down to try this thing, this woman then sat next to me and was obsessively photographing her drink and smiling at her phone while doing it for the duration of while I was there. I felt a mixture of pity and embarrassment that maybe in a more naive state of my life that could have been me, contributing to the ugly photo pool of our consumption. And partly because she was so close to me that people would think we were buddies and I was indulging her hobby.
Anyway, give me a cold brew. Matcha is one of those things that tastes no different anywhere I go. It’s the type of milk and sweetener that affects how the matcha powder tastes. It’s nice to be offered coconut milk at no additional price as this thing tasted as good as I could expect, though there was a part of me that hoped to have a higher expectation. But it was fine. It tasted as good as the best ones I have come to try over the many years. Meaning, good. But as I am not a big matcha person, I never fathomed a need to have matcha in such a pressing way, that there would be a store dedicated to it. Nor have I had a need to photograph my matcha cup and post it on here, to assure my 300 or whatever friends on Yelp that this drink is indeed green.
On a Saturday, this place had a line. It seemed to get busy, then it stopped, then it got busy again. They are nearby the human mouse trap Millie’s Diner so there’s a ton of people in the vicinity, and being on a patio nearby the narrow sidewalk of the hubbub is a bit anxiety-inducing. But they indeed offer a type of minuscule sitting arrangement in front and wifi, which are two nice enough things to look forward to if looking for a hang out spot in the area.
6/11/2017
Useful: 2 Funny: 3 Cool: 0
Comment from Max F. of MatchaBar
Business Owner
Hi Chris,
Thanks for taking the time to come to MatchaBar and leaving us a review. I am sorry that some of our other customers seemed to sully in the way of your experience. Obviously we can’t really control how deep someone is going to go in on their photo shoot.
I would love to get some more feedback from you – if you could send me a message i have a few questions I would love to ask. As I read your review it seems to say that we are doing just about as good a job as any Matcha spot could do – because you’re not that into Matcha…
For future reference (maybe you missed it in-store) we do have an amazing coffee partner and serve up a full coffee/espresso menu for individuals such as yourself who just don’t really get down on Matcha. Bar9 (roaster in culver city) has an awesome cold brew system which is actually why we brought them on board. If you are in the area again and are in the mood – I urge you to give it a go.
City of Los Angeles
Public Services & Government
Los Angeles, CA
High school graduation for a boy from Orange County was coming closer and closer. Turning 18 meant going to Club Beat It or Club Bang. The class of 2001 was not the Class of 2000 but the first high school graduating class past the millennium, which being the first class was somehow more important than being zeroth. First prize, first kiss, first pregnancy. There was The Smell, too. It was nice because the Friday-slash-Saturday night Los Angeles traffic would guarantee that the hangout would be past 2 am or 3 am when you get back.
But being in Los Angeles was separate from living in Los Angeles. There is nothing really penetrable about visiting Los Angeles. (The car is just another surface against the city.) And having abandoned Orange County years ago to San Francisco and London, I moved here, to a close but separate place, because I missed the weather. I also knew about the culture, the isolation, the pretension that is not the beast of just Los Angeles, but Southern California in general. The seductive part of Los Angeles is breaking through its seeming impenetrability. Perhaps seduction is found in the tension that another surface brings it. I’m not sure if Los Angeles could be Los Angeles without the moving car.
Getting to know Los Angeles requires willpower to combat it and a surface to ride against it. I don’t need a car here so I have ridden with my bike from my apartment in Los Feliz to other things on a daily basis for three years. I have hit into things pretty hard so Los Angeles is literally in my arms and legs, and my own blood is on it too. The cracks become the focus if they are what make you fall. I’ve embraced the isolation and glamorous surface and crisscross (and sometimes fall from) these fragments. Yet I think the fragments from around these cracks are the tectonic plates that keep this city moving. There is a hazy cloud of Angelenos who literally live on separate tectonic plates and co-exist as a sub-community of the moving car. And I embrace the counterintuitive impulse to coexist on a tectonic plate, movement against movement, and I like the weather.
Spirit Airlines
Airlines
300 World Way
Los Angeles, CA 90045
The second best thing next to spending $100 instead of $200 is that they sell “fancy mixed nuts” for $4. It’s embarrassing to ask for it. “Can I have the fancy mixed nuts?” Sounds like something that would come in quite a big package. It actually does – filled to the brim with delicious almonds and cashews mixed with golden raisins and pretzels.
The airline is great for people who travel light. They show a naked person on the website under the “bare bones” option and highly advice against it so many times, on the site, and through email but don’t fret. “Bare bones” gets you at least a few days’ worth of stuff on the plane without spending $30-50. If you have a bag that is under 18″ x 14″ x 7″ like my Diaper Dude messenger bag (which is almost exactly those measurements), you can travel with five shirts, five pairs of socks and five pieces of underwear, one laptop, two chargers, toiletries and one hardcover book just fine.
I have flown to Las Vegas and Portland from Los Angeles with this airline and found my trips to have gone smoothly. It’s really the only discount airline that flies out of LAX, so I support it for that reason alone.
Paradis – CLOSED
$ Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt
1726 N Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
The major irritation about this place is their deceptive advertising. They forwardly claim to have vegan options – and yes, technically they do. I went in here once, and after asking, the worker pointed to two sorbets. It’s not only irritating, it’s extremely tacky to claim that a sorbet is vegan because sorbet is always vegan.
Any ice cream shop that has sorbet can claim to have a vegan option, which almost all ice cream shops in Los Angeles do, which makes this place as special as Häagen Dazs. Unlike an ice cream shop like Scoops in Los Angeles or Maggie Mudd in San Francisco which actually has vegan options, because they offer soy-based ice creams – Sorbet is ALWAYS vegan. It always has been vegan and always will be. Using dairy in sorbet would make it sherbet.
It’s as absurd as claiming that a fruit stand has a vegan bowl of cherries. Or a coffee shop has a vegan espresso. Or a bakery has a vegan loaf of bread. Sorbet is ALWAYS vegan. Please either get non-dairy ice cream or remove the vegan label. This deceptive advertising on Yelp’s iPhone app, which got me in this place, is making ignorant people more ignorant.
One extra star because the ‘vegan sorbet’ tasted decent.
The Literary Guillotine – CLOSED
$$ Bookstores
204 Locust St
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
I bought A Thousand Plateaus a thousand days ago from The Literary Guillotine for a course I was taking in 2009. About eighty days after a thousand days ago, I chucked A Thousand Plateaus through an open door of the Santa Cruz Art Museum, never to see it again.
And three days ago, I get a letter from my Ph.D. examiner:
Please include citations from A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! And then I realized I still haven’t woken up from my nightmare. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NOT DELEUZE AND GUATTARI!
The hangover of Deleuzian critical theory begins to wash from the shore again as I remember reading and re-reading A Thousand Plateaus from a thousand days ago.
How I’ve cited scores upon scores of sources for a research paper desperately hoping to avoid running into this schizophrenic telephone book of critical theory that I had bought and chucked to escape.
He/they/me/we wrote on Page 10 that “[e]very rhizome contains lines of segmentarity according to which it is stratified, territorialized, organized, signified, attributed, etc., as” blah blah blah “constantly flees. There is a rupture” and rupture and rupture and rupture AND RUPTURE AND RUPTURE. “These lines always tie back to one another.”
You see Chris G. from Yelp, once you enter the ‘rhizome’, you will never leave the ‘rhizome’. The book of critical theory that you have despised so comes back to cling to you forever. Deleuze and Guattari really fucking miss you and want to burrow throughout your citations and demand credit.
This storage-sized bookstore in downtown Santa Cruz is a cauldron of spells of critical theory. It is stacked with course books upon course books for purchase. Do people ever read critical theory for shits and giggles? Any-who, somehow the things you don’t want to remember, the places you never want to re-visit in your mind again, the books you don’t want to miss become part of your life again.
I didn’t choose Deleuze and Guattari, but somehow my most hated book became the most crucial one to write about.
Tommaso Ristorante Italiano
$$ Italian, Pizza, Seafood
1042 Kearny St
San Francisco, CA 94133
Where to begin…
Back in the mid-2000s, there was a boy who liked a girl named Lauren. Lauren lived in a custom-built house on a hill in Corte Madera in Marin. She wore black asymmetrical dresses, and had black asymmetrical hair. She liked writing passive-aggressive letters on postcards and looking at brightly colored cupcakes that would adorn the windowsills of bakeries. She was the type who did not like to be stereotyped and yet would predictably disagree with this description.
The boy invited the girl to meet his parents who were visiting from out of town. They were finicky about the restaurants they dined at. The parents were anal-retentive and unadventurous but liked Italian food. The boy chose Tommaso’s.
The parents balked. Porn theaters were in the neighborhood, a fake $100 bill was rolling along the asphalt in the wind… They were seated on a small folding table hastily placed in the front of the restaurant. It was busy. The portions were too small for the parents, and the conversation was pat and topical. The best part of the dinner was the sauce.
To sum it up, the boy spent more time trying to impress his parents with the choice of restaurant than accommodating the girl with black hair and black asymmetrical dress, who never spoke to him again.
Tommaso’s was not Macaroni Grill for the parents. And not a good place to reconcile lovers of fake Italian food with lovers of cute windowsill cupcakes.
Sparadise (Hollywood Thai Massage) – CLOSED
$$ Massage, Massage Therapy, Waxing
5909 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
A great deep tissue massage I had, mostly thanks to Groupon.
While I essentially paid as much as what I would have paid within a two-mile radius at any other Thai massage place with their ‘discounted’ $40 rate on Groupon, I felt like Sparadise was well worth the price. I actually got it for a discounted rate on top of another discounted rate for $28 due to a promotion on top of another promotion on Groupon, ha! They also offered a non-Groupon rate for three massages at $120 or so. I don’t feel bad or guilty for calling them out on milking Groupon because this massage place is really booming with their 1000+ buyers. Thus it seems like they have a pretty healthy business going on that survives around their Groupon deal. It’s also a smart idea in a way because it gets people like me in the door who otherwise wouldn’t come in.
This tiny place has a campy elegance about it and looks as fancy as a nice boutique hostel. The reception service is as appropriately shoddy as what I would expect from a $40/hour type of place, which I didn’t mind. Yesterday, I came in at 1 p.m. and the receptionist asked if I had a Groupon and looked for availability on her computer. She told me there was none and instead of giving me an appointment for tomorrow, she said someone would call me back about an appointment tomorrow. I guess I was on the ‘standby’ list until around 8:40 p.m. when I got a call from a 323 number and I answered the phone. I said ‘hello’ and the Sparadise receptionist emphatically said in a heavy Thai accent ‘massage – come in right now, come in right now!’ There apparently was a last-minute cancellation, I followed her orders and came in.
I came in at 8:50 p.m. (I live a mile away). The receptionist gave me an up-sell speech about getting the $120 rate for three massages and that she would happily cancel the Groupon. I politely said no way and filled out the form. She asked me what kind of massage I wanted. I said ‘deep tissue’. I didn’t know if they would even do deep tissue with the Groupon but she said okay. A few minutes later, she took me to a dark room and told me to unrobe but to keep on my underwear and lay face down on the massage table. I unrobed, put my wallet and my phone under my pants and shoes. I left my underwear on and waited with my head in the hole for what seemed like 10 minutes.
When the masseuse came in, she greeted me and began doing the deep tissue massage Thai style. She jumped up on the table and began standing on top of my upper calf using it as a balance as she began doing a dance between my calf and other parts of my legs, butt, and back. I was worried that she would fall off if I flinched so I tried to stay as still as possible. She then got off my calf and went through the motion of thoroughly kneading my back and it was painful but good. At some point, hot stones were dumped on top of my back and she caressed my legs with them and placed them on my hands. That really did nothing for me, but I am glad I experienced a ‘hot stone massage’ if that’s what it was. I emphasized wanting a hard massage on my shoulders and back and she delivered.
When it was over, a tiny mug of room temperature water was served over a table with a gratuity chart under the glass on top of the table that emphasized that the standard gratuity is $15-20 per massage. I thought half of that was more appropriate. That’s what this Groupon did for me and I am glad I came here. And I can now safely say that I am officially DONE with getting massages from Groupon.
Pink’s Hot Dogs
$ Hot Dogs
709 N La Brea Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038
If hot dogs are the opiate for the masses then this place is a megachurch. This place was empty the time I went. I was close to Pink’s Hot Dogs, hungry and the line was not longer than three people standing there so I decided to try a Pink’s hot dog. The line was so quick, that I still needed another minute to see if they would take credit cards and if there was a minimum amount needed to order (they do take cards and there was no minimum charge). So I let the pacing dude with a backward hat, shin-length shorts, and a skateboard behind me order first.
It was 11 am. The mood of all of us Hollywood rednecks queueing to form the long line that made this place famous was already becoming electric. I knew if I didn’t eat then and there, then I probably would not come back. It was seriously do or die.
I can look up the fancy title for the vegan hot dog with guacamole I got but I am frankly too lazy and it is insignificant enough for anyone to give it a name. The most important thing about it is that it is the only veggie option at this place. So the only veggie option here is what I ordered. It was as good as boiling a tofu pup, putting it on top of a fresh Oroweat hot dog bun, and adding Del Taco-grade guacamole on it. It was very, very simple, plain, and about $4. As Warhol once said, a coca-cola is always equally satisfying, it is never better or worse than the one before it or the one after it. But with hot dogs.
Philz Coffee
$ Coffee & Tea, Breakfast & Brunch
801 S Hope St
Los Angeles, CA 90017
I remember being in an SAT prep class in high school and having picked my nose that it began to bleed uncontrollably fast all over the desk. I ran out of the classroom with the bloody nose to the hallway bathroom. Nobody said anything as I ran out covering my nose, as it was an advanced class so everyone was inhibited and good.
When I got back, there were drops of blood all over the top of my desk that nobody was looking at. Everyone was too into their own world, trying to read faster. That moment kind of dawned on me when I realized I was sitting very isolated on a communal table at Philz Coffee with a large hot black coffee that spilled down my arm and onto the desk.
I quickly pressed 3-0-3-3 to open the bathroom door and pour water over my burning arm. When I got back, everyone that is sitting a foot or two away from me is still on their laptops and ignoring the big brown puddle of coffee.
Everything about how this place runs is robotic, too. It makes me wonder whether the coffee shop makes the people this way or the other way around. Philz, not just at this location, is made like a conveyor belt for a caffeinated human. The clockwise line to the baristas, to the cashier to the big power-stripped communal table to the exit is so over-practical in a way that I feel like some places are only made for walking, others for waiting and others for sitting.
Order, – here –
Wait, – here –
Work, – here –
Socialize, – here –
Exit, – here –
The coffee however is good. Everything is pour-over, so medium coffees type 1 2 3 4 5 & 6 have such-and-such notes. I got the barista who just loved making coffee and made me her own special blend. It tasted fine. I grimaced when I tasted the dry chocolate essence of the Mocha Tesora. And I love how the big inedibly fresh mint leaves take up half the drink, not.
Trader Joe’s
$$ Grocery
1600 N Vine St
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Trader Joe’s used to be my favorite grocery store until about 2013 when TJ refused to open up a location in Downtown LA. They had such a major chance to be THE grocery store in those parts. And after that moment in time – something struck a very painful chord that I couldn’t ever rely on Trader Joe’s being there for me again. It’s like seeing my old favorite market slowly disintegrating with the tides of time. It is probably too inexpensive and a bit too mediocre for the next gilded wave of gentrification in Los Angeles, and will soon be systematically replaced by Whole Foods or Sprouts or – barf – Lassen’s. It is also like seeing something you loved but took advantage of over the last decade wither away that there is anxiety now attached with it. This grocery chain is languishing, not expanding, and has closed its next closest store in West Hollywood.
Their prepackaged foods, desserts, and other goodies that I have come to love about this place probably don’t match up with Equinox opening up across the street here. But even if their yummy and inexpensive vegan trail mix cookies, falafel wraps, chia strawberry smoothies are a throwback to the good ol’ 2000s, they are still three of my favorite things.
The people are so friendly too – that it reminds me of how anti-social I am. Whenever I come to Trader Joe’s, I always wear a jacket or a very plain shirt because cashiers at Trader Joe’s always start conversations about my shirts. I don’t want to know about your sister attending OTIS next spring. Or on the flip side, that OTIS – as in the elevator company – is props-worthy. I don’t care that you know of someone who’s been to Puerto Rico or ‘scored’ a Jimmy Kimmel t-shirt too. (I found mine at Goodwill.) It reminds me of how having a lot of tattoos helps with hooking up with people. Whenever I hook up with someone, they usually start with a tattoo, stroke the skin, and start a conversation about my bird, or guillotine, or whale. But it’s at the checkout stand and I don’t want to come, I want to go!
gré Coffeehouse & Art Gallery
$$ Art Galleries, Coffee & Tea, Vinyl Records
278 N Palm Canyon Dr
Palm Springs, CA 92262
One of the things that first drew me to Yelp from a decade ago was finding a cool, and very deserving business that needs praises and recognition out there to know that it is cool and out there!
This coffee shop, only a three-week-old infant as I am writing it, is a very ambitious and unusual one. It feels a bit off-the-beaten-track but it is really in the middle of everything in Palm Springs. While it serves as good of iced coffee as I’ve had in the area, the person who runs it is an awesome black and white photographer with her edgy erotic photographs on the wall who not only spins vinyl records in a record player but invites people to pick and choose stuff to spin. There is definitely a great atmospheric vibe here and how I wish I could’ve taken her up on her offer to switch up the music but the music was already perfect for the vibe.
Important things to note are that it is located about a block away from the Amtrak bus stop to Fullerton/Riverside and inside of a historic-esque shopping center. They’ve also got live events, which actually sound quite fun. Usually, I find my writing hand to be lackadaisical about a ton of one-stop businesses that need not my cool-ish praises or lukewarm criticism to join the hundreds or thousands of people that have already reviewed them, but this place was truly a surprising and quite an exciting find. Wish something like this would come along in my big town!
Dave’s Gourmet Korean Food – CLOSED
Korean
1277 N Wilton Pl
Los Angeles, CA 90038
Los Angeles desperately needs food stands that are not exclusive to farmers’ markets. This food stand, which can be found at farmers’ markets, does not have a fixed location. That being said, do not go to 1277 N Wilton Place Los Angeles, CA 90028. ‘Dave’s Gourmet Korean Food’ at 1277 N Wilton Place is not open here and looks like has been abandoned for three or four years.
If they make the actual food at this location, delicious things can be made in ugly packages! I really only like the $5 container of Spicy Tempeh. It is incredible. The tempeh is freshly cooked and tender and comes with a perfect amount of spice. I never really get anything else, as I have tried a few other vegetable-based things, but they are forgettable in a Whole Foods salad bar kind of way. Some of the food is pickled and some are pickled vegetables. I think that charging the same $5 price for spicy cucumbers is ridiculous. I tried the cucumbers based on a mistake as a kind of curt longhaired woman at the Silver Lake location once gave me cucumbers rather than the spicy tempeh and left me feeling hungry after eating them.
High Voltage Tattoo
$$$$ Tattoo
1259 N La Brea Ave
West Hollywood, CA 90038
Although my perspective is of someone who was behind the scenes as a hairless cat sitter of LA Ink, and not of a High Voltage client, I can vouch my client friend is very happy with his tattoos here. And it’s quicker than one might think to get tattooed here. It would be during the hours the film crew isn’t here and definitely depending on the tattoo artist working.
The film crew was completing the final scenes when my friend and I visited. My friend was a guest on the LA Ink show earlier that day. Kat had just finished the singer of Alkaline Trio’s “Hello Cleveland” tattoo and left for an interview. I was introduced to names but I spent most of the time minding one of the hairless cats, making sure it didn’t escape from the dressing room. In other words, I closed the door if anyone happened to open it. All the while I was drinking blue Jones soda.
Outer Limits Tattoo & Body Piercing
$$ Tattoo, Piercing, Jewelry
2981 Bristol St
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
As my face has broadened, the labret holes I have had pierced here have remained the same since I was 18. I often wonder whether I’ll put the jewelry back in because it makes me feel so different as if I was wearing all black with inappropriate shoes and pomade in my hair, stealing candy from Sweet Factory at the mall in the early 2000s, and being simultaneously yelled at by Trudy and Sherrie for looking incorrect at the mall job I worked at. I looked this way on purpose, fags.
Piercings gave me an air of confidence, in a way that is subliminal to the life I’m living right now. I miss my piercings. I miss the air of confidence that I had that wasn’t forced. Now it’s forced because I’m here. Here, in a mainstream way. I miss the confidence I had when I went to places I should have stayed away from and got black eyes from kicks that weren’t meant for me, smoke being blown in my face in Pomona, watching porn in prom limos, and being committed to an inpatient facility because of aforementioned piercings.
I wasn’t sick. I was rebellious. Micah, I believe his name was, from Outer Limits drew me a tattoo after I got pierced here. It was of a bonsai tree but it was a brutal bonsai tree. The tattoo would have covered my whole back. I didn’t want it, so I flaked on going through with it. He moved to Washington and all my friends with their new tattoos were heartbroken. This was years ago, and I’m not sure whether they’re satisfied with their tattoos still. For a lot of them, X does not equal what it did many years ago. if you know what I mean!
Today, I still like tattoos but I like full-bodied tattoos or sleeves in which there is no focal point but a flood-like intricate pattern. My friend had a race with his then-wife/ex-girlfriend/whatever on who could get the most tattoos and now both have full sleeves and tattoos up to their necks/abdomen/legs. She went upward, he went downward. It’s overwhelming but it’s hot because I wouldn’t even know if either of them had a “bad” tattoo. It’s like looking at graffiti art at a venue or club and thinking, “this is so cool” when in reality, some of the designs are unremarkable but as a pattern, they look so neat.
Tribal Cafe
$ Juice Bars & Smoothies, Delis
1651 W Temple St
Los Angeles, CA 90026
This place is disorganized, and incredibly expansive, expansive, expansive, keeps expanding ideas and making them broader and broader, rather than rich. Let’s talk about working for a high-end fashion atelier that’s trying to turn into a marijuana dispensary and create a menu out of smoking from a crystal-encrusted glass pipe.
They’re taking on so many completely different types of foods that the result looks like a series of very confusing salads. Why not just tear down the kitchen wall, turn into a hippie Hometown Buffet and offer a create-your-own salad bar?! So I think the harshest criticism I could give this place is that it offers too many options on their menu that are pretty half-baked after they’re baked. Their menu is a mess. It’s confusing. I think of what religion must have been like in the 1000s. Their menu consists of these large white confusing sheets of scrolls of proclamations side by side, four or five of them. Some of them have vegan sprinkled on to them. Some have wraps and burgers, then a tidal wave takes us from the Mediterranean to Vietnam to the Philippines. There are so many food options, their employees don’t even know them by name, but by letter and number combinations. I think the Bahn Mi Bowl was ‘B2’.
By the way, they got the number wrong for the ‘B2’ and the results looked -very- creative for a Bahn Mi Bowl. At first, went with it. I tried to make it taste like a Bahn Mi in my mind, but now I realized I just got the wrong food order after looking at the menu online. It was a Curry Spice Veggie & Quinoa Bowl but strangely with freshly cut apples on top. Try imagining me imagining that be a Bahn Mi. It was an awkward combination of fresh warm kale, quinoa, a medley of vegetables, and cold apples on top. It didn’t have the peanuts and pickled carrots I was hoping for. But I am glad this kale salad wasn’t tossed because I was enjoying all of these different types of vegetables separately. The ingredients were very fresh and pristine!
Hence, I conclude that, in totality, the food is very hit or miss. But because the ingredients are incredibly fresh, they’ve gotten a provisional 3.5/5 Stars. I’ll be back to try something a bit more safe and popular in the future.
Cementiri de Montjuïc
Funeral Services & Cemeteries
Carrer de la Mare de Déu de Port, 56 – 58
08038 Barcelona
Spain
Los lugares donde se entierran a los muertos incluyen sitios, como Montjuïc, que tienen esculturas de figuras femeninas que representan un gran amor que conecta la vida con la muerte. Creo que los europeos tienen una mejor relación con sus antepasados que los estadounidenses porque usan sus cementerios mucho más. Muchos cementerios europeos parecen parques porque tienen grandes árboles y plantas encima de las tumbas. Aunque Montjuïc es un lugar de prostitución en algunas de sus áreas, las barceloneses usan el lugar para andar y hacer ejercicio. (¡Lo hice también!)
Después de más de mil años, miles de ciudadanos han descansan bajo tierra, y muchas de sus historias son representadas con esculturas. Las esculturas de Montjuïc incluyen obras de arquitectos y urbanistas como Leandre Albareda, Antoni M. Gallissa, Rossend Nobas, Eusebi Arnau, Rafael Atxe, Josep Puig i Cadafalch, Josep Vilaseca, Josep Campeny i Santamaria, Josep Reynes, Josep Llimona y Enric Clarasó.
Como no hay mucho espacio para los muertos (o más amable – difuntos), muchos de ellos forman parte de la arquitectura de Barcelona. El cuerpo del arquitecto Antoni Gaudí, por ejemplo, se encuentra en el suelo de mármol de La Sagrada Familia. Desde hace ya unos años en esta edad moderna, muchos ciudadanos de Barcelona eligen enterrarse en los altos muros de piedras de Montjuïc. Los visitantes pueden usar las escaleras para alcanzar los cuerpos que están en las zonas superiores.
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The places where the dead are buried include sites such as Montjuïc, which have sculptures of feminine figures representing a great love that connects life with death. I think Europeans have a better relationship with their ancestors than Americans because they use their cemeteries much more. Many European cemeteries look like parks because they have large trees and plants above the graves. Although Montjuïc is a place of prostitution in some of its areas, Barcelona people use the place to walk and exercise. (I did it too!)
After more than a thousand years, thousands of citizens have rested underground, and many of their stories are represented with sculptures. Montjuïc sculptures include works by architects and urban planners such as Leandre Albareda, Antoni M. Gallissa, Rossend Nobas, Eusebi Arnau, Rafael Atxe, Josep Puig i Cadafalch, Josep Vilaseca, Josep Campeny i Santamaria, Josep Reynes, Josep Llimona and Enric Clarasó.
As there is not much space for the dead (or more friendly – deceased), many of them are part of the architecture of Barcelona. The body of the architect Antoni Gaudí, for example, is located on the marble floor of La Sagrada Familia. For some years now in this modern age, many citizens of Barcelona choose to be buried in the high stone walls of Montjuïc. Visitors can use the stairs to reach the bodies that are in the upper areas.
The Butcher, The Baker & The Cappuccino Maker Breakfast & Brunch, Salad, Sandwiches 8653 W Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Coworker: Where are you going again? Me: “The Butcher, Bartender, Barista, I think?”
When I was searching for this place, I couldn’t remember the 13 syllable name of this cafe (The Butcher, The Baker & The Cappuccino Maker) so I typed “the butcher, the barista” in Yelp and the search resulted in all the butcheries in the Los Angeles area. This place is a newer addition to the Sunset Strip, a bistro cafe of sorts, and the layout surprisingly is roomy for such a new place. It consists of what used to be TWO storefronts on the Sunset Strip. They have this outdoor patio area in the middle, with a restaurant/bar to the right and a really beautiful second indoor space for private events on the left, which I think used to be a gift shop years back. The bar part of this restaurant used to be a crummy Italian restaurant a few years back and the remodeling for this new restaurant offers so much more of a lighter, open, and pleasing vibe.
Many of us began at the bar on the right and many of us left full and sloshed from the private event room on the left. I am relying on everyone else for food and drink specifics because there was a lot to cover. All I know is that I had a 1. stiff coffee (I requested without cream so mine was stiffer than thine) 2. 1/2 of a very tall bloody mary 3. white wine 4. red wine. By the end of the night, I ended up taking home Yelp mints, a woman’s t-shirt, and 1 1/2 orders of the Vegan Grain Bowl. We also got like ten or so food items to try. I feel like the house specialist for this Vegan Grain Bowl because I had so much of it. So I’ll just leave a tiny review of what I thought of it. The Vegan Grain Bowl comes with A LOT of carrot salad and grain. I give credit for that stuff sopping up all that alcohol I had. There wasn’t enough of the marinated tofu, avocados. But enough of the alfalfa sprouts and orange peels. The table, and I concur, agree that the tofu was excellent. But it would have been awesome to get more of the marinated tofu and avocado because there was so much grain. All I can say about that is I had a very healthy sobering ‘oatmeal’ this morning. 🙂
I signed up for this event because it was one of the first Gold/Black Yelp Elite events I noticed that offered a few vegan options. Even though I didn’t eat like 7 out of the 10 or so food offerings they gave us, I left like filled to the brim with salads. This event lasted about three hours and let me tell you, I felt spoiled! It was very well done. I work close by near Melrose/La Cienega and walked my bike to the top of the hill here. I ended the night walking down the hill with my bike, passing the Chateau Marmont, seeing all the bright lights of beautiful ugly traffic passing me, and enjoying the cooling breeze at night.
Taco Loco
$ Mexican, Seafood
640 S Coast Hwy
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
I used to talk a lot about my nostalgia for Taco Loco. I am beginning to think nostalgia is best left for the dead, or to the places that don’t exist anymore. I was passing my old high school in Dana Point last week and didn’t care to see the high school. And then I realized, unless like something happened to it like if the site was a big empty dirt ditch, I’d want to see it. Like then the sugary nostalgia would conjure. “Hey, I think that’s where the ugly portables I spent half my day were or that fence that once caught on my raver jeans used to be when I skipped school!”
So yeah, I got Taco Loco last week. My ten-year update is that nothing has changed about this place at all. My first review of it from 2007 is virtually the same stuff that I’d write ten years later, but minus one star. That same spongy tofu mushroom burger wheat bread and the lightly grilled tofu is the exact same preparation and taste as it once been but it’s a ‘mind-blowing’ that satisfies my aging memory as much as my taste buds. The salsa has always been a bit too watery. It doesn’t give me the thrill to see that same boxy cash register, or the same exact receipts it dispenses, or the same kind of aloof hippies behind it.
The people change but the restaurant eerily hasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad it’s still here. It’s still casual and inexpensive. There is still magic in this place offering the only tofu mushroom burger I’ve ever tried on this planet. The food is good, but with the passing times, my nostalgia love feels like it’s turning to television fuzz. Do I want to be 17 again, forever?
Useful: 2 Funny: 2 Cool: 1
8/14/2017
Previous review
Taco Loco is a sidewalk cafe with a few very excellent vegan options. These don’t include the other 80% of the menu like the Mahi Mahi burger, which my omnivore friends absolutely love.
I’ve eaten at Taco Loco for almost ten years. Taco Loco is quintessentially known for its delicious tofu mushroom burgers, tacos, and pasta. The beans, potato tacos, and “phish” burgers are also really good. The rice is bland.
The salsas vary, depending on which one you choose. If you like spicy salsa, ask for “chipotle” after the staff asks you “spicy, medium, or mild salsa?” They make it every morning. It’s like the hidden gem among their salsa options. The guacamole is excellent, too. The chips are okay but sometimes stale.
Wednesday is the day you can order the tofu mushroom pasta. I order a half order which is $5 instead of $8 and it’s very filling for small people with large appetites.
Taco Loco seating arrangement is situated on the sidewalk next to busy PCH. The sound of a car upon car upon car can be very irksome. The outside temperature can range from really hot in August to stark coldness in February. Remember to bring a jacket if you come here after 8 p.m. The heating lamps will only heat the person who is sitting directly underneath it!
Note to new vegans: if you order a tofu mushroom or a phish burger, ask for the burger to be plain. Otherwise, they’ll add mayonnaise!
Casey’s Irish Pub
$$ Pubs, Irish, Sports Bars
613 S Grand Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90017
3.5 Stars.
Casey’s Irish Pub ruined a pair of my jeans years ago. I was casually meeting with someone for an afternoon chat of sorts, I sat on one of the patio seats that they had apparently just painted black. I was wearing a pair of light denim jeans that day and there was no ‘wet paint’ sign, no warning, nothing. After hearing about this guy who was very full of himself’s photographic achievements on Instagram and my nodding as he was scrolling down on his feed and showing me how clever he was with photo compositions, I stood up and discovered I had a ring of black paint on my jeans. It was the fast-drying type of paint and my sitting on fast-drying paint helped dry it faster, thus making washing the paint off impossible. I tried in their little bathroom. I also tried bleaching it out, no dice…
For years I grimaced every time I walked down Grand and looked down on their gorge of a patio at their black furniture because of the black death of those jeans. Until! Years later, Duolingo, the language learning app for phones, hosted their very first ever Spanish language meeting for Duolingo users here. The spot here is pretty spacious for a large group meeting like that. Even though it’s questionably a series of rooms, much emptier and awkwardly set up than others, it’s got an ample amount of space. If it were up to me, I would just remove all the walls and make it a very large space. And then… you could host bands and stuff. As someone who was speaking butchered Spanish to a bunch of other people speaking butchered Spanish, we heard and understood each other just fine, for the most part. We were set upright in the middle of the loud bar and it never got too loud or crazy.
It was a cool spot to meet. Their bartenders were fast. And they have an incredible cider here, as I hope one would find at an Irish Pub.
Social Security
Public Services & Government
1122 N Vine St
Hollywood, CA 90038
The Social Security Office seems to offer something here for everyone, but especially for old people not born here and homeless people. It offers an organization scheme that works pretty well. Since I am a lost social security card person, my experience probably would differ from someone who doesn’t have a number or needs some type of benefit. It took me about 45 minutes total to get in and out on a busy Monday. It seems about 1.5 people are called per minute.
My first impression was a good one. I was greeted by the two nicest security guards I have ever met. They were incredibly calm, patient and gently told me that I forgot to take off my belt before stepping into the metal detector. Upon stepping in, I see many people are inside. About 3/4 appear to be older immigrants (many Eastern Europeans), 1/8 are vagrants and the other 1/8 are miscellaneous. There is a machine with a touch screen that you put what you are coming here for. I am replacing a social security card I lost, thus I press the “Social Security Card” button. It asked for my SSN and then the machine printed out a number on a ticket and I sat down. My number was B282 and the current number they were calling was “B244”, uh oh.
So I sit down and play three Words With Friends games. “B263.”
I write two lengthy emails. “B279.”
I am about to text message my friend back, when all of a sudden a guy pops out from the door, “B282!”
“B282! Are you B282?”
“I am B282.”
“Follow me this way.”
We sat down at Desk 16 and he chucked my ticket in the trash.
It took about 30 minutes to get through about 40 numbers. I gave the guy who was helping me out my paperwork including a driver’s license and passport. He looked at the paperwork and was typing numbers on his keypad, like a lot of numbers. Type, type, type, type, type … about 200 numbers later, a receipt is printed out and had some Russian woman’s name on the print-out, “Katharina” or something next to my street address. It freaked me out.
“Why does this say ‘Katharina’?”
He looked at it. Asked for my driver’s license again. About four or five minutes and lots of typing on the keypad, a print-out of my name appears. No identity theft, maybe.
Upon leaving, some homeless guy next to the security stand was convulsing on the ground with a backpack being used as a pillow as the police were coming in. I am sure nobody chooses to convulse at the Social Security Office but it makes me wonder what kind of gritty circumstances does someone has to live like to presumably get benefits here?
LaB Coffee & Roasters
$$ Coffee & Tea, Tea Rooms
429 N Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90004
It’s not like I have a stigma against Asian coffee shops, but when I think of them, I think of overly sweet teas and coffees with flavor enhancers.
I’ve never had good ‘Asian coffee’ before. But hear, hear for the first time for everything. The barista didn’t have a full grasp of English so needed her coworker for help with (I thought was) a simple order.
Me: Hi. Can I get a cold brew, please?
Her: … (eyebrows raise)
Me: … or iced coffee?
Her: Coffee … with ice? (Looks at her coworker.)
Coworker: Yeah! That’s fine. One cold brew. (Takes over the register.)
Well for as expensive as a good draft beer costs, for $5.50, I got to try a Kyoto-style cold brew. The brew does not taste like cherry blossoms or tastes any particularly different than a good $3-4 cold brew anywhere else. But it was great!
The atmosphere is nice and quiet and their wifi password is conveniently located on the front desk. You need to photograph it because it is literally c8h10n4o2.
Mel Pierce Camera – CLOSED
$$ Photography Stores & Services
5645 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
I am ‘lolling’ at some of the reviews about the jerk-ish staff. Mario, brother of photo-Luigi, tell your crew if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing.
I actually was greeted here. And THEN snubbed. If it wasn’t for my lack of having intimate knowledge of lighting equipment, I would not have had any problems! Alas I did not know about the world of camera strobes instantaneously enough for the guy to not get annoyed after greeting me. Yeah I still don’t know the type of strobe I need.
I was just looking. And mustering something to say about the strobe I wanted because he walked from around the counter looking at me looking at lighting equipment.
“What can I help you with?”
“I’m looking for a strobe.”
“What kind of strobe.”
“I don’t know. One kind of like this one, but maybe this one. I don’t know! I’m looking.”
“You need to be more prepared.”
He walks away. Like the scowling old curmudgeon at the record store, I was treated like a dreaded Lookie Lou. Hi, it’s the 2010s and stores are like Tinder/Grindr, shoppers like me are fickle assholes looking and not quickly committed to buying.
It would be a surprise if they make it to the end of the 2010s because being a Lookie Lou here isn’t very fun either. The place is pretty small and the selection is probably as good as an average photo place in a Montana college town. Hell – slight improvements from digital equipment behind the counter, it’s all the same small photo store kind of stuff. But they have been in business long enough to outlive their neon sign. I would come here if I needed something I can quickly get, but Samy’s has my photo equipment business and Freestyle has my CF card business. I totally was sold a busted RC-6 remote control here years back, but luckily they exchanged it.
All in all, snubbish and – unless if an emergency – not enough supplies to keep me coming back. Wish I wasn’t greeted at all.
Natural History Museum
Museums
900 Exposition Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90007
Do not donate taxidermy heads of animals from your grandparent and great-grandparent’s hunting trip to the Natural History Museum. They unceremoniously line the entire ceiling of the employee’s only area upstairs and look creepy as hell. Nobody will ever want to see those heads ever again, even cyborg historians 300 years from now will not want to see them. Burn them. Anytime the employees are pissed off or are off that day, you can blame those heads.
I had a friend who worked here and got to see that Employees’ Only room, some balcony at the top of the building with a pretty view, rooms with lots of draws, and the ground level utility closet that we hooked up in. After we hooked up in that utility closet, we went to the special exhibition room. It wasn’t that special because I don’t remember it. But what was cool was to see the California room. I like earthquakes and seeing replicas of cities that are meant to be destroyed. And fault lines.
It’s cool to see antique bones and animals too. But the localized history has to be my favorite. Take the time to appreciate all the stuff that many of these fine people have taken a lot of time to curate and build.
Beyond Baroque Foundation & Literary Arts Center
$ Performing Arts, Bookstores
681 Venice Blvd
Venice, CA 90291
I have a teacher who is old and dying. And he’s got a scar running halfway around his head from a tumor. He was one of my favorite teachers, back when I did a Poetry MFA.
He reads here a lot. A celebration of this dead poet, a celebration of this dead movement, a celebration of 1950s cool, ‘beatnik questionnaires’. It’s all kind of held together by an antiquated charm, like City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, but dead and running in a kind of zombie celebratory marathon. Maybe most poetry itself is now in a continuous zombie celebration of 60-year-old movements.
Either way, I’ve written hundreds, if not thousands of poems. And I don’t even bother with getting poems published in books.
Because it took
seven years
to publish
ONE poem.
It was an epic poem I wrote for a Sylvia Plath anthology, a collage of her two poems ‘Lady Lazarus’ and ‘The Applicant’. And a year to see it on the bookshelf at Stories in Echo Park. And the draw is that it is a poem about a dead author’s poems and her legacy. I feel a bit parasitic about my biggest poetry accomplishment!
But alas this place is still here. The bookshop is still standing. And there has to be something good to be said about a place that looks like an old Spanish mission on a farm. This place specializes in a kind of mid-century ideal of the ‘happening’ because it runs on events. It’s a time warp of cool. I feel like a longing nostalgia for a time that I wasn’t born into. Whenever I come here, I know this sounds lame, but I have a Pleasantville fantasy, where I am a 1958 technicolored person and escaping the confines of the black and white small town to find myself. And end up on the patio here, writing poetry on a tiny notebook with rogue bobbysoxers and melancholic football players.
And the Wednesday night poetry workshops, ugh. I am reminded of how incredibly square my parents are because of all the cool Russian blue cats with silvery hair.
Los Angeles City College
Colleges & Universities
855 N Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90029
LACC seems to exist on the tuition of students that shouldn’t be in college. It’s better to have no-shows than no one show at all! In keeping with the tradition of its most famous alumnus dropout Charles Bukowski, a lot of bums drop out of this college. They cut in line on free taco day before doing so. In my experience of the five classes I’ve taken here, about 40% of the class ends up disappearing at the end. LACC incentivizes this behavior by taking out the burden of even having to go online and press the withdrawal button. It’s the first college that I’ve been to whose departments expect teachers to drop students who stop showing up.
I don’t know what the future holds for LACC. They seem to think it’s in for another heyday with all of the construction happening and platitudes of hope being offered in the form of writing scholarship themes. But the attendance level is very low and the slow burn of gentrification in East Hollywood might bring no hope! I’m used to campuses actively being busy in the middle of the day but everyday feels like Saturday here. It’s a strange experience, given Santa Monica and Vermont is busy. And on an actual Saturday, you can hear the echo of footsteps and see a tumbleweed roll.
It’s a shame because they have some great professors. I’ve been talking Spanish classes here and the college offers professors who are more talented and passionate than even the ‘good’ teachers at the UC school I’ve attended. One thing that I appreciate about the teachers at LACC is that they’re humble. The level of self-absorption of some teachers at the research university I attended, in my experience, is that of Narcissus at the podium overlooking a reflecting pool.
The bad things about LACC are the cliches of the crime-ridden inner city school minus its overpopulation. The emptiness of the campus due to its underpopulation makes my bike more unsafe for a bike than locking up on Santa Monica or Vermont or Melrose. I had to get a second u-lock as my back bike tire got swiped twice in one month here by the same asshat with the equipment and know-how to remove back tires from vintage bikes. Also, it’s the first college campus I’ve been to where being asked for change by many different types of people on campus is part of the college experience. Bukowski would be one of them.
Virgin Atlantic Airways
Airlines
5758 W Century Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90045
The focus of this review is on the people at Virgin Atlantic catering who are in charge of supplying condiments to ‘vegan’ meals at the Los Angeles base.
While the Virgin Atlantic outbound flights from Los Angeles never include vegan condiments for the meals from Los Angeles flights outward to London, the condiments from London to Los Angeles are always vegan.
Based on over ten flights during the past two years to London, I have concluded that Americans do not know what a vegan option constitutes, while Britons are all over it.
Every time I have ever taken a flight from Los Angeles to London, the three condiments I always get include:
One Country Crock butter spread (whey)
One Naturally Fresh salad dressing (whey)
One gratuitous packet of non-dairy creamer (whey)
Whey might be the lazy condiment of choice for the ‘vegan’ meal but Virgin Atlantic actually knows what ‘vegan’ constitutes because all the condiments from outbound flights from London are, in fact, vegan. They use:
Vinegar/oil already on top of salad
One ‘Bebo’ butter spread
While I guarantee that I will soon receive a comment from human resources disassociating their Los Angeles catering services with the ones from the catering services from London, Virgin is Virgin. Take initiative and look at other Virgins that do it better.
Useful: 5 Funny: 3 Cool: 0
1/19/2013
Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse
Airport Lounges
Nelson Road
London TW6 1QG
United Kingdom
If you genuinely feel satisfied after watching people being turned away at a club you are inside or after laughing when somebody from coach is being scolded for using your first-class bathroom on an airplane, exclusive clubhouses are probably for you. I get satisfied, but I am more misanthropic than rich. And I got in here completely by accident.
The perks of Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse include swinging plastic bubble seats and a fake fire animation on an LCD screen that is shaped like a fireplace. Honestly, the best part of the first-class lounge is the floating plastic bubble chair. Even the bubble chairs are more of a pop-art aesthetic than for actually sitting in. There is a handful of them grouped together. You can go on your laptop, use their free wifi (codes located on the menu) and sit on the bubble chairs suspended on a rope, rotating you 360 degrees. Weee! Then after maybe 10 or 20 minutes of sitting in them, they start getting humid and then uncomfortable. The entire place is a dining area, too. Menu items are pricey but if you like airport alcohol, they’ve got it.
I fly on Virgin Atlantic from Los Angeles to London at least six times a year on coach, and I don’t even know how I got in here. Since I got into this place by a fluke of happenstance rather than spending $$$$ on an Upper-Class seat, this posh oasis inside Heathrow seems to be as satisfying as the mod decadence that a 1960s television set could bring. Basically, I was looking for a bathroom. Nobody was in front. Lo and behold, the best part of Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse is its dark and fancy bathrooms with towels.
Balcony Coffee and Tea
$ Coffee & Tea
314 N Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90004
It’s funny how in the course of maybe three years a cold brew has become more expensive to get than a latte. It used to not be this way! I have been getting lattes with almond milk here because they’re a dollar cheaper than the cold brew they offer. I find it funny how something that requires skill to make is less of a commodity now than something that is stored overnight to brew.
Besides that, their foamy heart-shaped latte is pretty good. The coffee they use is really good. The guy who made it for me the first time really made it perfect. It was strong and had a delicate foamy texture — very well done! The second time tasted a bit more haphazard as the guy yesterday was preoccupied with many drink orders that some other customer — who came in after me — had ordered. So the latte tasted kind of weak.
But whatevs. It’s all about their ambiance, right? Their ambiance is really killer. They have a really cool custom-made greenhouse in the patio. It’s something I’ve never seen before in a coffee shop or anywhere and it’s an incredible idea. You have to really know what you’re doing to make your own custom greenhouse! The downside is that the air smells a bit like sweaty plants would from a greenhouse. Lol. They really tried to mask the sound of traffic on Western and Beverly by adding a fountain of water and it kind of works. It’s actually a really nice and comfortable place to hang out. And one of the best greenhouse patios, the only of its kind I’ve ever seen.
Also, a couple of other caveats: they have for here and a to-go cup option. The to-go cups give you a couple of ounces or so more latte than their mugs. And the shopping center and area, in general, has zero places to park bikes – I’ve been using the black gate adjoining their greenhouse patio to lock up.
Greenbar Distillery
$$ Distilleries
2459 E 8th St
Los Angeles, CA 90021
That’s how they get so many five-star ratings! They have a link that travels from their feedback email after taking the tasting tour. It goes to their Yelp page after you click that you were ‘very satisfied’ with their tour. I was about to get all passive-aggressive up on this place about it but to be fair, I re-clicked ‘very dissatisfied’ just to see what happens and it also travels to their Yelp page.
What I like about this place is that it basically exists. They’re really into the art of experimentation, rather than being some type of profit-making dinosaur with tried and true flavors. It feels like it has stayed true to it being in the Arts District. From the sampling tour and their samplings of crafted liqueurs, bitters, whisky, gin, vodka, and tequila, they’re really into trying new things out. They have savory vodka, for example, that tastes like a wheatgrass shot. They are all organic and use actual fruit, for example, which I learned can vary in taste due to fruit varying in the way it sits on the tree, if it was hit by sunlight and how much water it gets. So they have tasters to ensure it’s supposed to taste as it should. They interestingly said that they tried flavors like pineapple or wasabi that have flavor properties that would ‘collapse’ in on themselves over time so they cannot be stored very long. The tour guide did say the wasabi flavor was delicious when it was made.
I’ve been in LA long enough and I’m surprised this is the first time I’ve heard of this place. It’s pretty old for something of its kind (born in 2004) and unusual! I got a Groupon for two here and for the number of samples you get (six total), it was well worth $6 per person. I was a bit miffed after being met with the kind of a problem about booking with their very annoying and problematic online form that would not redeem the voucher number. But after calling them and getting it sorted out, which they booked me on a tasting tour and I don’t think even redeemed the Groupon, I am glad that I have been able to have this experience.
Cirque du Soleil – TOTEM
Performing Arts
FUKUOKA BIG TOP
Fukuoka-shi, 愛知県 〒812-0054
Japan
We walked to TOTEM.
We took an express bus from downtown Los Angeles, which we were dropped off at Harbor & 1st Street in San Pedro, thinking this was at the Port of Los Angeles nearby. TOTEM is not at the Port of Los Angeles, as indicted on Yelp. In fact, the Port of Los Angeles security guard at the front had a lot of confused Yelpers stopping by before we even came to the front.
She asked: “You seeing TOTEM? Go right on Harbor. Berth 46.”
Sounds easy enough, but for those not driving: it was 20 further blocks past this! Actually, it was even further than that, all the way down a long road past 23rd street to the circus tents located at the end of this man-made festoon of land.
Aaaaaahhh h h h h walking, walking, walking. There was no way we would have been able to know where we were going without our GPS map. We found someone’s chewed-up electronic cigarette dangling on an electric box along the dark road past 23rd street. After a 3 mile/20 minute walk, we got there just on time for the actual show after the funny boat gig that begins the Cirque Du Soleil shows.
The show was really good. The lighting and effects were as impressive as the dancers and acrobats. It began with evolution, monkey-to-caveman-to-caveman-to-caveman-to-businessman-to-acrobat. Our favorite was the hat throwers on the unicycles. The actual missing of some of the hats by some of the dancers that performers in tribal garb who were positioned on all four sides of the stage to retrieve made the spectacle very successful in the enjoyment of wondering whether the hats will actually be caught. They mostly were, pooh!
Intermission! We go outside to pee and drink. We peed but did not drink so fast: The water rule is lame. They have huge and full water dispensers that nobody with a $5 water bottle or Cirque Du Soleil cup can use. Almost all of the bartenders told us that they were not allowed to give us water cups. My partner, who is poor and parched, refused to spend $5 for water and drank water from the outdoor sinks next to the porta-potties, which apparently was as good as regular drinking water.
The second half of the show, I thought, was good but not as great as pre-intermission. It featured a Darwinesque scientist of the late 19th/early 20th century that was well-played with glowing balls of atoms. But where were the monkeys and cavemen? The future, as depicted by glowing yet somewhat anachronistic ritual dances, came too fast.
The show is over! As we walked to the closest bus stop, we encountered the chewed-up electronic cigarette again still dangling on the electric box along the dark road. It became apparent that besides one unhappy smoker, very few people walked to this event. The chewed-up electronic cigarette was still on and shining blue.
Vromage
Cheese Shops
7988 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046
Vegan cheese has come a long way to finding a home in the ‘artisan’ realm! Vromage holds its own, more literally than figuratively, when it comes to ‘artisan’ vegan cheese. Literally, it is the only vegan cheese shop in a driveable vicinity of Southern California. Figuratively, it is the best cold vegan cheese I’ve tasted, but it still tastes like vegan cheese.
Vegan cheese kind of tastes more like its texture than its taste. The brie, cheddar, and gouda at Vromage all have a good creamy texture (gouda was a bit harder) with the essence of each of their respective types of cheese. The cheese offers a very pleasing, hummus-like quality to a sandwich by acting like a yummy spread to a sandwich than the not-cow cheese that I had anticipated and imagined.
Maybe it’s problematic thinking to believe vegan cheese has to taste like ‘the real deal.’ With two of my Yelp friend’s five-star raving reviews, I was expecting to taste a hard cheese from the swollen teat of a poor factory farm cow, however, the reminiscent essence and very soft texture won me over.
Baguette sandwich was $12.50, and like the nice owner, the size of the portions is very French. Don’t come here famished!
Lamill Coffee Silverlake
Coffee & Tea
1636 Silver Lake Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
If I were an extremely positive Yelp reviewer, I would need to justify Lamill charging $7 for a chai. I would consider their ample tables, the friendly (cough, obligatory) table service. I would consider the thought put into the sliver of foam onto the delicately spiced chai. I would consider the cleanliness of the bathrooms and the regal chandeliers and sofa chairs mixed with the luscious ambiance of Silver Lake as a backdrop. I would consider the attentiveness of the waitress and having been given my own shiny black leather check presenter upon paying for my $7 chai. And somehow $7 for a chai would go into the constitution of this amazing dining experience I had at Lamill if I was an extremely positive Yelp reviewer, like a fucking Disneyland ride.
I am surprised that Yelp removes reviews from its own page! It/robot/they/intern removed my review from their page citing it contains inappropriate content per case #3071386. I am unclear whether it’s the language or the sentiment in itself that is more inappropriate, but I’ll censor the (what I believe he/she/it/they believes is) naughty language so that this review stays up this time!
Removed review:
There’s something oddly phallic about women who post pictures of their nails for nail salons on Yelp. It strikes me as odd that every time I log onto Yelp, I am greeted by pictures of painted fingernails posted for nail salons. It’s almost the equivalent of the woman’s (CENSORED) pic. It seems to be a movement that is not gay per se – but cultivated around a community of self-pleasure around their own/others fingernails, i.e. people who think their cuticles are the shit. An “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” comparative on coloring, girth, and of course size. Ask a straight guy who throws his (CENSORED) pic around the net and he’ll swear up and down it’s not sexual, well maybe sexual but more of an autocratic sexuality – the pleasure of being admired or watched. That’s kind of what I have come to expect with nail pics, it’s a pleasurable, maybe sexual experience to know that people are checking out and admiring her fingers.
Maybe it’s a feminist reclamation of the body because most guys care as little about nails as women do about dicks, or conversely care as little about nails as other parts of her body. Or, the painted fingernail is not about the guy being put into the equation at all. I don’t think guys care about nails or seek them out as I saw one set of painted nails on Yelp, aquatic blue with white anchors painted in the middle get like 50 likes, by not one guy, and by at least three Tricias.
Useful: 6 Funny: 7 Cool: 3
1/2/2015
Previous review
Yelp has given me more open doors for getting my foot into places than my undergrad Journalism degree ever could. (Surprise! Your Yelp reviews make more interesting portfolio pieces than the ones about college.)
Ruby at Yelp keeps wanting me to know that Ruby has deleted my reviews.
Before deleting reviews Ruby, please look up the description of the modifier you use to flag a reason to censor someone.
To lack a ‘substantive’ consumer experience means:
The consumer experience reflected on my 300-word description of my first-hand experience with the property wasn’t um ‘real’. Say it, Merriam-Webster.
Oh, but it was real Ruby! I don’t make things up. Maybe what’s real to you is news to me but if being a tool throughout your sheltered life has never gotten you laid yet Ruby, I am certainly happy to say that I am not offering my services, whether ‘substantive’ or imagined to you.
I even wrote to Yelp regarding this dilemma of Ruby censorship. I sent the case number in. Veronica, who responded back a few days later, didn’t care to look into the case number before presuming I was complaining about my reviews being filtered and sent me over a generalized FAQ about Yelp’s filter system.
Yelp your platform is cool but the people you pay to censor or shirk more ‘substantive responses to the people you regulate, are the tools of tools. Yelp is popular because of the people you don’t pay. If you let Ruby off the leash any more than you do, it may implode.
Check me out. I’m Chris G. I’m legit. I have old faded pink Elite badges next to my name. I had a review of the day once. It wasn’t a cute puffed-up anecdote about a place I was raving about either!
The Hatchery Press – CLOSED
Shared Office Spaces, Adult Education
601 N Larchmont Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90004
The Hatchery is way more than that of a “shared office space” as it is a shared studio space exclusively for writers who publish their work. I am surprised there aren’t more Yelpers as active as I am writing about this place, but I suppose most ‘actual writers’ wouldn’t expend their writing for free on Yelp. I have existential dilemmas about doing just that all the time. Lol.
As someone who retired from almost a decade-long career at being a professional graduate student, it feels more like that of a liberal arts college. It reminds me of the atmosphere that you’d -want- to find at an MFA program or a writing residency. Everyone who runs this place has cultivated a very creative and lively spirit here. If they wanted to push for that direction and get accredited as a school, I bet they could do it. A lot of people here have books published and screenplays in production. They have a workshop of sorts almost every other night. They have readings and monthly BBQs too.
For me – this place is a refuge. I’ve been coming here for almost a year and it’s usually consistently good. It’s a perfect bike stop. It’s quiet at night. Let me emphasize how perfectly sandwiched this place is in the middle for someone who rides bikes even when deathly ill. It is one-stop along my 15-mile roundtrip infinity circle between East Hollywood to Hollywood to West Hollywood almost every day. This place, unless if they have a few major events, is usually very mellow at night. It’s spacious as they have two houses worth of space, so if something is happening in one house, the other house is usually freer. It’s not a coffee shop, but they have lots and lots of coffee pods. It has a ton of plants and it’s well-kept.
Extra Space Storage
Self Storage
4728 Fountain Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90029
I’ve waited a very long time to write a review here. It’s located a block from a crazy ex-roommate’s apartment of my spouse who gave him a ‘bill’ at the time for bent window blinds that were already beyond warped. It was a bad situation so we had to get all his stuff out in the matter of a couple of hours before he got home. Extra Space Storage was a block from that apartment and they offered a ‘discounted’ room that was the size of an oddly-shaped broom closet. It was located in a garage and not in the actual storage unit. But it was good for what we needed at the time. Everything else about that storage facility sucked.
The Extra Space Storage garage entrance is literally next to the stairwell that leads to a Section 8 building. Two or three people sit on the stairwell all day keeping eye on what people are bringing into this facility. And somehow, a pile of stuff forms between the stairwell and the entrance to this Extra Storage Space. In front of the people sitting on the stairwell was like a pile of clothes, furniture, and toys strewn between the entrance and the stairwell.
I don’t know what kind of shenanigans happen there. But all I can tell you is that the man who managed this Extra Space Storage was more concerned about us dumping a mattress in front of their building than anything else. Like security or doing something about the pile of stuff already dumped there! After a month, we were getting stuff out of that facility and he asked about our truck. When we told him we were going to walk everything over to where I live (I live a mile away) using a cart, he became really awful to us. He literally followed us for a block yelling at us not to dump the mattress. I said to my partner, “don’t look at him!” because he’ll just keep following us, and once we ignored him, he left.
All in all, the ‘discounted’ rooms are located in an unsecured garage space. At least one of the managers is awful. And the people who sit on the stairwells looking down at the storage facility will see everything you’re bringing in. We literally used this facility for extra furniture and a mattress that aren’t too desirable to steal. But if we had televisions or computers in there, no matter how expensive the padlock we had gotten, all someone would have to do is walk 50 feet through the garage and use a medium strength mallet to break open the flimsy hinge to steal that stuff.
Monastery of the Angels
$ Churches, Gift Shops, Community Service/Non-Profit
1977 Carmen Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90068
I’m always on the hunt for places that are unusual or off-the-beaten-track. For Hollywood, this is it. This monastery is probably one of the most intriguing things I have ever come across – at least on a philosophical level.
One mile from the glitter, you have these nuns who have lived behind the walls of this enclosed space for the majority of their lives, completely separate from the pretensions of celebrity parties and the entertainment industry around it. I wonder whether the steel security gates outside the gift shop and main door are partially also to keep people from escaping rather than letting the vice come in.
In any event, they have these $8.50 boxes of their homemade nun fudge available for purchase. So if there ever was a great shortage of fudge from yesteryear (like some older reviews have stipulated), their 80-year-old nuns are on top of it now.
The fudge is not vegan (I wasn’t expecting it to be), made with cream, and has a smooth, viscous, and brown quality to it like a healthy bowel movement. According to the non-vegan who ate it, he said that the texture tastes more like candy than cake but it is not a sticky or overly sweet candy. It has more of airy and chewy quality to it like a nice fudgy marshmallow and a less dense and cakey one like that of a brownie.
Caffe Primo – CLOSED
$$ Coffee & Tea, Italian, Cafes
612 S Flower St
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Caffe Primo downtown looks like a ghost ship of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks painting from 1942. Instead of a corner diner, it’s like one of those old-fashioned Italian style ‘caffes’ from the era that serves espressos or cappuccinos in tiny mugs. It is a very big and boxy street corner restaurant encased in large sheets of glass that you can see everything inside of it – and that’s not such a great thing in this case.
The ground level of this restaurant is below the street level of the sidewalk, so when you pass by this place on some streets, you are looking down on this restaurant behind the glass. The way the light hits the building during the day casts a gray shadow under the glass, so everything inside looks like the dim figures from a low contrast ratio television from the 1980s. There are a lot of rows of stark white tables and handfuls of gray melancholy looking people inside. I think they need less glass and more openness to the neighborhood, as this large glass wall makes this place appear like a human zoo. For years I passed this place by when I would either go to the downtown library or gym and never felt it beckoned me to come here.
When I was finally beckoned to come here due to Groupon, I was weary to go through the tiny door. So before I did, I took almost 20 minutes going through all of their Yelp reviews of the vegan wraps and bowls, which is usually what I prefer and decided to play it safe. Nothing about the reviews had stood out as having a consensus about anything particularly outstanding here, at least vegan-wise. I concluded that I should just stick with a salad. Let me tell you – I am glad I did. Their quinoa salad minus cheese was fresh and came with quite a nice portion. It comes with asparagus, avocado, craisins, walnuts, mint, onions, tomato, cucumber in a lemon vinaigrette dressing. And it was delicious.
You wait in the front, order in the front, you get a number. You wait at the table. And you get food. It was absolutely empty when I went and took about fifteen or twenty minutes to get the food. We were in no rush though. Something to note too: Since the size of this place is massive and there are a plethora of seat offerings, the level of stuffiness varies with some of the rooms. The air doesn’t flow to some of the glass-enclosed rooms and feels a bit more warm and humid than next to where the doors are. It might be beneficial to get faux walls to replace these large slabs of midcentury glass.
Maru Coffee
$$ Coffee & Tea
1936 Hillhurst Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Maru reminds me of the lovechild of Go Get Em Tiger and MUJI with no patio.
Its less-than an ample amount of seating is not overflowing with people. It’s got a rock wall outside that is usually sat upon by as many people with strollers and dog
s as people who sit inside. I tried sitting here once and it’s not very comfortable. It still reminds me of Gelato Bar that was here years ago. But someone painted this place in such a glowing way with their description of this place having such clean Japanese parallel lines of wood shelves and lights, that I appreciate looking at it now. Everything looks like a series of non-colliding equals signs.
Original: 3.5/5
Maru-ified: 3.5 || 5
Honestly, I decided to walk five minutes and sneak into H Cafe and work there because zen only flows along its walls and ceilings at Maru. I felt like an oversized buddha statue. Their cold brew to-go cup looks exactly like H Cafe’s cold brew cup but with a different colored straw.
Their cold brew is really good, better than H Cafe’s cold brew nitro. Wish you had a patio.
Earthbar
$$ Juice Bars & Smoothies, Vitamins & Supplements, Acai Bowls
1550 N Vine St
Los Angeles, CA 90028
OMG – this Earthbar is the worst Earthbar out of all of the Earthbars I have been to! And I love Earthbar.
Their staff is VERY lethargic for such a new place! I came here twice this week in the middle of the day and both guys looked bothered as if I woke them up from nap time. There’s an old MAD TV episode with a character named Cloret played by Debra Wilson who worked at ‘Just Juice’ who had as much energy as these guys. They not so fondly reminded me of that episode!
Cloret, working at Just Juice, not-so-fondly reminded me of the workers at Earthbar Hollywood.
I’ve only been here twice, today and on Monday or Tuesday and the staff both times weren’t located behind the desk. I had to wait a few minutes to order because they’re in the other room unaware that I’m waiting. And they look at me as if it’s an unwelcome surprise to see me. And then it takes another five minutes to make just one drink. Since they were doing something somewhere else in another room, a line formed behind me and they take all the other orders before making drinks. And the other guy who is supposed to be making drinks is blissfully unaware that there are a ton of drink orders to be made.
They make my drink of choice the Acai Pure, which is frozen Acai and bananas blended with coconut water, very runny. It still tasted okay and it’s still very much vegan. But this drink is nothing compared to the incredible way it’s made at the downtown locations and in West Hollywood. Thick and filled to the brim. OH! And they don’t make enough smoothie to fill the cups the entire way. Both times, they left almost an inch of space in the cup. The guy today even shook the smoothie after pouring it to make it appear that the smoothie was full!
Sadly, the location and quiet Equinox lobby atmosphere are probably the best part of this Earthbar. It feels like the lobby of the W or Ace Hotel or something. It’s located off of Vine St at the very front of the Equinox entrance. No membership required. But something is wrong with the layout of this Earthbar in particular. They’re located in what seems like an afterthought for what would have otherwise been a concierge desk of a hotel. They’re located inside of a box. I swear, they decided to install water pipes instead of computer and printer equipment at the very last minute here. I also enjoy the perk of the $5 drink Happy Hour that the downtown locations also have between 2 and 4 p.m. on weekdays. That’s not listed or advertised anywhere in this location.
And I do appreciate that an Earthbar did open in Hollywood but if the owners read this, close this crummy location down and move out of Equinox and over to Hollywood and Vine. Or do something about the wall to the ‘other room’ of the kitchen or staff nap time area. And wipe the slate clean of this current staff.
Useful: 5 Funny: 4 Cool: 1
3/2/2018
Earthbar
Juice Bars & Smoothies, Acai Bowls, Vitamins & Supplements
8365 Santa Monica Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Earthbar has always had a fan with me but what I really like about Earthbar Weho is their Acai Bowls. They’re off the hook and $9.99 gets you like a massive cup of this stuff. It’s more than enough.
The acai is made really thick and not a smoothie consistency. It’s very rich tasting and has incredibly yummy granola on top and on the very bottom. They basically add the same amount of granola and fresh strawberries/banana for the large and small sizes. If you want more of a granola ratio and less acai, get the small. I don’t really need more descriptions. I’ll make a cross-section map:
In conclusion, I enjoy both because I prefer the acai and the amount of granola they put in. More granola would be too much. They fit both perfectly into their plastic cups. So both are filled to the very top and usually, the lid is pushed down and squishes the strawberries and banana to ensure this thing closes. They need a medium size. Small is small-ish but not medium.
I am unsure what’s up with this area either. I travel on my bike all over Los Angeles and the locale who live in this particular area or drive here is the most self-absorbed and irritating of westside royal inbreds I’ve found. But the workers are cool. And after traversing people who refuse to move or need an SUV’s length of personal space, it’s got a relaxing couple of tables to lounge out in front.
Diwana Bhel Poori House
£ Indian
121-123 Drummond Street
London NW1 2HL
United Kingdom
This is by far the best vegetarian Indian buffet I have ever been to. Since it’s been around for over 40 years (vegetarian buffets did exist back then), they have really perfected the art of preparing thoughtfully spiced and cooked food.
Rather than it being an economical choice to prepare vegetarian food, the food they prepare is specifically made for other vegetarians and vegans who need a lot of protein-rich peas and vegetables. In terms of the quality of food, it is incomparable. I have tried all the Indian vegetarian buffets on Drummond Street’s Indian buffet row (including Ravi Shankar), and this one offers the best food in terms of preparation and quality of ingredients.
Three things that constitute this vegetarian buffet as being the best:
Less potatoes, the better.
Sometimes Indian buffet-styled foods are plagued with dishes that have too many potatoes, whereas there are hardly any potatoes here. The other buffets have a lot more potato dishes. This place really emphasizes on the spices and vegetables. Potatoes are probably the least important food a vegetarian would want to fill up on.
There is more emphasis on vegetables and peas.
The majority of the food offered in the buffet includes broccoli, chickpeas, daal, cauliflower, onions, and vegetable options for biriyani, dosas, pakoras, thalis. Everything is topped with its own delicious curry, which presents an array of rich reds, oranges, and yellows in this buffet.
At least two people I’ve met in London claim to have been going to this place since the 1970s.
Diwana was a cool thing back then too. Professors in London, included my thesis supervisor and an anthropologist I lived with, were part of the progressives, hippies, and beatniks in the1970s who were going to Diwana. It has survived the wrath of Thatcher through the 80s and judging by the old wooden furniture and it being perpetually busy, it has left quite a legacy.
Although some may construe it as arrogance to leave a bold, laminated sign upon the return of a cheque exclaiming that TIP IS NOT INCLUDED, it may be because they’re not shy to ask for (or demand) appreciation for the hard work they do. Maybe.
Caffe Etc
$$ Coffee & Tea, Sandwiches, Breakfast & Brunch
6371 Selma Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90028
I have fantasies about doing something wrong here. The encounters I have had with the owner or management have left me feeling disappointed because nobody who works here is a sadist at least when I am around. And reading these reviews makes me wonder whether if I am too nice and appropriate.
I have never stayed too long to abuse the elusive wifi surfing policy, sat without paying for a drink first, used the bathroom without a drink in my hand, sat in front of the guitar stand, or look like I spent the night sleeping on Hollywood Blvd. (I sleep in an apartment OFF Hollywood Blvd. thank you) to be refused service. I have never cursed in Caffe Etc, stolen a cookie, licked the gelato off the smörgåsbord, thrown recyclable cups into the garbage, or refused to pay a dollar for a cup of tap water…
I have constantly, perhaps too infrequently, gotten iced coffee here and have mostly been a good sailor with the cold coffee in my hand. It’s hard for me to say anything bad about this place because I don’t eat their expensive food. However, the location is great, the service is good, the owner Viviana is kind of hot and the coffee is definitely not bad. The furniture and layout of the cafe are my biggest issues actually; their outdated and uncomfortable chairs look like something you’d find in an ice cream shop and probably keep people from staying too long.
