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!
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!
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.
Electric Lotus
$$ Indian
1739 N Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Yelp is asking me for tips about the atmosphere of Electric Lotus. Good question. Electric Lotus is NOT ‘Divey’, ‘Hipster’, ‘Touristy’, ‘Trendy’ or ‘Upscale’. And it is more ‘Casual’ and ‘Intimate’ than it is ‘Romantic’ and ‘Classy’ because I come here for their inexpensive $4.99 vegetarian lunch special, which feels pretty ‘Casual’ during the day. Although I can see how it changes at night, I also checked off ‘Intimate’ as I am usually the only person amongst other loners, a grim gathering of single men eating Indian food in a large dark restaurant.
Electric Lotus could be brighter or more vibrant, but for the price, it doesn’t bother me too much. It offers lots of seating to have their cheap and delicious vegetarian lunch special offering, which usually includes chana masala (garbanzo beans), saag (spinach), basmati rice, and salad. All of their food is really good, freshly prepared (at least) by that morning and vegan, unfortunately, they do not have any substitutes for a non-dairy salad dressing (they don’t have oil for salad dressing – they once looked at me as if I was crazy for asking and offered cooking oil) so often I get a lot of lettuce leaves to eat with the masala sauce, which is fine. Their vegetarian lunch special sometimes has daal (lentils) instead of one of the aforementioned, but more often than not, it is usually chana masala.
Fast enough service and quite a large plate of food for the price!
O’reilly’s Tattoo Parlour – CLOSED
$$$ 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.
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.
Tatsu Ramen
$$ Ramen
7111 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90046
If it was the 90s and Tatsu used automated phones instead of iPads to order ramen, this place would definitely suck. “If you would like an automated lunch, press one, o diga en Español marque dos, or to speak to a ramen representative press zero.”
Unfortunately, automated phone messages are not dead yet. They just have yet to be replaced by iPads. If we ever take a look back at life in the 2010s, Tatsu is the kind of place that will epitomize the decade. This is the first time I have ever ordered a meal (and a free water) with an iPad by myself.
As I was biking eastward on Melrose from a job in West Hollywood, I parked my bike and actually wanted a sandwich at All About The Bread next door. I decided I wanted to take a look at the menu at Tatsu but saw the line of iPads and I couldn’t resist trying it out. If it was just a menu, I probably would not have even ordered anything.
As I was clicking on the iPad, I ordered the vegan hippie bowl. I checked the item and then came the modification list with a bunch of modifications to un-hippie. Want pork? Want beef? How about cheese? You sure you don’t want cheese? No cheese. Tofu, green onions, and spinach. I showed my receipt, got seated, and got my bowl. It was as good as I expected it to be. The delicious broth offered a hint of ginger with perky noodles and good tofu in a fat kid’s cereal-sized bowl.
But the iPad! I imagine it will become more and more common to use an iPad not just as a cash register, but as a robot.
Samba Rock Acai Cafe
$$ 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
##
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Caffe Etc
$$ Coffee & Tea, Sandwiches, Breakfast & Brunch
6371 Selma Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90028
I have fantasies about doing something wrong here. The encounters I have had with the owner or management have left me feeling disappointed because nobody who works here is a sadist at least when I am around. And reading these reviews makes me wonder whether if I am too nice and appropriate.
I have never stayed too long to abuse the elusive wifi surfing policy, sat without paying for a drink first, used the bathroom without a drink in my hand, sat in front of the guitar stand, or look like I spent the night sleeping on Hollywood Blvd. (I sleep in an apartment OFF Hollywood Blvd. thank you) to be refused service. I have never cursed in Caffe Etc, stolen a cookie, licked the gelato off the smörgåsbord, thrown recyclable cups into the garbage, or refused to pay a dollar for a cup of tap water…
I have constantly, perhaps too infrequently, gotten iced coffee here and have mostly been a good sailor with the cold coffee in my hand. It’s hard for me to say anything bad about this place because I don’t eat their expensive food. However, the location is great, the service is good, the owner Viviana is kind of hot and the coffee is definitely not bad. The furniture and layout of the cafe are my biggest issues actually; their outdated and uncomfortable chairs look like something you’d find in an ice cream shop and probably keep people from staying too long.
Cuties – CLOSED
$$ Coffee & Tea
710 N Heliotrope Dr
Los Angeles, CA 90029
I hope that, unlike the Cafecito, pre-Cafecito, and post-Cafecito coffee shops that were here before theirs, that they can exist for years and years.
Theirs is a utopian cafe that hosts regular queer polyamory meetings, an incredibly friendly staff, weird video art installations (sometimes) and the cafe is dripping with pastel colors. It looks like someone with a budget of a few hundred dollars had the art school spirit and puckered it up a tiny bit. What looks a bit like Scoops now feels a bit more radical and fun like something out of Oakland. And for that, I applaud it.
The cold brew was good, and their menu offerings were otherwise quite simple and straightforward. Their place offers an ample amount of seating and is as busy as a place that’s more utopian than profit-making. It means that there’s a relaxing atmosphere here and always someplace to sit.
BUT how can you charge $1 for almond milk? That’s such a violent pronoun. Be a really queer cafe, cow milk should be the $1.
La Boba y el Gato Rancio
€ Lounges, Gay Bars
Carrer de Cuba, 59
46006 Valencia
Spain
Valencia is a slightly more extraordinary place now for having this cafe. I have never been anyplace anywhere around the world that has cultivated thoughtful and stimulating ‘camp’ from gay culture and brought it into a bar and really do it well.
It’s got a nice lounge setup that is more smart than pretentious. We sat between two homoerotic paintings: one of a muscle man in a mirror selfie that was done in a beautiful impressionistic brushstroke painting style. As someone from Los Angeles, I am so used to paintings being in a league of brightly colored pop art types so to see a very European painting style was a breath of aire fresco. So, in other words, it was pleasant to see a mirror selfie from an iPhone. The other painting was an uncut dick underneath a foot. Both were funny and conceptually thought-provoking.
Pros!
They have frappes, iced teas, gin tonics, tequila and a list of mix drink from €5 upwards and there was one made of fresh lemons, which was delicious. It had quite a hearty layer of “merengue” bubbles. It was not the orange juice and tonic of the local “Agua de Valencia” but it was still good.
Contras!
The restaurant does not have ‘savory pies’ like on a review I read or any food really for that matter. They give you the queer equivalent of bar nuts, which is a mixture of dried fruits and nuts. Smoothies have all been subsequently crossed out like on the pictures menu. So no more blending. And no more eating for that matter. It’s a shame, I believe because it has plenty of tables for eating.
—
Sorry for probably bringing all the English-speaking Americans into your bar with the first English Yelp review of your establishment, but you are definitely a charm and worth knowing.
Sango Sushi
$$ Japanese, Sushi Bars
27261 La Paz Rd
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
My sister’s best friend works at Sango and the two times I visited this place with my sister, the girl carried a conversation with my sister IN BABY TALK.
“Aww Wamma ewe look so pwetty.”
Am I segregated in a pseudo-rational world from the rest of society where all the people I don’t know casually coo to their best friends when I’m not around? The few other times I’ve overheard other people do it, I didn’t pass them by without shuddering flamboyantly. My mom said it’s normal.
Mom: Girls do those kind of things. She’s young.
Me: She’s 21.
Mom: She’s still young.
Me: You were married and pregnant with me at 21.
Mom: I was mature for my age.
Apparently. Besides a little seesawing in my stomach from acute gastric reflux, my stomach was able to adequately digest their good food here. The rolls are soft and fluffy and the vegetable soup has a slightly sweet broth. The ambience is casual; you order first then sit down and wait for the food. There is no bar here and this place turns busy on a moment’s whim.
To-go is always an option if you happen to overhear the coos of a 21-year-old architecture major. Aww sushi wooshi in a to-go baggy waggy.
Miyabi Sushi – CLOSED
$$ Japanese, Sushi Bars
253 Church St
San Francisco, CA 94114
There was a hostess at Miyabi who liked me. She would hook me up with free seaweed. I’m talking about expensive hijiki, the type of seaweed that lodges its dark green goodness in-between your teeth as you enjoy each succulent leaf. The type of seaweed that looks like a spawn of plant life from the Florida Everglades and The Black Lagoon. It’s delicious and I felt wooed.
Then the manager caught her and angrily stared at me like a disconcerted father over violating his precious daughter and bringing her home from Freshman homecoming a half-hour past midnight. I never came here again.
Take-out is a viable option when the food is served faster in a plastic bag than on a table. I can’t articulate why I chose to be a takeout swine here but probably because the atmosphere is very small and often busy. I believe the few times I did eat in, the wait seemed uncomfortably long. The miso soup, edamame, seaweed salad, steamed rice, and vegetable rolls are all decent options.
The Punchbowl Los Angeles
$$ Live/Raw Food, Vegan, Juice Bars & Smoothies
4645 Melbourne Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
I came to The Punchbowl the day before and concluded that the guys who work here are more chirpy than the girls, which was unusual to witness. The guy was overly friendly, cooing at me to come back, but not too late.
It was Sunday. I came back the next day. The lady workers are more subdued in their chirpiness. A woman who was wearing a really, really high bandana, which looked like the Chiquita Banana girl who would take a banana off from her hat, made me an 8 dollar plus tax Banana Date Smoothie. It took this girl quite a while to prepare and make the smoothie, and I really would believe she would have all the ingredients stuffed in her bandana, but I am certain that there are some seriously scientific alchemic combinations happening behind the counter wall.
Now I hate the feeling when I eat out and think to myself, “I can make this” because I am a horrendous and unsophisticated cook. But seriously the taste of the Banana Date Smoothie was good but very simple: cold non-milk, frozen banana, dates, swirl in a blender: ta-da! These nutritious yet simple ingredients taste like my less nutritious smoothie creations at home, but for $8.70-ish it was nice not to have to clean my own blender.
Pricey, but the owner from Colorado needs to replace the black plastic bag serving as a window on the back of his car sooner than later.
Barista Society – CLOSED
$ Coffee & Tea, Bakeries, Breakfast & Brunch
300 S Grand Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Barista Society is located on a weird plane where it is parallel to Grand Ave but underneath it. It is located in the botched plastic surgery area of Los Angeles known as Bunker Hill. The way to describe getting to Barista Society is to describe the top of Bunker Hill. Bunker Hill constitutes large insular office cubes that were put in place of the many Victorian buildings that were razed and destroyed over half a century ago for more modern buildings.
Sixty, seventy years ago, Grand Ave on Bunker Hill looked like Van Ness Street in San Francisco. There are beautiful POV videos of Bunker Hill on YouTube taken in the 1940s. And now the razed and flattened plots of land brought these walkways and ‘plazas’ to get into each of these large lifeless buildings. So you sort of have to drift into this shopping center, like the 7th Street Metro Center subway station, but without really knowing where you’re going. And then you find yourself walking parallel to storefronts that face away from the subterranean level of Grand Avenue. And that is this shopping center and this Barista Society is shining right in the middle of it. It’s really the only un-sad thing in this area.
So in other words – coffee doesn’t sound too bad when you’re overly confronted with this ugly modicum of a lobby for the towering building with its shallow ceiling and mall foodcourt style seating. The cold brew here, like at all the other Barista Societies, is excellent by the way.
I came here at some point last year for a Yelp Elite event for some Ivy League venture capitalist’s marijuana dispensary speech. And the free food/drinks kept the large majority of us listening to the future of the marijuana commodity fetish in California. It’s probably the largest number of people they’ve seen at one time. I would otherwise never go out of my way to come here. But when I find myself here due to some hot iron probing me to be here (like lawyers, court, etc), it’s the best coffee option close enough to the top of the hill. And whatever other required and slightly dreadful white-collar tasks that people visit this area for, there’s at least good coffee close by! There IS the MOCA next door if you exit this lobby and then exit this plaza that may leave you wanting to have this place on your radar.
Barista Society, it’s kind of on top of Bunker Hill but on a shallow grave level.
Cinnaholic
$ Bakeries, Vegan, Desserts
2134 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Ugh sugar-holic. I am so glad that the toppings and drizzles here cost 50 and 25 cents. I thought the marshmallow drizzle and cookie batter toppings were free the first time. So now I feel happier not having to feel obliged to load this thing with sweet stuff that doesn’t really need it. Their already juicy vegan cinnamon rolls are incredible on their own.
So when I tried this place the first time, I had to combat a mad sugar craving for one of their cinnamon rolls again for like three days. They’re really, really addicting! Like, the amount of sugar in the totality of one of these creations really speaks to the inner fat child. I used to know a girl named Eileen Salyer in high school who would carry around with her packets of sugar that she would rip open and eat like pixie sticks. I don’t know if she still eats packets of sugar but eating this thing reminded me of her pulling these sugar packets out of her purse at Del Taco. She wouldn’t need those sugar packets here!
The toppings included a marshmallow drizzle and cookie batter. Honestly, the cookie batter did nothing to the cinnamon buns. It tasted like something that would be better suited on its own. And seeing that they sell this stuff separately, I can see why. Being married to a vegan chef, I came to appreciate how easy cookie batter can be made and I need to take that to account when I order things that I – as a not-so-great vegan cook – can hypothetically make. Honestly, all someone needs is literally flour, sugar, earth balance and vegan dark chocolate pieces, mix together for three minutes. So I won’t probably get the cookie batter in the future. The marshmallow drizzle made the cinnamon rolls juicier but it was an indulgence that I wouldn’t do again, now that I am in the know…
So to be fair, I really liked this place and came back a second time. And lo and behold, at 8 pm they were selling plain ‘day old’ Cinnaholic cinnamon buns wrapped in plastic for $2.50. They’re normally around $5. They tasted incredible without all of the extra stuff. My friends at the Echoplex, the popular music venue near, many of them starving musicians, liked this place but complained at how expensive the price is. So these day-olds seem to be perfect choice for the locale and don’t taste any different than the not-day-olds like the first time I partook.
Larchmont Village Wine Spirits & Cheese
$ Beer, Wine & Spirits, Sandwiches, Cheese Shops
223 N Larchmont Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90004
Perhaps the most amusing thing about this place is the fussy rich people from every demographic waiting in line to order sandwiches. A muscular teenage boy in front of me wanted arugula instead of lettuce on his half vegetarian, half turkey sandwich, turkey placed on the other half of the sandwich. An older woman, kind of shriveled looking with the large jewelry she was wearing from behind me, made the worker redo the entire sandwich because the worker apparently put too much vinegar on hers. The sandwiches are good, hardly the ‘best in LA’ but they are good, the Italian bread is fresh enough and the half-sandwich is reasonably filling. A half sandwich is $4.50 and is surprisingly quite large, about the size of an average burrito.
I definitely come here partly for the ridiculously amusing line-waiting and for the low price, on top of a solidly good sandwich, because even a short line takes a long time with the fussy rich people making modifications on every ingredient placed in their sandwich.
The School of Life
£££ Adult Education, Bookstores, Life Coach
70 Marchmont Street
London WC1N 1AB
United Kingdom
I have watched every video ever that The School of Life has put out on their YouTube station. I love to hate on Alain De Botton’s pragmatist, pro-capitalist and anti-polyamory videos (open marriage guy here!) on the comments section but more than that – I love to love on the interpersonal videos that he puts on. He is the queen of peeling off layers of communication issues with relationships, and it really has helped me understand my own relationships. So The School of Life deserves the million YouTube subscribers that it has achieved in the year 2016.
And less important than The School of Life’s videos is this puny little gift shop that De Botton funds, which consists of simplified bags, books, and cute items with quotes. It is very underwhelming to come here after watching the videos. However, if you’re looking for a better holiday gift than the scented candle, you can get your work acquaintance a tote bag with an inspirational quote on it. The focus of this place seems to be offering live classes and workshops that are hosted mostly around London. I believe classes are upwards of 60 or 70 quid and many of them are unavailable to non-members. Membership is £££ so if you really want to attend members-only classes, you probably will make one of De Botton’s many illustrators happy. The only class I was interested in was a members-only course on intimacy that was conducted in an upscale restaurant. Whoever I spoke to was not only disinclined at my attendance but was uninterested in me becoming a member because the course I wanted to attend was happening too soon.
When I was in London earlier this year, I got to visit the actual store. The guy at the desk didn’t say anything or look at me when I came inside. I believe he was a hologram because he didn’t move though he was looking up. Although he wasn’t see-through, I don’t think he perceived that door opening or shutting and my coming inside. There were chairs and I could have uncomfortably sat there and tested seeing if he would have minded my sitting there but the chairs were placed in a way that they not really for sitting on. The books on the tables were more for display than reading them. I was in and out in a few minutes. I felt more comfortable sitting on a footstool at Skoob Books nearby than testing out to see if this guy really was made out of lasers.
The School of Life storefront on Marchmont Street, London, June 2016
Doomie’s NextMex
Mexican
1253 Vine St
Los Angeles, CA 90038
I’ve developed a love-hate for the unorthodox way that Doomies (via NextMex) prepares and serves their food. They fry the vegan meat in the same fryer that they fry their famous fried oreos in! So if something says ‘gluten free’ you’ll likely find oreo bits on a microscopic level giving you the celiac! However, double-dipping vegan meat in a fryer with everything else is otherwise really not that harmful, just strange to think about!
It’s an incredible idea to bring inexpensive vegan street cart-style tacos to a restaurant storefront. Almost all vegan restaurants in LA nowadays barely offer appetizers for $10. It reminds me of a cool vegan taco cart near Zona Rosa in Mexico City called Por Siempre that serves incredible vegan street tacos for $1 each. NextMex sells $3 tacos with options including chicken, chorizo, al pastor, carnitas, and carne asada, so if you’re indecisive about the meat of choice, do tacos first! The vegan carnitas are pretty crispy and good! The al pastor is a juicy option too!
The TWO issues I’ve had is that it took fifteen minutes to get my two little tacos. And then to top it off, the carnitas and al pastor were not so warm upon arrival. It was a big let down! The carnitas have a lot of potential because they taste like they would be incredible had I eaten them without the five minutes of me waiting after they were cooked. They could have been so succulent and delicious. When vegan meat cools, it TASTES like vegan meat. It was a bit hardened and bordered on chewy. The red and green salsas were both kind of bland and not great. I’ve had better salsa at Baja Fresh, ugh. But for the price and what was served, I was still pretty delighted.
I also like that they get a lot of clientele who don’t realize it’s entirely vegan but who aren’t afraid to order once they find out! It’s not so apparent that it’s vegan. It’s an incredible addition and another restaurant, like Doomies, that is challenging the vegan restaurant stereotype.
Due to Oreos in the deep fryer, we cannot guarantee gluten-free meat is gluten-free. Also, no more soyrizo. Qué tengas un buen día! -El Doomie
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Scoops – CLOSED
$ Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt
712 N Heliotrope Dr
Los Angeles, CA 90029
Oh man, it’s rare when I can say six years later that I still enjoy a place as equally as I did back in the 2000s.
Their vegan oreo ice cream is my favorite. It has a rich and chunky texture of Oreos mixed into the ice cream. Their ice cream is usually sufficiently hard and if it is too soft, it too easily will spilleth from my cone. Some guy handed me soft ice cream one day last month, and I was paying, which balancing soft ice cream from a cone with getting change resulted in a scoop of ice cream falling on the counter. I was totally about to re-scoop the fallen ice cream from the counter with the sugar cone, as I have licked grosser things in the past but he totally gave me another cone of ice cream, woot. Just to mention too that anything of theirs that is infused with maple syrup is my least favorite, as I find maple-flavored ice cream kind of gross and overly sweet.
The Asian woman who works here during the day usually gives me a really profound death stare.* One of the last times I saw her, some couple who were her friends came in and she hooked them up with free ice cream. Since hooking friends up with free ice cream means not having to walk over to the register, her smiles suddenly turned to a death stare when they merrily walked off and she saw me behind them. For some reason, either I didn’t chew the fat at some point enough or wasn’t chirpy or jocular but that cunt hates my guts. I’d rather go around the plexiglass and scoop the ice cream myself and ring myself up on their ancient cash register. I wish that artsy owner guy who graduated from Cal Arts was around during the day, he seems funny and weird but he has the death stare standing in his place.
Harvard & Stone
$$ Bars
5221 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
For three years I’ve lived as close to Harvard & Stone as some people do to their mailboxes, but for three years I never get to visit because I am usually wearing shorts.
Harvard & Stone Dress Code:
No Shorts
No Athletic Logo T-Shirt
No Flip Flops
No Baseball Cap
I wear shorts almost everyday, not because I’m bro-ish, but because it’s Los Angeles. I always imagine that some business would capitalize on this, open nearby and become a late night men’s boutique clothing store since the dress code is heavily weighted against the ubiquitous bro. I’ve seen a lot of people, not bros, but middle-aged men and Mexicans with baseball caps, turned away. The men’s boutique clothing store can offer special discounts for those turned down from Harvard & Stone due to their clothing faux pas and dress them appropriately for the bar. Since the gentrification virus has affected almost all of Hollywood Blvd., there are maybe four or five abandoned storefronts due to the horrendous company that owns their building and the neighboring building substantially increasing rent prices and wiping Little Armenia off the face of Hollywood Blvd. One of these expensive vacant holes can be a boutique shop that not only offers fancy clothes but also discounts for matching pants and fedora combinations. Maybe a free mustache with purchase too.
Now you, yes you, can look as dandy as the Harvard & Stone hipster for $59.99 + tax!
When I decide I want to come inside, I walk 50 feet to my apartment and cover my bare legs. Then I come back here and it’s usually fun to see free bands and burlesque dancers. During the week is more fun because it’s less chaotic and more of a lounge experience that emphasizes the handsomeness of this bar. The bands are usually local and draw a small enough crowd for it not to be ridiculously crowded (usually). The people are less pretentious than one may think if only a notch. The hipsters are not the dangerous crowd at Harvard & Stone. It’s actually the drunk west-siders who come here and try to stand out as they think the hipsters of the east do. It’s revolting to bike back from Echo Park at 2 am and find a passed-out blonde with her hair halfway lodged in the door to my apartment building. And oblivious west siders beside her loudly chatting and entering any westbound Uber ride that they see, assuming that that ride is theirs. “Hey does this person belong to any of you?” Since Harvard & Stone is located on the west-bound side of Hollywood Blvd., the front is often crammed with taxis heading in that direction. So she’ll probably be heading closer to where she lives.
Their drink specials are special, like the ones this week: try the Wizard Piss (bourbon, lemon juice, apricot), Whore Island (rum, coconut, pineapple, lime) or F*ck You, And Good Luck (mostly tequila) are all for the price that their drinks are offered for $10. Their drinks are as boutique as the dress code entails and appropriately good for their price, as is the consensus for some of my friends. For me though, I’m all about the Thai food a la Pranom Popup being served on the back patio (sometimes there is a pad thai vendor outside) on Monday nights. For the same price but more food and delectable options, at least five Thai restaurants within a two-block vicinity stay open until 2 am and at least two of those stay open until 3:30 am (Hollywood Thai, Ruen Pair, and sometimes Sanamluang).
The Museum of Jurassic Technology
Museums
9341 Venice Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
The Museum of Jurassic Technology is like a 1980s museum experience in a Victorian morgue setting. It offers random oddities in a way that would predate the more showy and vulgar Ripley’s Believe It or Not type museums, according to their video manifesto. They want to focus more on the artifact that carries with it historical and social/cultural importance rather than on it being an oddity. They succeed in tiny parts. But as a whole, it was jumpy and had functional issues due to jurassic 1980s technology. Some examples:
A few of their corded and fat beige telephones that you hear stories out of after pressing a button were broken.
To my chagrin as a lover of really old photos, more than 2/3 of the daguerreotype photos that were supposed to light up did not light at all.
The lighting was so inconsistent in general; it was as dim as a candle in some parts and brighter with other displays – in the same room.
A few of the videos were out of order with signs posted.
They really should be playing that video manifesto on loop on a projector in the gift shop, rather than at a nondescript tiny television. It really explains what they were going for. They have some cool things on display in general. To sum it up: microscopic sculptures. I can kind of see how they were trying to go against the flow of museums today with a ‘museum based on a museum’ that would pre-date humanist and scientific thought and favor 1600s ‘magical’ thinking. They just don’t do that well at explaining it. It’s reasonably confusing and an idiosyncratic experience for people who are open-minded. My parents, for example, would hate this place.
3D Animation of Waves at the Museum of Jurassic Technology
The Flowering Tree – CLOSED
$$ American (New), Breakfast & Brunch
8253 Santa Monica Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90046
Some dislikes but my god the food is good…
First, so many reviews here say “there are so many vegan options” but don’t even go further to describe them. No there are not so many vegan options here. But there are a few, albeit delicious, options that can be modified to be made vegan. I am going to submit a request to the Yelp mod bots to remove “vegetarian” from the categories because the bulk majority of the food items come with chicken, turkey or fish. It confused me to say the least. It is as much of a stretch to label this place vegetarian as it would be calling Urth Caffe a vegetarian place, but all can be forgiven now that I am in the know…
I ordered the Tofu Scramble that comes with three Eggs “Without Eggs” on the dropdown menu on Eat24. When I arrived, there was a handsome guy in front with glasses who saw that the cook didn’t read the instructions and made this thing with eggs. They almost had a tiny argument about it. Front: “It says to make it without eggs.” Cook: “Yeah I made it with eggs!” Hence, if modifying any of the food here from Eat24, it may help to write no eggs in Spanish so the cooks understand better. Lo escribe en Español: “SIN HUEVOS.” It took about ten minutes to correct the mistake and I appreciated that the remake wasn’t rushed. It was nice to hang out here for a bit as the atmosphere is nice, very quiet and casual.
The Tofu Scramble without Eggs is prepared more like what I would call a Veggie Tofu Stir-fry with brown rice. Although I was hoping for proper tofu scramble, their tofu stir-fry is one of the best I’ve had in a while. And probably the best in Los Angeles. It’s light, the brown rice is incredibly delicious and the vegetables (sauteed spinach and broccoli) were phenomenal. The portion was definitely not skimpy and it came with toast. Actually, the toast was probably my least favorite. They took the time to prepare such good organic food and serve it with prepackaged sliced bread and also with Smuckers Jam (is far from being organic and is made with high fructose corn syrup) and non-vegan butter packets. It’s a bit of a poor touch for an otherwise exquisite meal.
fōnuts – Los Angeles
$$ Donuts, Gluten-Free, Vegan
8104 W 3rd St
Los Angeles, CA 90048
Updated review
I’ve been coming here more often – twice since the two-star – because the basic vanilla vegan donut is incredibly good and fresher! I forget what I had that first time, but I believe it was BLUE. As a rule of thumb, I am staying away from being adventurous with donuts because I get seriously autistic about donuts tasting like things that I don’t expect them to be. It freaks me out.
Their cold brew is also deliciously floral coffee from Lame-ill. The cafe is very empty, but I like it empty.
The barista/managerista is nice.
Useful: 8 Funny: 2 Cool: 3
11/7/2015
Previous review
(Puts fōnut in mouth.)
Hmmm… hmmm… mmm? AAAGH! STALE, stale, stale, crumbly, dry tongue is unhappy, tongue is unhappy… (pressing lips against tongue to get donut crumbs off of it.)
That was basically my reaction and then the spitting of the donut along the gutters between the sidewalk and 3rd since there wasn’t a garbage can in front. Expensive, AWFUL vegan/gluten-free donut place. I partially knew I was gonna be let down when I came into the gray vacant hole of this space and there were only like ten donuts to choose from.
Probably modeled after the same clowns who run Baby Cakes on Larchmont. At least I know I won’t be getting hives, nausea, or a stuffy nose from these $4 wheatless O’s. Why can’t LA be more like Portland with regards to vegan/gluten-free donuts?
Café Tropical
Cafes, Sandwiches, Cuban
2900 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Are you a Mexican taqueria?
No. Five down and four to go, Miss Francis?
Can I assume that you are not a coffeehouse?
No. Six down and three to go, Mr. Cerf?
Are you a Starbucks?
No. Seven down, two to go. Mr. Block?
Well do you serve waffles?!
[Audience laughs.] That makes it one to go, Miss Kilgallen?
Could you be a ‘tropical cafe’?
[Audience clapping.]
Cafe Tropical is the 1950s Hawaiian Garden that never dried up, but Cuban. It’s kind of old and kind of tropical, mostly due to the Cuban pesos that are taped to the front counter next to their register. It’s one of three Cuban places I can recall in Silver Lake, and one of the two that have not been destroyed by hurricane gentrification.
If you want sweet bakery things, then this place is for you fatty. I have no comment on the sweets but it’s got a very strong, delicious and inexpensive espresso. It’s got a lot of tables. It’s reluctantly got wifi, but the place wasn’t made for computer surfing as there are only incidental outlets that computer surfers plug up at next to the kitchen area.
Finally, there is a lot of dedication that they spend to their potted trees; they spend quite a bit of time carrying them outside when they open and back inside when they close. They look heavy! I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine while this guy is moving these tall potted trees. He was talking to me while I saw these large trees hovering behind his head as they were carried from one side of the cafe to the other. I was touched by the dedication that they have to set up and closing the outside. Even though this cafe looks its age and most people would probably not even take a second glance at the potted trees adorning this place outside, I do.
Hostelling International
Hostels
1436 2nd St
Santa Monica, CA 90401
I hate getting to know people. It’s always cliche. Australians – in the 30+ hostels I’ve stayed at, I always meet Australians. They love living in hostels. They’re always bisexual because their continent is boring. I had sex with one in the bottom bunk bed once. And then in a shower. It was really small. A lot of them are bi.
I’ve stayed here enough times to warrant a solid review. Couches are on every floor. The en-suite bathroom is not as great as the outdoor one, which means save the five extra dollars per night and shower from the bathroom in the hallways. Chances of meeting an Australian there are great.
I’ve also stayed at hosteling internationals in San Francisco and Portland and this is the better of the hostels. It is spacious and clean. I hate feeding the beast because hosteling international sucks for monopolizing all of the hostels in America. But they’ve got good coffee! They’ve also got a good breakfast, which includes canned peaches, good coffee, orange juice, bread or mini-bagels, jam and cereal.
This is a $50/night and over hostel ($38/night base + $9 tax + $3/night non-member fee + $5/night optional upgrade). I think the non-$5/night upgrade also earns your room three or four extra beds. It is expensive as hell for a hostel but it is six minutes walking distance to the Santa Monica Pier. I stay here every time I work in Santa Monica. I use my passport because I probably otherwise wouldn’t be allowed to stay there. The website explicitly states that Los Angeles county residents are not welcome.
Greater Los Angeles Area Mensa
Community Service/Non-Profit
Los Angeles, CA 90001
I biked to Caltech in Pasadena. I paid $40. I took the test. I failed!
The classroom included about twelve or thirteen people from all walks of life, but mostly younger people, followed by trickles of people as old as 80 years old.
The intelligence test includes a section on math, a section on patterns and a section on memory. The key is you have ten minutes to finish 40 questions for each section. The pattern section is like:
{/o} }o|{ {|o} … which comes next?
or:
:-* ~_^ =D :-[ … which is least like the other?
The math section is like:
What is the square root of four divided by three cubed?
The memory section is an audio you listen to at the beginning of the test. Ours was about details of an ancient ritual in Greece. They then ask a question an hour later, which god(s) were they worshiping?
Even though I failed, it was a lot of fun. Upon receiving my results, the admissions person seemed eager to have the failing test taker submit any other proof that he or she can join Mensa, including SAT and GRE scores that she would assess for free. (I believe normally showing proof of other scores in the 98 percentile would be a $40 assessment fee.)
Mensans knows that people use this stuff on their resumes. You can tick this option on their application for why you wish to join. What I learned from not being smart enough is that people are as happy to hear I failed the Mensa test as they would be to hear I got in. It seems to make a good anecdote.
From the looks of a monthly booklet, a Mensan doesn’t collectively use his or her brainpower to save the world, but more to play challenging puzzles with each other during their weekly meetup.
I sadly will not be playing any complicated puzzles.
X Spot – CLOSED
Music & DVDs
5507 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
X Spot was formally called Le Sex Shoppe and was the poet Charles Bukowski’s porn shop of choice back in the day.
It is sort of the last standing building on Hollywood & Western that pays homage to a bygone era of Hollywood East.
The front is very, very plain. There are no painted bikini ladies anymore. There are no bold advertisements for 25 cent porn movies. In fact, I didn’t really know what was inside here. I have passed this shop by countless times. I kind of presumed it was a gay porn shop now because it looks so secretive.
You can only come inside by being ringed in, which there is no doorbell for. Apparently some people are not allowed in here. Some guy rushed in behind me while the door was opening, as I was entering, and quickly entered the ‘arcade’ part of the shop in the back room.
Things I didn’t realize upon entering this porn shop:
It is not a gay porn shop!
There are lots and lots and lots of boobs. They’ve got women, men, objects of every kind attached to boobs. There are a lot of DVD and magazine offerings of boobs at the very front.
There is a discount sex toy rack. If you are looking for a cheap dildos or fleshlight equivalents for under $10, look at the rack.
It is surprisingly clean and well-maintained.
The ‘arcade’, which is thoroughly advertised in front, is in the back room. I saw a lot of guys buzzing around there on an early Monday afternoon. There may be a golden pot of glory holes back there, but this is only speculation, for now.
X Spot, formally known as Le Sex Shoppe, as shown in the 1970s Charles Bukowski days.
99 Cents Only Stores
$ Discount Store, Party Supplies
5270 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Free condoms are the bane of the well-endowed.
Free condoms are always small and never large.
Free condoms are well-intentioned but funky.
Free condoms generally suck.
My search for the inexpensive large condom has ended at the 99¢ store. Seriously, large condoms are usually $8+ at Rite Aid or CVS. You can get Lifestyles Kyng condoms in the same shiny wrapper that more expensive Magnums come in at a fraction of the price. Big dicked sluts like me have a reason to celebrate!
For the $8 I would have spent at the drug store, I also got:
Strommen Tutoring Centers, Language Schools
3171 Los Feliz Blvd. Ste 314
Los Angeles, CA 90039
I really like the Spanish tutor I met from Strømmen. I’ve almost finished my twenty lesson package with him, which is a really good deal at around $30 per hour session. He is incredibly intense, respectful and helpful. I have subsequently enrolled at LACC and have been taking Spanish classes there. I have gotten an A in Spanish 3 because of him and am taking Spanish 4 now and am keeping up. I recommend taking their private tutoring with either a class or a project in mind because the level of intensity is on the students’ court. The hour of tutoring is on theirs.
Anyway, he’s exempt from the rest of this review!
What I don’t like is that I tried since 2016 to take one of the group intermediate/advanced Spanish conversation classes held around the corner from where I live in Los Feliz. They’re -always- booked or simply not offered. I contacted the teacher who was wrapping up the class at the time and told me he’d get back to me after he got back from Argentina and never did. It seems to me like the same people who’ve already taken the conversation course are given priority to enroll in this class over and over again and once it’s full, it’s full.
It’s a shame for them as I enrolled at LACC because of that. I am moving to Spain later this year hopefully. I am very afraid of not being able to speak at the caliber that I can with English. I don’t want to get by on small talk as I hate small talk in English. Lol. So I am trying to have these intellectually articulate conversations with words and ways of speaking that I have no idea how to translate into Spanish! I would shelve $$$ for a class like this due to my lack of confidence if I hadn’t discovered LACC basically offers Spanish conversation classes every semester that I can take for free as an LA resident.
They have a tiny office in Los Feliz/Atwater and they’re physically there. They respond back promptly. They’ve got some good tutors in my experience but they need to give priority to new people for the group conversation classes!
Photo of El Adobe Market by Dick Whittington, ca. 1930
Busty Brown in Front of El Adobe Market, ca. 1950
All the Signs of El Adobe Market, ca. 1970
The Occult Store (next to El Adobe Market) from The Craft, 1996
El Adobe Market, June 2016
El Adobe Market
$ Grocery, Beer, Wine & Spirits
5203 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
This awful bodega is iconic! El Adobe Market is the place most famously known as the location of the occult shop for The Craft in 1996. It was filmed at the shopping center and inside the space at the left of actual market (5205 Hollywood Blvd.) The spaces to the left of the market, the stairwell to secondary spaces all used to all be El Adobe Market back in the 1920s. Back then the central building where the current El Adobe Market is located didn’t exist but the peripheral building did. It was all called “El Adobe.”
The actual El Adobe Market building was built sometime later in the 1930s or 1940s. It offered a delicatessen/carniceria and panaderia/bakery. El Adobe Market is featured in this book about the history of drive-ins and supermarkets in early Los Angeles as being one of the first places to offer a commercial shopping center – a place where people can park their old-fashioned cars in the parking lot of the shopping center rather than on the street.
Sometime in the 1970s or 1980s – way before Fairuza Balk and Neve Campbell walked through the shopping center to the occult store on The Craft, this place was separated into a ton of other stores and private spaces. One of the spaces includes a recording studio dubbed “Hollywood’s only complete recording center” by the late founder and owner of Capitol Records Glenn Wallichs who made off-the-air test recordings of George Burns, Gracie Allen, Jack Benny and Bob Hope back in the day here. The recording studio and occult store were located where the stairwell leads to, but unfortunately it is all gated, closed off and covered and sadly left in a kind of derelict condition.
Honestly, when I saw The Craft the other day, the El Adobe Market shopping center looks virtually the same in 1996 as it does in 2016. El Adobe Market has at some point in the late 20th century gotten rid of their delicatessen and bakery and turned into just-another-bodega offering over-priced $3 bottles of water, lots of alcohol and run-of-the-mill AMPM types of snacks with no prices listed. I don’t blame those who give El Adobe Market one or two star reviews. This place is terrible and reminds me of a pit stop in Kettleman City en route to San Francisco! Unfortunately for me, I live 100 feet away from it and only ever go here if I’m out of laundry quarters to buy a popsicle and make change. It’s a shame that the owners don’t spruce it up or make those ceramic parking lot tiles shine as they once did in the 1930s (see pictures). But I appreciate that it offers an amazingly colorful 90-year-old history.
Dara Spa
$$ Day Spas
4369 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90029
What I loved about this place includes the time that they take to put into working on a massage. I believe most other places shave about 5-10 minutes from the hour massage, but not them. An hour’s massage being one hour is an understatement here! I think mine was closer to 80 minutes long. Don’t come here if crunched on time.
The guy who does massages here is legitimately good. His was one of the best massages I’ve ever gotten anywhere. They have a piece of paper, which you fill out check boxes; one section is how hard do you want the massage to be:
[ ] light pressure [ x ] medium pressure [ ] hard pressure (+$10)
Since hard pressure is a ten dollar charge, I chose medium. And I can’t imagine that massage having any harder pressure than I had gotten. He’s got a lot of stamina and really turned my body into a pretzel.
If it weren’t for the off-putting way in which I was able to get a massage, I would have given Dara Spa five stars. This was the first time I felt ‘Groupon shamed’ for presenting a Groupon! I know they’ve been on that site for a long time and I had basically gone to every other inexpensive massage place in the area except theirs.
For some weird reason when I came in saying I had a Groupon and asked about getting a massage, they quickly announced that there are no same day appointments available for those with Groupons. Why tell me that?! Just say there are no appointments available that day. I got huffy and said that ‘same day appointments not available’ was not on the Groupon terms but I made an appointment for the next day and left.
I was a block away on Heliotrope when the owner called me. She said that they’ll make a special exception with me and squeeze me in that day. I was the only person there. The owner oddly looked up the time of when I purchased the Groupon and then told me that I didn’t have to burden myself purchasing a Groupon right before I came in, as they would have given me the same price as the Groupon offer.
Well maybe your intrusiveness will work in the future because the massage was amazing BUT Groupon was offering a 25% off additional discount, so it was $26 instead of $35, which your investigation did not pan out.
ASOS
£ Women’s Clothing
House Hampstead Road
London NW1 2JP
United Kingdom
I don’t support ASOS’s sweatshop practices.
But I am a very cheap person.
So I support their sweatshop practices when I buy their clothes.
I mix and match Goodwill with ASOS.
I look like a rough diamond.
I wonder what would happen if I reported the two fucked up tank tops I’ve gotten and if that would get some of their poor Romanian or Polish sweatshop workers in England a paddling. One strap was shorter than the other. One XS tank top had a couple of more X’s added to the front of that. But still, that was tiny shell casings for a $3 sweatshop masterpiece. So awful…
ASOS is kind of elusive in Los Angeles and that’s kind of why I like shopping here. I’d be surprised if I spent a total of £50 here over the years. And those poor people probably got £5 out of that. ASOS has such an edgy and handsome fleet of jackets, sweaters, and tank tops – at the same time very simple or exceptionally attractive designs and colours, as if I found American Apparel clothes at Goodwill in LA and thank the hipster who got fat and had to give up his clothes. ASOS clothes also fit inside my mail slot.
AHF Wellness Center – Western
Laboratory Testing, Walk-in Clinics
1811 N Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Eat, pray, fuck. I’m a consistent fucker. I’ve fucked myself into LTRs. I’ve had maybe three or five or ten overreactions that led to me coming here. It’s either really obnoxious or responsible.
This place is consistently good. Consistently good means that in the experiences I’ve had here, all of them have gotten the job done (I might have had maybe 3 or 4 std tests) and for free. The people who work here range from really good to masochistic and aloof. Some nurse like jabbed me with a needle so deep and in a weird spot in my arm that it left a bruise. Another nurse with multi-colored hair grunted at me in sign-language, pointing to the pee cup and rectal swab and pointing to the tiny bathroom across the hall. “Where do I put these?” Pointing to a coral-colored plastic tub and back to the bathroom and back to the coral-colored plastic tub. A guy once asked me about my sexual past in a monotone, clinical voice and once he left the room, he got really enthusiastic and eccentric with his coworkers talking about going laser tagging.
Oh yeah, the workers behind the glass windows often talk shit to each other – sometimes about how they hope nobody else comes in. I am not sure why they think the closed glass windows are sound-proof but it’s pretty funny because they definitely don’t hold back their chagrin about working at the slutty men’s free clinic.
Oh and also, they are almost reticent about taking donations, so I assume they’re quite well-funded. The last time I was there, the front desk person was like flustered after this guy who wanted to give a donation asked about it. Mind you, this conversation is behind the magical sound-proof closed glass window that isn’t. She sounded almost frustrated, said that she can’t take the donations and the guy who accepts donations wasn’t there at the moment, and that she doesn’t know when he’ll be back. “So you won’t want to wait” but you can go to w w w dot something something something dot org and donate there … if you want.
It is located in the building on the left hand side. Go upstairs to Floor 4 and go to the end of the hallway at the farthest door. Give your ID to the front person for a second. Sign in your name. Fill out the paperwork. If you have symptoms and want to see a doctor to get meds, go earlier because there are less (or no) spots for the doctor. If you’re just going for testing, there is usually availability until about an hour before it closes. Wait time is usually about 15-40 minutes.
Saddleback College
Colleges & Universities
28000 Marguerite Pkwy
Mission Viejo, CA 92692
One of the most common things I overheard in suburban community colleges are rash plans for the future. “I’m planning on transferring to Berkeley after I make a 3.5 GPA and finish classes in …!” Four years later you find them at Saddleback. And Berkeley changed to CSU Fullerton. And 3.5 changed to barely a 2.7.
If you don’t move out of Orange County two years after high school, you will stay in Orange County for good. You become the manager of In-N-Out and all your best friends have children. Saddleback will stick to you like jelly to bread.
Saddleback is a decent place to go if you like jelly. Highlights of my time here include:
Me running over two traffic cones and dragging them underneath my car on campus, not realizing they were underneath my car until somebody pointed.
Me skipping three lectures per night class (on average) every semester to go see shows and managing to pass all classes with a flying 2.7 GPA.
Me writing, editing and photographing for the school newspaper.
Me driving too fast on campus and a cop bluffing to give me a ticket even though he had no proof I was speeding. Way to flaunt authority campus police.
Me being the proud alumni of Mr. Lamb’s first photography class he’s ever taught. We had our final at his art studio in Laguna Beach. (I WAS a community college surrealist.)
Me walking from the Mission Viejo Mall parking lot the first two weeks of class each Semester before enough people dropped out to find parking on campus.
Me knowing a few people besides myself who transferred out of Saddleback. I still wonder about the rest of you.
My advice: Take the eight-week GE classes Saddleback offers and DON’T drop classes. That’s if you actually plan to one day leave Saddleback. Majority won’t.
Fallas Paredes
$ Discount Store
1533 N Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
I’ve spent a few minutes ruminating on what Fallas Paredes means. ‘Fallas’ translates to ‘Flawed/Defective/Failure’ in Spanish and ‘Paredes’ translates to ‘Walls’. The walls seem to not be ‘defective walls’ so it seems to have something to do with the goods. Maybe it means defective shit that doesn’t sell elsewhere so we sell it for really cheap kind of store en español – a House of Defective Shit.
SI! Fallas Paredes (House of Defective Shit) is a kind of Spanish Ross – ‘el Rosso’ as a handful of people that I know call it, but with defective shit. It kind of has what Ross has, but a notch more rustic and two notches less expensive. My friend picked up a pair of perfect-fitting and really nice light blue colored 29×32″ Levis jeans for $20 that didn’t pass inspection and had a defective stamp inside of them. To this day, we have no clue what is defective about the jeans.
I’ve gotten picture frames here for $5 or $6 with a less polished quality than the ones that Ross sells for $8 or $9. I’ve also gotten curtains here for $3. But what I am really a fan of is their dollar t-shirts. Yes, $1 t-shirts. They’re the type of t-shirts you can find along the storefronts of the Garment District in downtown Los Angeles but in the Los Feliz area. While a lot of them are quite crappy, there have been some gems I’ve found. They often receive rejected t-shirts from designers and companies for extremely discounted prices, for which they cut the tags of the original designer or brand. I found a cool-colored lemon chiffon yellow t-shirt that was originally a dud from Paul Frank (I believe) for $1. The material was incredibly nice and it fit perfectly. I also found a really nice faded white/burgundy cotton t-shirt, not designer, for $1. It’s one of my favorite t-shirts to this day.
They also sell nice tank tops and other t-shirts with prints for $3-7, which will offer the convenience of a lot less sifting through. But if you have time, check out the dollar racks! The only issue with this store is that there are NO DRESSING ROOMS! I repeat, NO DRESSING ROOMS! But they will not stop you if you want to be an exhibitionist and try stuff on in front of everyone. I recommend bringing a friend to block people from staring if taking off your shirt (or pants).
