LA Story, part 2

So how did this LA story end? Answer: with a bang and a thud. I mean that literally and you shall find out why.

In brief, or as brief as I can be are my highlights and well, lowlights (thrown in for good measure):

I stayed in WeHo or West Hollywood as the locals called it. I took up residence at Le Montrose Suites, just off Sunset Boulevard. The place itself was what you would expect from a four star joint. It had a worldly era feel and charm (= real estate agent speak for it was old but nice).

The bedroom was spacious with a super comfy bed and the best bit was that there was a walk in wardrobe that adjoined the entrance to the bathroom. I naturally took advantage of this and laid out my growing shoe collection.

The location was great but as I quickly learnt, it was still difficult to walk anywhere in LA since everything was much further away than it looked on the map. I'd recommend it for a short stay. The rooftop pool had a bit of a view even if a lap of the pool could be done in a stroke or two.

So, onto the good stuff. Food and attractions. Here are some of the key ones:

Tenmasa sushi - This unassuming Japanese restaurant was close to the hotel. It was a nice-looking house with a spacious dining room. It was informal and the menu featured all the usual Japanese fare such as 'spicy tuna' which was everywhere there. I ordered that, the salmon and 2 skewers of the chicken yakitori. All of it was delicious. The strangest part about it all was that there are twin brothers who looked like the owners and waiters. I had to a double take sometimes as I had forgotten what I had said what to. Recommended if in the area for a show. Note it's opposite The Roxy and very close to Whisky A Go Go and the Viper Room.

Boxwood Cafe - This was the breakfast and lunch cafe in The London Hotel where Mr Kitchen Nightmare, Gordon Ramsey oversees all the catering for the hotel. I had pretty lofty expections only to be disappointed. Ok, so I am just judging them by their porridge but it was bad porridge. Watery and with no flavour until I doused it in the side of maple syrup and berries. This was my personal kitchen nightmare. Snobby door bitch too. Even Gordon couldn't serve a decent coffee in LA. I continued to drink Starbucks in the meantime.

Farmers Market - This place was awesome. After my disappointment with the Grand Central Market downtown, this place restored my faith in use of the word 'market'. The fact that it was in Beverly Hills and attached to the trendy Grove shopping centre helped too. A range of cuisines was on offer including Cajun, seafood, crepes, pizzas made from scratch, etc. Check out the great stalls:

Talesai Thai - On my last night, I was pretty lazy and didn't want to wander far. I was also having withdrawal symptoms from not having eaten Thai for 2 weeks and if you're a Sydneysider you can relate to this. This place was given some good reviews. The atmosphere was pretty nice, modern and cosy. I had the green chicken curry (yep, it's a universal dish) which was delicious. It was pretty watery so they must have used coconut milk rather than cream but the sliced peppers added some serious heat. 

Urth Cafe - This was my favourite place of probably the entire trip from the perspective of being a place that you could eat at everyday. You can tell from the line up of people, bustling conversation and overly-groomed clientele that this is a place to be and celebrity hang out. In fact, the LP said it was a guaranteed celeb spotting joint. I dined here twice and found it to be like a grungy cum cool cafe in Annandale or Newtown. All the food was organic and brochures strewn on the tables espoused the virtues of this and how much they care about the farmers and where the food comes from. I was like 'yeah yeah, all good, whatever'. However, once the food arrived, I sang a different tune. The porridge with stewed apples and raisins was a revelation. Gordon needs to dine here and taste real porridge. I cannot eat it without sweet, juicy and syrupy apples now.

How was the coffee you ask? Out of this world. They even wrote about it in that damn brochure that I ended up reading in its entirety but the organic coffee was sweet and had so much flavour and aroma. I was in disbelief!

The next morning being my last, I came back here and ordered the poached eggs with salmon parcels filled with baby rocket and topped with lemon creme fraiche and tiny tomato salsa. Did I mention that they have their own pastry chef who also makes all their bread? This was served on crumbly and sweet, toasted brioche with a side of rockmelon. All of it tasted so good that I am converted to the cause of organics more than ever (or where the budget will allow).

Other attractions:

MOCA - The Museum of Contemporary Art has a small outpost near the Pacific Design Centre. The exhibition I saw was crap though and some video art installation that I couldn't run away fast enough from.

Pacific Design Centre - Awesome looking building on the outside but the inside contains nothing but sterile display rooms of posh furniture over about 8 floors. I have no idea how this place survives. There was barely a soul in site that even the security guard looked excited to see me.

Santa Monica beach - This beach was beautiful. There is also a new mall there called Santa Monica place that has a dining deck on the top with views of the beach. It was up there at a place called 'Tutti Fruiti' where I had the most delicious frozen yogurt ever. Ingenius idea. Put together 20 different flavours of soft serve style frozen yogurt, most of it low-fat and then sell it by weight with a range of 20 different toppings all put together by the customer. Wicked! Ate it all!

La Brea tar pits - I promise that I didn't plan to go here. It was an accident. I had walked all the way to LACMA only to find it closed so I innocently stumbled upon this in my vain attempt to find a cab = Fail. Cabs do not roam around LA. In the end I had to get on a stinky bus where I was harassed by a slightly deranged comedian who kept trying to provoke me whilst I ignored him. So the tar pits. Not much to it. They bubbled and for some reason, they have built replica ancient animals to stick in them.

LACMA outside - This was all I got to see. Lesson: don't go there on Wednesdays.

Prada - This was the most awesome shop that I have ever been into in my whole entire life and that's a lot of shops. From street level on Rodeo Drive, there is no door and no sign. A space just opens up and you see a flight of stairs with some mannequins (dressed in Prada) slinking on the steps which are illuminated in their signature green hue. On either side of the steps were bags and towards the back were shoes. Around the back, I realised that the steps also rose from their so that they are sort of pyramid like. I took some sneaky photos inside. The walls were illuminated and puffy. Amazing. It's seductive and gorgeous which is probably how they trick people into paying 4 figures and up for these pink and purple camourflage fashion faux pas':

Amoeba - This was / is the best record store around if you're after a big one that has everything, new and second hand, dvds, blu-rays, books and t-shirts. The Scissor Sisters did an instore here. That's how good it is:

So back to my reference at the start. The bang: I had the most awesome fun ever chasing bargains all around town. My best friends became Nordstrom Rack, Macy's and Barney's where sale racks are a permanent fixture. I left for this trip with 4 pairs of shoes and upon my return, I had 9 in tow.

The thud: I maxed out my credit card and redrew funds from my mortgage.

Would I do it all again? Absolutely and preferably at Prada! Memories are made of this.