Los Angeles Thread #11: Let's Save Vincente Minnelli's House

need to add: poisonous sea snakes

how many of those are positives?

elvis, e.g., el segundo, hermosa beach, manhattan beach, redondo beach, and long beach. culver city seems a bit of a ways?

are you willing to wait til the "early 2016" opening of the santa monica station?

I'm actually looking at places along the new segment of the Gold Line.

nice. i'm eyeing the (south) pasadena area myself.

I work a couple days a week in S. Pasadena and commute in via Metrolink/Gold Line. I'd absolutely move there if my income could support it.

Try El Sereno or Hermon, now that Highland Park proper is also getting pricey.

I've seen a couple of new stainless steel garage door things in El Sereno. Word is out.

Forces out of my control intervened - looks like I'm bunkering through El Nino here in the OC.

In the city of South Pasadena itself, add $100K-200K to the price of any house due to the school district.

should have said "value" as opposed to "price"

Big Bowie remembrance gig at HM157 on Saturday night. Should be fun!
https://www.facebook.com/events/177258945965503/

Saw that, and am thinking of going.

Me and my family will be in town Feb. 3-10. We've got a lot of places to visit and touristy things to do on our list, but any recommendations for specific events or happenings, family-friendly or otherwise, during that time period would be appreciated.

if your kids like trains, check out the train rides at Griffith Park. I don't know how old your kids are obv but:

http://www.griffithparktrainrides.com

Also, the California Science Center down by USC is cheap and they have the Space Shuttle Endeavour there. I recommend Super Bowl Sunday (assuming you're not watching the game); we just went this past Sunday and it wasn't a big crowd, I suspect bc of the playoff games.

http://californiasciencecenter.org

I can recommend a few family friend joints to eat at too, finding places that are good with kids can be hit or miss. This ain't Chicago or Portland.

The kids are 5 and 1. The little one won't know what's going on for the most part.

We're doing Disney Land one day while we're there, I wonder if there will be fewer people there on Super Bowl Sunday or if a weekday would still be better.

what area are you staying in?

Echo Park

Well goddamn. The Smell in downtown is being demolished...
http://laist.com/2016/05/28/legendary_downtown_all-ages_club_th.php

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/06/10/travel/what-to-do-36-hours-los-angeles.html

gotta say la is pretty happening or maybe it's just growing on me

there are so many other places that weren't mentioned but worth it

i'm dying

It's only gonna be 120 today relax

it's that breezy 120
just recirculating boiled air around my apt that's killing me

Last night in the San Gabriels.

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13501847_602746799892453_37465385372245212_n.jpg?oh=049bf43e46506c2c11742ca718904a62&oe=57FB77C2

Noise fest next weekend at The Box Gallery in the Arts District. No word of it on The Box's site though.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/lafms/

Hi Los Angeles people. I'll be there on vacation all next week. Would love to meet people if feasible. Would also love any recommendations on food or shopping or other fun, easy activities. I've been out there various times, but feel like I've only ever scratched the surface. I suspect there's a lot that I'm missing I'm staying in Long Beach, so things convenient to that area would be great, but I'll have a car and am willing to drive around too.

imo the most beautiful place in la and surrounding areas is the point vicente lighthouse in palos verdes. if you go this saturday, you can get a tour but i'm not sure how good it is: http://www.palosverdes.com/pvlight/

i just love walking around there to relax and get away from all the madness. the times i've been there it's been quite peaceful

there's a couple caves if you do a bit of walking past terranea resort

for another pretty mellow walk check out the lake shrine gardens in pacific palisades -- more of a eastern religion/buddhist place but lots of different people walk in the gardens

what type of food do you like?

i can recommend some easy hiking trails if you want, but i wouldn't recommend it unless you don't mind scorching hot weather (next week is going to be really hot)

i'm assuming you've done all the popular stuff like the getty in brentwood and the newest museum the broad downtown, which you need really advanced tickets for

Nope, I think I'm going to the broad this time. But a lot of the typical stuff I haven't done and don't necessarily have on my radar.

As far as food, I'd be interested in trying out good Asian options in particular, but would really be open to anything good and fairly affordable. Not planning on doing fine dining.

korean food:

seongbukdong (my personal fave -- been here plenty of times but not recently)
beverly soon tofu restaurant (fave place to get soondubu)
ahgassi gopchang (best intestines in ktown/la i've heard, i quite like it)
kang ho dong (super popular kbbq place owned by this famous korean dude)

annnd if you like bingsoo, i highly recommend sul and beans

in terms of japanese...nothing of note (spoiled by eating in japan)

best ramen:

daikokuya in downtown la (not sawtelle)
followed closely by tsujita ANNEX (on sawtelle)

honestly i don't eat sushi in la, but if you really want to, try sushi gen but see if you're willing to put up with the prices

a lot of the better japanese places in la are fine dining. you can find a couple decent ramen places in torrance. been to a few but i don't recall their names right now.

if you're in torrance i would hit up kula, which is conveyor belt sushi. they're a small chain, but i'm told this location is the better one

and if you're into craft beer, sunset beer co in echo park!

the echo has free shows every monday night. i don't recall if it's after a specific time, but i would get there around 10pm

tonnes of mexican restaurants as i'm sure you know already

You might try la.eater.com for ideas, though it doesn't seem to be searchable for food type. There are "neighborhood" links but when I looked at Long Beach it took a bit of scrolling find any "best of" articles.

Awesome recs, thanks!

try Beachwood BBQ and Brewing in Long Beach.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/25959/

if you do get up to Echo Park i would recommend Guisados and Mexicali for tacos. the former is located close to Vin Scully Way near Dodger Stadium, the latter on Figueroa just north of Sunset Blvd, near the 110 freeway.

been meaning to go there myself

do you happen to know if they sell bottles of their melrose ipa?

xp

i know they have it in bottles, not sure if they sell them there though? maybe at the aforementioned sunset beer co.

they do have growlers, natch.

i sometimes go to sunset beer co and haven't found it yet

never tried buying growlers, intrigued though

anyone rep for t'aix? i freakin' LOVE that place. think it's the oldest resto in LA (?). the bar is a beauty, had some smoked rum last time i was there and some snails (first time) were actually great. pricey though

speaking of echo park area xxposts

never tried it but had read good stuff on yelp

i'm aways hesistant to go in because it looks so weird

like it's trying to be a bunch of different things that don't mesh well together

i used to go to masa in that area a lot tho

also been to a handful of vegetarian restaurants there and was kind of underwhelmed

i think moby owns a vegan joint around there (maybe silver lake, not sure) that my friend went to and said was underwhelming, too. i guess taix are doing more than just classic French country cuisine, but i've tried the mussels, endive salad, snails and i can vouch for the French fare being excellently prepared fwiw

i fucking love taix. so romantic.

moby's got his vegan place little pine in silver lake, not to be confused with pine and crane, which is taiwanese iirc. the latter is really good, the former i hear the same mixed things.

taix is a good place to hang out, it's a bit more chill than you'd imagine and the bar area is nice too. tam o'shanter is a similarly old school and fun spot. there's a newish british-style pub in echo park called the lost knight, which is sort of the medieval times of british pubs imo. like a lot of newer spots around these parts it feels pretty transitory.

xxp

sweet dude

ya i'll definitely give it a try because i'm definitely interested in going

in terms of LB-adjacent stuff: i went to point fermin park in san pedro last weekend, which is beautiful - the lighthouse tour was fun and free (they do it three times a day, in the afternoons). a really cool thing near there is the sunken city, which is the ruins of an evacuated beachside city that was decimated in a landslide in the 1920s (you have to sneak around a gate to get there since it's technically not open to the public but it's totally worth it). you can also check out the korean friendship bell while you're there. angels gate cultural center is around there too, a former military barracks converted into arts studios (similar to the headlands up in marin) - they have art shows and the like. we ate at a *great* lebanese joint in SP called nazelie's. lots of v. old-school dive bars around there but couldn't tell you anything about any of them. LB's got tons of gay bars clustered around one strip if that's something yr into. i've only been to LB a few times but i really dig it, it's a lot cooler (temp-wise) and relaxed compared to LA.

i love taix but don't really go there very often. i really like masa and guisados (the latter is now essentially a chain - they started in boyle heights and now have branches in echo park, DTLA and west hollywood). prado wine bar in echo park is nice if you go there during non-peak hours - i don't really like going out drinking there. also be warned that with dodgers games happening that parking in echo park is sometimes next to impossible.

whoops, "i don't really like going out drinking there" = i meant in echo park, generally. but i like prado.

food-wise: will second pine & crane (i was underwhelmed by it the first time i went there but liked it a lot more on my second visit many months later). there's an upscale-ish thai street food place near there called night + market song that's great, and a newish burmese place called daw yee just opened a little further east on sunset - the tea leaf salad is crazy good

as far as mexican food in that area, i think el condor is the only sit-down joint i really like. mexico city on hillhurst isn't really that bad, i guess. just went there for the first time. better than i anticipated.

Oh yeah, Elvis Telecom to thread!

Couple of important food areas near Long Beach... Going to Westminster/Garden Grove for Vietnamese food is pretty much mandatory. Brodard on Westminster Ave. and Thanh Mai on Bolsa Ave. are my faves, Quan Long Hoa and Pho Quang Trung would be my next choice. Thanh Mai is open until 1:30am - I've become a regular.

Long Beach has a small Cambodian community with some great restaurants - Phnom Penh Noodle Shack on Cherry is the first place to go. Hak Heang on Anaheim is also very good and occasionally has a live band playing Cambodian pop classics.

There's at least a dozen or so Indian restaurants along Pioneer Blvd. in Artesia. I haven't kept up as the scene is always changing there but I usually go with whichever place has the most polarizing Yelp/Chowhound reviews.

Gardena has a couple of great ramen places. My go-to is Shin-Sen-Gumi Hakata on Redondo Beach Blvd. May just be my favorite ramen place in the Sprawl.

Jonathan Gold's essential 101 is a good place to start: http://ballots.latimes.com/lists/101-best-restaurants-jonathan-gold/

Happy to see Measure HLA pass

the windstorm on Thursday was strong enough to knock down our backyard fence and knock out power for the block, but the power surge from multiple blackouts/brownouts was strong enough to kill the electrical outlets in our kitchen, take out our microwave, and fry a half-dozen surge protectors. can't really plug anything in and still on vague power until tomorrow when a electrician diagnoses (suspect one or more circuit breakers were killed too)

This week in Grand Theft Auto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzAt5kTZl_0

Comics and LA buds. The late great Neal Adam’s comic shop is closing tomorrow (Wednesday, 7-31) in Burbank that was still being operated by his son and family. Go grab a book and send some love if you can. (Lifted from Scott Shaw!) please RT pic.twitter.com/OcZTdTS3fw

— 🎃 Dave Scheidt 🎃 (@DaveScheidt) July 31, 2024

did Adams ever live in LA?

I have no proof, but after hearing about the Pacific Dining Car burning up on Saturday my conspiracy theory is that property redevelopers are torching buildings and putting the frame on the unhoused.

not would it be too difficult to find an unhoused person willing to do the deed for a modest fee, I imagine.

yup

One thing did stand out from this report:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-08-03/pacific-dining-car-building-heavily-damaged-in-fire

"A tent, mattresses and charred shopping carts could be seen along the north side of the restaurant building". It'll be interesting to see if it's immediately demolished. The story stands out because a similar thing happened here in the UK - a year ago a historic pub was sold to new owners, after which it mysteriously caught fire:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv2g2nwn3zzo

And what was left of the pub was completely demolished two days later, which was extraordinarily swift and very convenient for the new owners.

Tomorrow...

THIS SATURDAY Sep 21 | 5:30PM: Tomorrow Yesterday: Futuristic Visions from the Past, a Science/Art Film Exhibition. Short film treasures from the National Film Board of Canada & experimental filmmakers, exploring the intersection of art & science. https://t.co/gWpqhsI7wu pic.twitter.com/OSKPGNwNgI

— Mount Wilson Observatory (@MtWilsonObs) September 20, 2024