We knew that our first night was going to be rough-- Ryan flew in from Germany, Lee flew in from Singapore, and Eunice and Eileen are both increasingly pregnant. But we rallied in true LA fashion: Ryan spent the afternoon with Jon brainstorming script ideas over beer at the beach. We ate Friday dinner at Three Square Cafe & Bakery on trendy Abbot Kinney Boulevard, and even managed to crash the tail end of a private party to celebrate the end of the writer's strike!
The weather was lousy on Saturday, but we grabbed a foggy breakfast at Figtree's Cafe and set out to see some sites.
Now we've been to LA a lot, but Jesse managed to plot a course through parts of the city we'd never seen before (you can check out all the details on the incredible map he assembled to help us plan, embedded below). We started at the Grand Central Market downtown-- a great indoor farmer's market that was a fantastic blend of Asian and Latino food culture. Next up was the Frank Gehry designed Disney Concert Hall and the very modern Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels (known by LA hipsters as "Cool-Ota"). We ate a late lunch in East LA, sampling the outstanding barbocoa of El Borrego de Oro. We spent the afternoon up at the Griffith Observatory, where we lost Jesse and Eileen for hours as the rest of us napped in the car. We finally met up with KB at the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, where we paid respect to our favorite stars. We ate dinner that night at Grace Restaurant in Beverly Hills... good food, but we were too full from gorging on Mexican food earlier that afternoon to truly enjoy it. Everyone zonked out in our minivan on the way home, but rallied for a killer game of speed Scrabble before calling it a night.
Sunday was beautiful-- a perfect day to hit the beach. We strolled along the boardwalk to Santa Monica, relaxed on the beach, walked out to the end of the pier, and headed to the 3rd Street promenade. We tried to hop in a cab to check out Father's Office, our dream lunch spot (30 beers on tap), but actually had to track down a police officer to force the minivan to take all 6 of us (we think the cab was just a front for nefarious activities). To top it all off, the restaurant wouldn't take the cheese off their cheeseburgers (even for someone with a severe dairy allergy!), so we had to cancel our orders and walk out.
All's well that ends well-- we found a fantastic new spot just across the street to grab California - Mediterranean. Then we were off to the airport. Farewell, LA... at least until the next Kibbutz!
Check out Jesse's map, plotting our adventures:
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