California Part 1

Two weeks ago the husband and I were in LA for a wedding (which was lovely by the way). Here are some notes from that portion of the trip. After the weekend, we drove with the brother and S-I-L to San Francisco, Mendocino, and Napa. I'll get to the 2nd and 3rd leg of the trip later in the week.

Because the wedding was in downtown LA, we decided to stay at the Standard Hotel which is a ridiculously trendy hotel (although, it is very 5 minutes ago from what I read in my People magazine.) I loved the Foosball table in the lobby even though I was only able to wrangle one game out of my co-travelers. I loved the bathroom that was bigger then my living room at home, I loved that the bed was too far from the TV to make the remote control work. I didn't love all the drunk people in the hallways (until I was one of them) or the bass coming from the rooftop bar until 2 am. But I did love the roof top bar during the day when no one was there. And I loved the silly water bed pods on the roof. The breakfast in the diner was great and I had some of the fluffiest pancakes I've had. I'm no pancake connoisseur but these were really good.

On Saturday we ventured to Malibu and decided to try Moonshadows Restaurant which I had heard about in additional People magazine reading. The weather was a perfect LA 74 degrees. We had a beautiful booth outside overlooking the ocean which sadly will soon be in the ocean because of all the SUV's and Hummer's that we sat in traffic with on the way there. But come on, they are really a necessity in the snow drenched, unpaved, streets of LA. Of course, I was able to forget about worldly concerns as I sipped on the best Bloody Mary I've had in recent memory and enjoyed the breeze coming off the water.

On Sunday we met a friend for lunch at Phillip's for the french dip, a classic LA foodie stop. It was a very cheap lunch which I appreciated. (Coffee is 10 cents). I thought my beef was a little fatty, which I usually secretly enjoy, but this was a little too much for me. I think I would get the pork or turkey next time. We ordered the cherry pie because it was one of those gooey fake cherry fillings that, like canned cranberry sauce, is better then the real stuff if only for the kitch value. It worked for me.

That night we went to a great hole in the wall sushi place in Little Tokyo that was recommended to us. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the place (bad blogger). I'm admittedly a bit of a sushi idiot. The husband has historically not liked sushi so we never go and so I've never really understood all the etiquette. We sat at the bar and the chef and waitress gave us a little sushi lesson - presumably because our idiotness was so obvious. I'm sure they laughed at us after we left, but they seemed really nice while we were there and they gave us a sushi calendar to take home. I learned that you always order tuna or salmon first and if you like the quality then you can trust the chef, if not, play it safe.

Tomorrow - California Part Two (San Francisco and Mendocino).