I have a confession to make. I hate winter in Chicago. I have more than 20 Chicago winters behind me, yet it doesn’t get any easier. If anything, each year takes a little more out of me.
That’s why I love to travel in the wintertime, especially to places like Los Angeles. LA is not my favorite city by any means. But when it’s zero degrees and freezing in Chicago, it’s likely 60 degrees and breezy there, which is exactly what I crave.
LA is also undeniably one of the best food cities in the U.S. So, when I’m there, even for a weekend, I’m going to be eating a lot.
I went straight from the airport on Saturday morning to République, my favorite place for brunch in LA. Unfortunately, it’s everyone else’s favorite place, too. I stepped out of the Uber and into the world’s longest line. Thankfully, it’s a counter service spot and the line moves extremely efficiently.
Standing in line also gave me plenty of time to decide what to eat. I knew I wanted a green smoothie, so I opted for their green shake, which has tons of ingredients I like such as kale, avocado, and pineapple.
In terms of food, I changed my mind about 50 times. At one point I was going to get the mushroom toast. At another I was convinced I was getting the BLT benedict. I eventually decided I was just going to let the L.A. Times decide for me but then the article I was going to read had a paywall so I frantically typed the URL into 12ft Ladder (this nifty site that removes the paywall for you) while getting closer to the front of the line.
I got the kimchi fried rice at the recommendation of their critic and was glad I trusted him because it was delicious. And the pastry case just too much good stuff to ignore so I got a fruit brioche as well.
From there, I walked over to Coffee for Sasquatch to pick up a beverage to stroll with. I did not have the highest expectations for this spot as it seemed a little gimmicky, but I was pleasantly surprised by the gingerbread cold brew I got.
A lot of time I feel like coffee shops go wild with the concepts of their specialty drinks but then they don’t actually taste like much beyond sweet coffee with milk. But this gingerbread cold brew packed a punch. It was like eating gingerbread and taking a swig of iced coffee afterward. Definitely one of the best coffee drinks I’ve had recently.
While I was sitting on the patio for a few minutes I was reminded of an important reality about weekend trips. Though you might think a weekend trip allows you to step in and step out of another city without much thought, you need to always remember that you are a guest in whatever city you are in and are not allowed to simply avoid or ignore its challenges.
Homelessness is a serious issue in LA. A homeless man came up to the patio with his pants and underwear hanging very low. A pair of teenagers who were sitting next to me threatened to call the police on him, and he threw the f-slur back at one of them. The situation dissolved into a screaming match between them and he eventually stormed off. I’m not exactly sure what my responsibility was in this situation or if I handled it correctly, but I knew that, even though I was on vacation, it was important that stayed present to potentially act as a mediator instead of fleeing.
I was a little shaken up from all the yelling so I decided to walk around the neighborhood a little bit. I was hoping that I wouldn’t end up in any more situations that required quick thinking or an on-the-spot decision. Then a few blocks away I found someone’s debit card on the ground. I moved it from the street to a nearby post so its bright yellow top would be more visible if its owner decided to retrace their steps.
I then went to The Sycamore Kitchen to eat a Mediterranean gem salad with avocado. While salad is one of those foods that has a pretty low ceiling for how good it can be, this was a top-tier salad.
One of my favorite coffee shops ever is Go Get Em Tiger. I come here every time I’m in LA for one of their iced lattes made with homemade almond macadamia milk. I also get a little bit of simple syrup in mine. It doesn’t make for the most exciting photo, but its flavor is fantastic. This may sound a little weird, but it tastes like all the best parts of freshly baked bread.
I had to pass through Hollywood to get back to my hotel, but I won’t bore you with any pictures of the sign or the Walk of Fame. The sign is some letters on a hill. The Walk of Fame is some stars with names of people I’ve never heard of on a grimy street. Instead, here’s a picture of the mural on Hollywood High School. Since I work for a school district, I found this pretty cool.
I took the LA Metro back to my hotel, which was an interesting experience. LA’s best-kept secret is that its public transportation isn’t that bad. It’s just not as good as New York City or Chicago, so people scoff at it by comparison. But it’s better than most other cities. Some guy was selling turtles on it. Actual turtles in small containers of water.
I had two dinners that evening. First, I picked up pad thai from Luv2eat Thai Bistro. Pad thai is one of my favorite foods, but my biggest issue with a lot of the versions I try is the texture of the noodles. The place by my condo cooks them into oblivion a lot of the time, and they become a mushy mess. These were perfect.
After eating my first dinner and chilling for a little bit, I walked from my hotel to Sonoratown and back to pick up some chicken tacos and coconut horchata. Before I talk about the food, I have to mention that I witnessed the staff there give a homeless man who was loitering in the area an entire dinner, which was certainly the most heartwarming thing I saw all weekend.
I thought the coconut horchata was a little too sweet on its own, but it went perfectly with the tacos. I can handle pretty much any level of spice, and I found these to be quite spicy. The tortillas they were on were phenomenal.
I started my second and final day by walking around downtown a little bit before heading elsewhere. One thing I’m dying to know is if the directions the signs are pointing in the photo above mean anything. Does anyone know?
It wouldn’t be a trip to LA without hitting up Courage Bagels for an everything bagel with smoked salmon. I had already tried one of these before, but it still wins the award for the best thing I ate this weekend, despite the $17 price tag that still sends a shiver down my spine. Someone on Yelp wrote that this isn’t just the best bagel they’ve ever had, it’s one of the best foods they’ve ever had, period. I have to agree.
After eating this bagel I’m almost positive I walked right past Brad Pitt in Los Feliz. But I’m not 100 percent sure.
I know I said earlier that the public transit in LA is better than people think. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have a few snafus. On Saturday, one of the buses ghosted me. And then on Sunday its app crashed and I accidentally bought two day passes (which were only $3.50 each, so not a big deal). To get to the Griffith Observatory (top pic) I had to take this special bus that didn’t fall under my day pass. So I put $5 on my card just in case. Turns out the fare was only $0.50. And when the bus came there was a handwritten post-it note taped over the card reader that said: “Free.”
But I’d say the view from the Observatory was worth more than $5 so I think I came out about even.
I went to Pine & Crane in Silver Lake for lunch. Typically, I get dan dan noodles when I go there, but, since I had pad thai the night before, I opted for pan-fried pork buns instead. These actually tasted a lot like the gyoza I buy every week at Trader Joe’s, but I don’t think Trader Joe’s has anything that tastes quite as good as its black milk tea with boba. (They do have a boba-making kit that I bought a while ago and has sat untouched in my freezer ever since).
Silver Lake is actually my favorite neighborhood in LA and definitely where I would live if I lived there. I love the stretch of Sunset Boulevard that Pine & Crane is on because it feels like everything else is peering down on you. We don’t have that type of “layered” geography much in Chicago, and I think it’s so cool.
The internet told me I had to check out Moo’s Craft Barbecue so I went there next. The spread made for a great photograph, and the macaroni and cheese was perfectly creamy, but I wasn’t blown away by my meal. I think this is more of a “me” problem though. Barbecue tends to taste the same to me regardless of where I go.
I needed a breather after eating like 12 meals in half a day, so I popped over to the University of Southern California campus to read for a few hours. One thing that I think is interesting about many college campuses is how open they are. I went to the basement of a random building and no one did as much as bat an eyelash.
While I was reading, a group of students on the other side of the wall from me must have been making some sort of film, because I heard one girl directing and some other guy say “How are you all doing tonight?”, which must have been one of his lines, about 1,000 times. I really wanted to burst through the doors and surprise them. That probably would have made for a more exciting film anyway.
I mistimed how long it would take me to get to my next location so I popped into Highly Likely for an iced vanilla latte. It was a little burnt, but I loved the ambiance and definitely think it would be a good place to get work done, especially in the late afternoon when many other places are already closed.
At this point, my time in LA was coming to a close, but I knew I couldn’t leave without trying the fried chicken at Alta, a restaurant acclaimed by many Black celebrities. According to the L.A. Times, it’s deep-fried, then par-baked, and then finished in a skillet. Paired with a Fresno chili hot sauce, it was as good as promised.
And for my final act, I went to Wanderlust Creamery and ate pandan tres leches ice cream in a pandan waffle cone. It was the sweetest note to end the weekend on.
I may not have bought a turtle from the turtle man on the Metro, but I did buy this turtle plush as a souvenir. I am typically anti-souvenir as my memories are good enough for me, but it was just too funny to not buy given that someone had tried to sell me an actual turtle the day before. I named him “Train” for obvious reasons and he lives at my desk at work now.
I had an absolutely wonderful and food-filled weekend in Los Angeles. I probably won’t be back until next winter at the earliest, but I can already taste it.
What are some of your favorite places in LA? What did I miss? Let me know in the comments.
And, of course, safe travels.
