We met for brunch at 26 Beach, a popular Venice eatery with a cool funky decor,
...and French toasts, of which there were an equal number of options. ...from among which choices the others were wise enough to choose, and they all proclaimed their choices spectacularly delicious. I, however, opted to break my own rule of never ordering from a restaurant something that does not appear to be the restaurant's specialty. With all the specialties to choose from, I instead ordered a la carte from the "sides" menu, two sunnyside eggs, potatoes and and toast, ...and a cup of English Breakfast Tea. The eggs had no seasoning, the server never did bring my toast, and instead of English Breakfast Tea I was given Earl Grey. I hate Earl Grey. When I asked the server if she could please bring me some other kind of tea besides Earl Grey she informed me that this was the only kind of tea they had. (I guess if tea isn't your thing then one tea bag is like another). So I ordered a Diet coke instead which, other than a slight twinge of guilt over drinking diet Coke in the middle of the morning, worked fine. Anyway, I vowed that someday I'll return to 26 Beach and next time, dash the calories, I'm going for the French toast! After brunch Tom, Tommy, Annie and I decided to walk to Venice Beach.
...and took in the scenery:
We sauntered over to the beach,
...and to see the beautiful landscape of the Santa Monica Mountains off in the distance. ...which kind of begs the question: if you live in The Beach Part of Los Angeles (see post from 4/9/2016), where do you go on vacation?
To be continued...
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The day following our aborted mission to hike up to the Hollywood sign (see yesterday's post) Tom, Tommy and I decided to take another try at scaling the Los Angeles terrain; however this time we decided to stick to our own turf on this side of The Freeway. I suggested we hike the hills of Rancho Palos Verdes, a beautiful elevated coastal city about 45 minutes from Manhattan Beach with a trail that offers breathtaking views of the Pacific. I didn't take the above pictures. I didn't take any pictures that day of the panoramic vistas we saw along the Rancho Palos Verdes trail. I also didn't take these photos of Hof's Hut, the cute, homey little restaurant in Torrance where we stopped for lunch on our way home from Rancho Palos Verdes, I didn't take any photos of our trip that day because I left the house without my camera. However I was (or at least tried to be) more mindful from then on, and I did capture some shots of lunch on Thursday at our oft-patronized eatery of choice, The Kettle in Manhattan Beach,
Tommy opted for the over-stuffed chicken salad sandwich on raisin bread (which combination, he declared, worked really well),
After lunch Tom dropped Tommy and I off at the Arclight Cinema, an upscale movie theater, ...with a pretty courtyard where one is welcome to bide whilst waiting for their movie to start, ...and where we paid the matinee discount price of $30 for two tickets to see "10 Cloverfield Lane", which I found truly dreadful - though Tommy found it less dreadful than I did - except for the last 60 seconds, which, Tommy and I both agreed, was the best part of the movie. We likewise agreed that if they'd started the movie with the ending and built the story from there it might have been a far better story. In fact, on our walk home from the theater while I snapped photos of the landscape, ....Tommy and I re-wrote the movie from the start, figuring out the changes in plot, story-line and characterization that would have greatly improved the film.
On the other hand, "10 Cloverfield Lane" is so bad as it is that it will probably win an academy award. Though I visit Los Angeles two or three times a year, in truth I have little sense of the layout of city. In my mind Los Angeles is divided into two sections:
...and the Hollywood Part. The Beach Part and the Hollywood Part are separated by a great terrifying tanglement of asphalt known as The Freeway, a complex looping, stacking, and conjoining of four different arteries which, I'm proud to say, I once drove across years ago, though I'm not sure I could do it ever again. . The Beach Part consists of everything on one side of the Freeway and The Hollywood Part consists of everything on the other. The Freeway cuts through a vast field of behemoth skyscrapers known as Downtown which, as far as I know, nobody ever goes to, but just looks out the window at on their way from The Beach Part to The Hollywood Part and back again. Though I could be wrong about this. Oh, and there's also a part of Los Angeles called The Valley, but I'm not sure where or what that is. But anyway, during our Los Angeles visits we stay in the Beach Part and seldom traverse The Freeway to The Hollywood Part. However last Monday Tom, Tommy, and I were in Los Angeles and I suggested that we venture across The Freeway and hike up into the Hollywood Hills to the Hollywood sign, something Tommy had never done and that Tom and I hadn't done in years. We all agreed that a hike to the Hollywood sign would be the very thing. But we got a late start. It was close to 10:30 by the time we left, and though Tom drove and negotiated the high-speed bumper-to-bumper Freeway traffic with impressive proficiency, it was about 11:45 before we reached the Hollywood hills. Now, as I recalled from previous excursions years ago, to reach the hiking trail one was required to drive uphill through a steep but lovely winding neighborhood of beautiful homes, at the top of which was the Sunset Ranch, where one could rent a horse to ride the trail, ....or one could drive on to the parking area from whence began the hiking trail. I guess we should have taken a clue, though, from the crowds of people who were walking through the uphill neighborhood, the streets of which were now lined with parked cars, and from the fact that we were the only ones driving. When we arrived at the top of the street we were greeted by a gate closing off the Sunset Ranch and a no-nonsense police officer who told us in no uncertain terms that there was no parking beyond that point. Which explained why everyone was hiking the long trek through the street up to the trail, having apparently parked in the neighborhood below. It was later explained to me that there was some dust-up going on around the Hollywood sign. The residents were sick of tourists driving up their street to get to the hiking trail and so the trail was closed to parking. To which I replied that I wondered how well the residents now liked all the parked cars and walking people crowding their street. But anyway, we subsequently had to make our way back down the hill to look for a parking spot either along this street, or, more likely, some other street farther away. As it was by now close to noon I suggested that we put our hiking plans on hold and grab some lunch at the cafe at the bottom of the hill street. So we parked at the bottom of the street,
Now our mission changed from where to park to where to eat. As we were strangers in a strange residential upscale Hollywood Hills neighborhood, I suggested that we pull out the map and find our way to Hollywood Boulevard, the heart of the tourist trade in these parts, where we'd surely find some nourishment and some parking, and which we proceeded to do. However, as the Lieutenant Colonel would never agree to paying the exorbitant price of $10 for parking for the brief foray that we figured our lunch operation would be, we drove around until we found a parking meter on a side street from whence we walked back to Hollywood Boulevard.
...and the motif was Hillbilly-chic. The ambiance was fun and the food was wonderful.
... I opted for the Cobb Wrap, which was humongous, delicious, and came with the most ethereally scrumptious sweet potato fries, which I swear I must seek to replicate someday, ...and Tommy had a sort of stylized Cobb Salad, also very tasty. But though the food at The Rusty Mullet was great, it took overly-long to arrive, and under normal circumstances I might have said the food was worth waiting for. But it was a little before 1 pm when we arrived at the restaurant and 1:45 pm when we left. Doing the math we figured that by the time we drove back to the Hollywood Hills, found parking, and hiked up the steep hill street it would probably be at least 2:45 pm before we even reached the beginning of the trail to the Hollywood sign. Our drive back home over The Freeway could take 1 1/2 hours or more during rush hour. And so, seeing as a hike up to the Hollywood sign was not in the cards, we folded and instead joined the crowds hiking up and down Hollywood Boulevard, which was also interesting,
However on our drive back home, as we sat stuck on The Freeway in the famous L. A. traffic, we decided that if in the future if we wanted to go for a hike in Los Angeles we'd stick to the lovely hills of Malibu in the Beach Part. I was taught the art of Easter egg-blowing - that is, blowing the yolk from eggs so that the shells can be dyed - many years ago by my Hungarian mother-in-law, who was an expert at it. She could make the tiniest, practically invisible pinprick in either end of a raw egg and by blowing through one pinprick, force every bit of the insides of the egg out the other pinprick. I, on the other hand, have never mastered my my mother-in-law's finesse, either in the tiny hole-making or the egg-blowing. As you see, my holes look like little craters.
...and, stored in a carton, these Easter eggs will last forever. Or until somebody drops one. How To Blow Eggs: 1. Rinse off a raw egg. 2. Using a metal skewer (my preferred tool) or a sharp knife, poke a hole in either end of the egg. 3. Pick off any loose pieces of shell, then, holding the egg over a bowl, blow through one of the holes. 4. Wash, rinse, and dry the egg shells, which are now ready to decorate. As for the eggs blown from their shells, you can make scrambled eggs. |
"Tropical Depression"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa or from The Book Loft of German Village, Columbus, Ohio Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
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May 2024
I am a traveler just visiting this planet and reporting various and sundry observations,
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