Los Angeles

It has been pretty chilly here in California. I was expecting summer weather and packed accordingly so I've had to get creative with layering. I didn't think I'd be wearing pants until Portland or Seattle, but I was very wrong. We arrived in Los Angeles on Monday afternoon and headed to Hollywood to have lunch at Pink's, the famous hot dog stand. I had seen Pink's on TV several times, and it has now been in business for seventy years so I figured it was worth a visit. We had to wait in line for over thirty minutes, and the ladies who work there really hustle. We both got chili dogs and ate them on the patio behind the stand. The hot dogs were good, but they weren't anything extraordinary. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around the area, including Beverly Hills, to check out some stores I had seen on TV. One of them is called H.D. Buttercup. It is a furniture store that is located in an old bread factory and is often featured by interior designer Thom Filicia on Dress My Nest on the Style Network. We then went to Pizzeria Mozza for dinner. (Yes, this trip is very much about the food!) Pizzeria Mozza is owned by the man, the master, the legend -- Mario Batali. As most of you know, I have a deep admiration and respect for Chef Batali, encyclopedia of all things Italian cuisine, and I was dying to try his pizzeria as it has been the hottest ticket in town since it opened in L.A. last year. It was much smaller than I expected (No wonder why it's so hard to get a reservation!), but it has a warm atmosphere. I wanted to try arancine for our appetizer because I had seen Mario make them on his show Molto Mario. Arancine are like little meatballs, but they are made of arborio rice and mozzarella cheese and are then dredged in egg and breadcrumbs before being fried. The arancine were served in a very fresh tasting marinara sauce and were the perfect start to our meal. David ordered a pizza with sausage, red onions, and scallions, and mine had salami from Mario's father's salumeria in Seattle along with fresno chiles. We both agreed that the crust was good (Mario is partnered with Nancy Silverton who owns La Brea Bakery nearby.), but overall the pizzas didn't knock our socks off. After dinner, we decided to take a ride to Santa Monica Pier. The ferris wheel was all lit up with colorful lights, but we found out that there really isn't much to see or do on the pier, especially at night. There were a few cheesy souvenir shops and two restaurants were open, but the carnival rides were closed. It was still fun to go there, but it was a quick trip and made me want to stop and get hot chocolate because it was so windy and cold. Our hotel ended up being in Koreatown, and, when I woke up on Tuesday morning, I realized that we could see the famous Hollywood sign from our hotel room window! Although it was very much in the distance, it was still very fun to be able to see the sign from the room. We headed to Universal City on Tuesday morning because neither of us had ever been to Universal Studios Hollywood. We were there when the park opened and had a pleasant day without having to wait in line much for attractions because it is the off season. In the afternoon, we took the studio tour and got to see the Universal backlot. Desperate Housewives was taping in their sound stages so we got to see the famous Wisteria Lane where all of the characters' houses are, and several other big shows like CSI and Heroes tape at Universal. Unfortunately, we didn't have any celebrity sightings while on the tour. Our last stop of the day was the Waterworld live action show. We ended up sitting in the "soak zone" and did indeed get soaked when jet skis were whipping around the water theater. We checked out the City Walk on the way back to our car. We had seen a store called Mercado Chocolate Loco on the way into the park in the morning and knew we had to stop there. It was a shop that featured confections from Mexico and all kinds of chocolates and things covered in chocolate, including chocolate covered jalapenos which I had never seen before. With both of us having sweet tooths, we spent some money there and then enjoyed eating our purchases. We weren't sure what to do for the evening and didn't have anything planned because we didn't know what time we'd get done with the park. On a whim, we looked up outlet malls in the area and drove about an hour to Camarillo, CA. David is picky when it comes to clothes and it is tough to shop for him so we did some power shopping in the few hours that we had until the outlets closed. It was a successful trip, and I am glad to be expanding his wardrobe from his bachelor days. We made a quick trip to Target for some essentials and grabbed fast food for dinner before heading back to the hotel. It ended up being a late night, and we had to get up extra early today to start our drive to San Simeon, CA, which is where we are driving to now as I type.

Oct 7, 2009

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