Los Angeles. Day 5. Nothing comes close to the Golden Coast.
“I know a place,
Where the grass is really greener.
Warm, wet n’ wild,
There must be something in the water.”
So Wednesday night was a nightmare. But you already read about that.
Tzvi and Madeleine slept until 845. I was ready to kill myself just watching people sleeping for hours. Hallie got up at 7, which was actually pretty good for her. We played and hung out and she was actually very good… until everyone else got up.
We went to breakfast and then got in the car and drove to Santa Monica. We ended up going through the Pico-Robertson area, so we made a stop in front of Tzvi’s old house to show the girls.
We made it to the Pier, which I’ve actually never been to. It was pretty cute. The kids first went on the carousel, and then we all went on the Ferris wheel.
Then me, Tzvi and Hallie went on the little roller coaster; you’re supposed to go twice with each ticket, but after the first time Hallie said she was scared wanted to get off, so we got off.
Then she and Madeleine went on a few rides together, which was super cute.
Then we got ice coffees at Coffee Bean, Hallie got a bagel with cream cheese, and Madeleine got a plain bagel but it was inedible. I don’t know how they serve that. It was like very chewy but didn’t actually break down in your mouth. We did the carousel one more time and then headed out.
From there we drove to Beverly Hills and Madeleine fell asleep in the car. We were still hungry, so we stopped at Pizzana, a pizza place that Tzvi had read about and that was supposed to be really good. They only had outdoor seating, but it wasn’t too bad, though it was hot enough for the waiter to give Hallie a free lemonade. We ordered a margherita pizza and a “neo-margherita” pizza. [Tzvi: both were very good. The neo-margherita was kind of like an inverted margherita, with cheese on the bottom and tomato sauce dolloped on top. There was also basil breadcrumbs and it was kind of spicy.]. We also had a brussels sprouts salad that was very good. We ordered a fried cauliflower, but it never came. Womp Womp.
After that we walked around Robertson and went to Kitson, which is always fun. They’re actually the first store I’ve seen to BAN masks out of SAFETY concerns! They recently put out a statement that they’re banning face masks because of a spike in theft. Certainly a new one. Then again, this is LA.
From there we went to the Brunelle’s house. I had been texting with Karen and she wanted us to come by. The girls played Polly Pockets and she gave them gifts. It was so nice and was really nice to see them. So that was a fun visit.
Then we picked up Jeffs, dropped the girls and the food at the Kaplans and went back to our hotel to get changed for dinner. We thought it would only take 20 minutes to get to dinner, but then we realized it was actually going to take 50 minutes, so we only had 15 minutes and had to rush.
We took an Uber downtown to Death and Co., the LA outpost of our favorite New York bar. At the bar we met Daniel (who used to work at JNF) and his wife Deborah. We got cocktails, popcorn and bread, all of which were great. Tzvi and I both got a second drink, which we probably didn’t need but we wanted to taste things. It was so interesting – they really managed to recreate the NY atmosphere but in a way that’s still a unique LA location.
After that we drove back to west LA and went to Next Door, a new kosher restaurant that’s next door to a kosher sandwich shop. It was delicious but I was so tipsy and exhausted. It felt like the restaurant was trying to be Fuego (in Miami) – every once in a while they played Hebrew music really loudly and went through the restaurant with sparklers clapping. At one point they handed out sparklers to all of the tables.
We started with meat cigars that had a bunch of different meats in them, including sweetbreads. We also got a raw tuna appetizer that was in a sauce that looked like green toxic waste; I didn’t try it (as much as our waiter kept trying to get me to) but Tzvi and the others said it was very good. For the main Tzvi and I shared a rib eye and a short rib pasta. We spent a good part of the meal trying to figure out the couple next to us – they were Sephardi and she had her head covered, but he wasn’t wearing as kippa, and they also seemed super disinterested in each other. Also, she had a Fendi bag, and he had a Dior cross body bag. Welcome to LA. Apparently were in the area where the Jews must be super showy to survive. I mean, I come from a place of showiness (Five Towns) but this is a whole other level. For dessert we all shared a chocolate mousse that was okay.
When we were done we went back to the hotel, where we found Madeleine tucked into her crib with Hallie’s Mirabelle doll (from Encanto).
I was exhausted, which is a common theme here, so we passed out pretty quick.
And that’s it for Thursday.