Chapter 1. I Guess That’s Los Angeles For You. Part II.
So, it was Saturday night.
Hallie had been coughing and having some allergy symptoms, so we took an uber to Walgreens and bought $70 worth of allergy meds and nasal sprays for her. Then Austin and Rachel came to meet us and we hopped in an Uber to head downtown to Death and Co. (the LA outpost of the bar we love in New York). Of course, as soon as we pull away from the hotel Hallie calls us to say she can’t stop coughing. She actually sounded pretty okay, so we told her to steam in the shower and then nebulize. After she did that we facetimed her and she sounded completely fine.
Death and Co Los Angeles is interesting because they managed to create the same vibe as Death and Co New York but in a much larger space. Unfortunately I didn’t like either of my drinks. It was sad. I think Rachel’s drink was the best. We did get delicious popcorn and pickles though, and Tzvi and I shared the toasted bread which was so good and they don’t have it in New York. It was fun though.
We got back to the hotel and passed out. In the morning we were woken up at 5am by a crazy homeless man having a screaming fight with himself outside the hotel. I guess that’s Los Angeles for you.
We were all up by 715. We hung around then got dressed and at 9am we met everyone and went to LamaLo, a kosher Israeli café here on Pico. It was delicious, and I still don’t understand why we can’t have a decent Israeli café like this in the Five Towns. Everything was delicious, the pastries, my avocado toast, my coffee. Tzvi had to leave the table for about 20 minutes to make a work call. Yes, on a Sunday, on vacation.
After breakfast we took a walk to show the girls the house where Tzvi had grown up. It’s been a long time since his parents have lived there, and in some ways the outside had changed a bit, but then you can still see the green mailbox that his parents put up and the remnants of the flag pole where they used to hang their huge American flag. It’s been so interesting staying on Pico. There’s so much that’s the same, but so much that’s different, and it’s definitely getting more religious. The Beverlywood Bakery, a non-kosher bakery that was around for years, is now a kolel. Also, the Chase bank where the fruit man used to hang out, is becoming a kolel. Basically, everything is a kolel now, and yet somehow LA is still more modern than the Five Towns. I guess that’s Los Angeles for you.
From there we left the girls with the rest of the family and Tzvi and I got an Uber to Dodger Stadium. I don’t know the last time we were in dodger stadium, but it hasn’t changed in 60 years. It was Kobe Bryant jersey day so we got there early and got our jerseys. It was nice in the beginning because they brought out Vanessa Bryant and Kobe’s daughters. They had one daughter throw out the first pitch and another daughter said “It’s time for Dodgers baseball” (which they say at the beginning of every game). There was also a heartfelt video and Tzvi was basically crying, along with every other Angelino in the stadium. Then we watched the greatest game of baseball because it was over in 2 hours and five minutes. I think it was the fastest game I’ve ever been to and I was sweltering hot in the sun so I couldn’t have lasted much longer. And the dodgers won, so I couldn’t have asked for anything more. We had fantastic seats at field level behind home plate, but we were just baking out there.
Then we got an Uber back to the hotel, where we walked to Coffee Bean and got iced blendeds. A Starbucks Frappuccino doesn’t hold a candle to the original ice blended.
The girls came back from their day which they spent with my parents, Hadar, and Austin, Rachel and Kira at the Santa Monica Pier. They had the best time. They went on rides, they had ice cream, they had a great day. All in all, everyone had a great day.
Dinner was at Pat’s kosher meat restautant, which is now across the street from the original Pats. I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad meal at Pats. The restaurant is kind of a weird setup though – the space where Pats now is used to be The Mark, which was an event space where Austin and Rachel had their pre-wedding weekend, but before that it was a non-kosher steakhouse called Delmonicos that Tzvi used to eat at when he was a kid. The Mark always felt like a restaurant that was being used as an event space, but now Pats feels like a restaurant that’s being used as an event space that’s being used as a restaurant. We were seated in an open area to the side of the main dining room, which at first Tzvi wasn’t happy about, but it turned out to be the best thing because the kids were able to run wild without bothering anyone. We met a family who was doing the same thing; the mom was from Great Neck and moved to LA, but said she misses New York. The food was great. We got a ton of appetizers, and Tzvi and I shared a fantastic bbq spare ribs and chicken curry thing. And of course we had the chocolate bread pudding.
After dinner we went back to the hotel, the girls went to bed, I went to the gym and Tzvi did work. Tomorrow we go to Disneyland!
Monday morning we woke up and Tzvi said he had to take some calls and had do about an hour and a half of work. It worked out fine. We hung out, packed and got ready to go.
We first Ubered over to Robertson and did some shopping at Kitson, which has overpriced “LA stuff” (not sure how else to describe it). We usually stop there once a trip and the girls each picked out something that had nothing to do with LA – Hallie got a soft cube that you can bend into different shapes and Madeleine got a unicorn jewelry making kit.
After that we were excited to be going to Toast, which if you’ve been following along with this blog for a while, know is one of our favorite restaurants in LA. It’s a breakfast place that Tzvi ate at often when he lived in LA, and we go on every trip, sometimes two or three times. It’s an LA institution – great vibe, couches where you often see celebrities and their entourages hanging out, great food, great outdoor seating. It’s always bustling there’s usually a wait.
Well, we got to Toast, and immediately could tell something was wrong. Before we even entered we saw that there wasn’t a single person sitting at the tables outside (unheard of for Toast at 11am on a weekday), and there was a sign at the front door about parking that was in broken English, that just seemed off. Then we entered and we instantly knew this was not the Toast that we knew and loved. It looked mostly the same, but it was empty inside, the couches were gone, there was only two people working there and neither of them came over to greet us. Mostly though, it just had this sad vibe. Then they gave us menus and we saw that it was a different menu – the old Toast had a spiral bound menu with an abundance of choices. This was a grimy plastic two page thing that was missing our favorite dish ever – coffee cake crusted French toast. Finally, Tzvi googled Toast and found listing after listing on Yelp:
One star: “Under New Ownership with same name, different menu/quality and 3.99% credit card service charge!”
One star: “one of my favorite restaurants for years… this place was an IT place… it was sold and the new owner has kept the name but NONE of the charm or food or quality. Don’t be fooled by previous good reviews!”
One star: “I closed my eyes and imagined I was at a low end Dennys.”
We waffled over whether to leave or stay, but by the time my parents got there we knew we didn’t have enough time to find something else so we decided to stick it out and see how bad it could be. The interesting thing was, the food we got actually wasn’t that different. Tzvi had the breakfast burrito, which was basically the same, and my eggs were fine. We had a croissant French toast, which wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t our French toast. And most importantly, it had none of the ambiance we used to love Toast for – it kind of felt like we were eating in an episode of Hell’s Kitchen. Also, Toast used to have the best iced coffees that they served in these huge glasses; the coffee was now so terrible that after lunch we had to walk a couple of blocks to get another cup of coffee somewhere else.
We left Toast feeling kind of sad. We took a photo outside, something we’ve done on every trip, but this time we knew it was probably our last. We wont be returning to Toast. Looking back at the photo it looks the same as every other photo – the same sign, the same street corner. But inside, it’s totally different.
I guess, in a lot of ways, that’s Los Angeles for you.