21st Annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas: Night 2

5 minutes to noon on a random Wednesday in November, I sat at my desk and my palms started to sweat as I anxiously watched the clock.  At exactly 12pm tickets to Night 2 of KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas would go on sale and 2 tickets were destined to be mine. 

I'm not a typical concert goer.  I wish I was, but frankly, I'd much rather spend my money on food and clothes than paying 2 weeks worth of groceries for one night of watching bands that I can hear during my commute at higher quality.  Not that I don't appreciate live music, I do... I just love food, clothes, and my money a lot more. 

But this time was different.  My new found love for The Black Keys had driven me to a sense of madness when I discovered that they didn't have any stops in LA for the rest of their tour.  That all changed when I found out that they were gracing Los Angeles with their presence as part of the lineup at KROQ'S AAC. 


After 13 minutes and a barrage of friends helping to secure tickets, I had the tickets waiting in my inbox.  A hipster's dream come true--or in my case, a hipster-poser's dream come true.

The lineup:
Phoenix
Vampire Weekend
Brandon Flowers
The Black Keys
The Temper Trap
Neon Trees
Florence &The Machine
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros
Broken Bells

The result: 4 1/2 hours of eargasms (give or take a few songs), a rotating stage, Patrick Carney banging the life out of his Ludwigs, Florence's voice box entrancing all lost souls in the greater LA area,  Phoneix's psychedelic laser light show, 5000+ people, and the occasional puffed cloud of kush that would waft past our seats. 



My mental state of mind: Musical Bliss.

Foot Reflexology

When you see a sign while out on your lunch break that says "SPECIAL: $20 for 60 minute massage" you say YES!  And that's what we did.


We both had never had a foot reflexology experience so this was going to be first to check off the list.  The sign on the window said "Foot Ralascology".  I'm pretty sure that's a typo, but that didn't stop us from booking our appointments.

 

They brought us into a dark, window and doorless room where they had us lay down onto pillow .  Sounds creepy, but we could hear an asian grandma gossiping in the back so we figured it was safe.

So when you think of foot reflexology you'd imagine that they'd be spending an hour on your feet.  That's not the case.  They massage your shoulders, back, hands, arms, and do this little scrapping thing on your fingertips and toes.  It's pretty unconventional, but after an hour, messy hair and all, I was definitely relaxed.  All of that for $25 including tip.  Count me in.  It's no spa experience, but if you need some relaxation in the middle of the day-- this is your spot.

The Bazaar

Omakase at Toshi

To put one’s faith in a chef and ultimately one’s dining experience may seem to some, like you’re losing control. And this precisely is what it is - Omakase – from the Japanese, simply means “to entrust.” You hand over your apprehensions, food phobias, and general pickiness and allow the chef to create a dining experience that he feels is the best given the quality of ingredients he has that day. In true Japanese form, here is our meal, plain and simple – artfully composed and deftly balanced.

1. Seaweed Salad, Homemade Tofu, Lemon, Sesame, Yuzu



2. Oyster, Scallion, Lemon
3. Octopus, Yuzu
4. Squid, Ink, Soy



5. Sardine, Tuna, Amberjack



6. Black Cod, Miso, Radish



7. Kobe Beef, Ponzu, Ice
8. Scallop, Bone Marrow
9. Salmon Two Ways
10. Sardine, Ponzu
11. Tuna Roll



12. Shrimp Head



13. Sweet Shrimp, Mackeral, Seared Tuna, Konpachi, Albacore, Urchin, Salmon Roe, Tamago



14. Miso, Clams, Radish Sprouts



15. Green Tea Ice Cream

The Day's Damage: (2) Omakase Sushi Dinners $45 = $90
Item 31: Check

Runyon Canyon & Shabu Shabu

One foggy morning, before the club goers and night owls brushed off the glitter from the night before, Laleanne and I began our ascent on the trail that would test us in both agility and speed – not really, but that was fun to say. Known in LA as the “hike” to see and be seen, those literally ‘running’ Runyon don gear with the appearance of neither trying too hard and that of actual fitness gurus. The hike provides various options for so called hikers, with trails ranging in length from about three to six miles respectively.
Parking can be a bit of a challenge, but since one is there for some exercise, parking further away shouldn’t be an issue for anyone. There are three ways to enter Runyon Canyon, at Fuller or Vista on the south side of the canyon or Mulholland to the north. Laleanne and I chose the southern Fuller entrance, and trotted by the free yoga in the park which is organized a few times a day, seven days a week. In typical LA fashion, it’s littered with models and waiters, those with copious amounts of midweek afternoon free time. Nope, no bitterness from me, its pure jealousy – hell, I’d love to be able to find peace every afternoon in the park, who wouldn’t?



We decided to take the three mile loop going clockwise around the canyon, we’d later find the climb down was a treacherous descend of steep steps and windy slopes. As hair raising as it was, the thought of climbing up them, made me a bit nauseous!



A word of caution for anyone hiking Runyon, you must be dog friendly. The canyon has a very liberal off-leash policy for dogs, 90 of the 160 acres are considered off-leash zones. Dogs of all kinds grace the dusty trails with the presence, in more ways than one. Lucky for us, dodging the inevitable was not much of a problem that morning; I guess most patrons had picked up after their dogs – much appreciated! English Bulldogs, Cocker Spaniels, Teacup Chihuahuas, Border Collies – canines great and small, happily raced up and down the trails, their owners in tow. I did manage to get knocked into by an overzealous Weimaraner puppy careening down the steeps, limbs flailing out of control.
The vantage points along the hike offer an impressive panaromic view of the city, stretching across Los Angeles proper – on the clear day, we weren’t so fortunate, this would be a great place to bring out of towners for some monumental photo opps.
We made our way back to the car, by this time, the walk of shamers had made their way home and the dedicated were trudging up Fuller with the goal of sweating out last nights bad decisions.



After running a few errands, we were on the verge of not being able to withstand our tummy grumbles much longer – it was LUNCHTIME.
After our morning of heart pumping exercise, we decided a healthier lunch option was our best bet – bring on the traditional Japanese hotpot extravaganza, Shabu-Shabu. Thinly sliced meats and veggies are cooked DIY style in boiling broth, slim on fat but not on flavor, this was gonna be fun. We ordered two types of beef, buttery Angus Rib Eye and juicy Chuck Top Blade ruby red and melt-in-your-mouth marbled.
Our waitress set out two types of broth, one fragrant and aromatic, the other fiery, red and spicy. Once they reached a rolling boil it was time to Shabu – in went Napa cabbage, bok choy, carrots, tofu, udon noodles, and spring onions.



Now here’s the trick, hold the beef in your chopsticks and swish the meat through the boiling broth, in the time it takes to say Shabu Shabu Shabu, the meat is cooked. Plunge it into ponzu seasoned with grated radish and green onions or the decadently creamy peanut sauce. We continued swishing and dipping, combining slivers of cabbage, noodles and beef into perfect bites.



From time to time we ladled the spicy broth over our bowls of steamed rice and drizzled it with sesame oil. By the end of the meal, we had annihilated everything in sight – satisfied but not weighed down and gross-feeling we agreed that Shabu had been the perfect way to dine post hike. We pulled away from Khan Shabu Shabu on Western, content in our day’s decisions but destined to do some damage at a later date – let’s not forget chicken and waffles is still in our future!
The Day’s Damage = (2) Shabu Shabu lunch specials $20 + tax/tip = $25
Items 9 & 33: Check

Bona Vista Lounge & Campanile's Grilled Cheese Night

Let me ask you this, what part of drinking obnoxious cocktails out of giant souvenir glasses in the shape of California at a revolving lounge overlooking the city doesn’t sound like a good time to you? Can’t think of anything…..neither could we, so off we went to the Bona Vista Lounge located on top of the Westin Bonaventure Hotel downtown. If you don’t know which one the Bonaventure is, it’s the shiny space-aged building with five cylindrical glass towers located on Figueroa.



Capsule shaped elevators zip up and down the exterior of the building, making for a trippy decent down, post-cocktail. Located on the 34th and 35thfloors of the hotel, we embraced the 80’s “cool” design of the bar – candy apple red walls and booths, abstract aluminum light fixtures and Hollywood inspired artwork.

Taking a seat at a table next to the window, we only noticed the room was revolving as a column slowly passed us by, while pondering which ridiculous beverage to enjoy. The options were far to amazing to begin to decide…..frothy strawberry concoctions served in glass cowboy boots, the “record breaker’ a pineapple rum drink in a ceramic record, the coconut cranberry “cloud buster” in the replica of the hotel. So we did a spin the bottle tactic using the menu and landed on the Banana Dream – a banana, rum, whipped cream monstrosity poured into a ceramic film camera.



Cloyingly sweet and a touch warm, the cocktail lived up to its kitsch packaging. We sipped away while gazing out the window at the revolving views of downtown – it takes a little over an hour to do a full 360 rotation, that’s enough time to consume two boots and a state of California!





Now it was on to dinner, but not without a quick stop in at a neighboring restaurant to try to persuade the hostess to comp our parking for the bar. Success! We arrived at the restaurant right on time and for what would be a dinner to remember.

Let me start by saying, there is nothing more simplistically satisfying or evokes more feelings of nostalgia than the grilled cheese sandwich – or as we called it in South Africa, the “Toasted Cheese.” Gooey, oozing scald the roof of your mouth delicious – classic comfort food at its best and at Campanile every Thursday night is Grilled Cheese Night. Good god – why didn’t we do this sooner?!

Quick history, Campanile is housed in a building built for Charlie Chaplin; it was to be his office. Unfortunately, he lost it to his wife in their divorce settlement where the building lay dormant and neglected until, years later, Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton converted the structure and courtyard into a bakery and restaurant. And for the past 21 years, La Brea bakery and Campanile have maintained their culinary point-of-views as what can only be described as the epitome of Los Angeles.



We settled into our table in the main room, FYI –that’s where you want to be, with a view of the open kitchen and within earshot of the babbling courtyard fountain. While we waited for the rest of our party, we sipped sparkling Pinot Noir and noshed on La Brea Bread, delicious roasted garlic and orange scented olives and Marcona almonds. Next up, beer battered squash blossoms with parsley pesto and nectarines, remarkable light and crispy, this was fried done right.



Our attentive waiter and all-knowing sommelier then paired our next glass of wine and app., cucumber, melon, prosciutto and mint with the first grilled cheese of the night. Nicely divided into three portions, we eagerly devoured the Sevillian ham & fig served open face scattered with arugula, curls of shaved Manchego cheese and a honey drizzle.



Our next two grilled cheeses also paired with wine were soon to follow the last, the Autostrada and the Croquet Madame. With the waiter’s suggestion, we had the Madame topped with not one but three fried eggs so we each had out own just-set yoke to break into and deliciously coat the ham and gruyere sandwich. I was also partial to dipping perfectly crispy pomme frites into my yoke. The ever popular Autostrada, we were informed as we were seated that they were quickly running low, comes filled with cured meats, provolone, and snappy cherry peppers. Lastly, a little cast iron skillet was plopped on the table nestled inside were mussels, cheery tomatoes and fingerling potatoes all topped with crunchy breadcrumbs.



As we were sopping up the last of the yokey goodness off our plates, we noticed Mark Peel strolling through the restaurant – a twinge of excitement come over us at the sight of the celebrity chef as he began to make his way toward us. He inquired about our meal and then divulged his secret to making the perfect fried egg. And I will share it with you now, start with a hot cast iron skillet with a good half-inch of olive oil. Crack in your eggs and continually baste them in the hot oil, this will produced a silky yoke, just set white and crispy, crunchy edges. We giddily continued our meal topped off with yet another glass of wine.

I’m not going to pretend like I know that much about wine, because I don’t – my knowledge definitely skews more towards food than bev. All I do know it that Taylor, our sommelier, kept it flowing all night long and was kind enough to write down everything he poured for us, so here it is:
- NV Cremant de Bourgogne, Dom des Roches
- 2008 Jareninèan, Crnko, Maribor, Slovenia
- 2007 Bourgogne Passetootgram, H. Lignier
- 2008 Cheverny Rouge, Christian Venier
- 2002 Temperillo Gran Reserva, Parador, Napa Valley



We finished off our deliciously decadent meal with the chocolate soufflé cake, butter brickle and black pepper ice-cream with a crunchy pretzel streusel. Delightfully content, a bit star struck and way more than three sheets to the wind, we left Campanile and skipped down La Brea towards the general vicinity of home.



The Days Damage = Banana Dream Cocktail $20 + Appetizers, Grilled Cheeses, Dessert and wine for three $200 + tax/tip/parking = $240

Items 13 & 30: Check

Tequila Tasting at Las Perlas

Typhoon & Venice Beach

I'm going to be honest; eating bugs isn't on the top of my list, but when I saw the Los Angeles episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern where he visits Typhoon in Santa Monica, my curiosity was piqued.  Located at the Santa Monica airport, Typhoon is known for their vast variety of Pan Asian cuisine which they serve out of their glass encased dining room that overlooks the airport runways. So we ventured out on a Sunday afternoon to give their bug menu a taste.

For lunch, the only insect options to choose from were the Tawainese Crickets and the Singapore Style Scorpions.  Our waiter suggested we opt for the crickets since there would be more share.  The more the merrier, right? So we ordered our crickets and tacked on the Mongolian Lamb and Pineapple Fried Rice to round out the meal.



The flash-fried crickets were served on a bed of shoestring french fries with a thick, red hot sauce set in the middle of the platter.  The crickets were actually texturally similar to the french fries, so one bite full of both made the taste of cricket nearly unrecognizable.  Give it a nice dunk in the hot sauce and it's pretty tasty.  The Mongolian Lamb, stir-fried with tomatoes, scallions, mushrooms, and garlic - was served along side some hot, sesame buns. 

After lunch we headed straight to Venice Beach.  Although it was a pretty overcast day, we were able to take in a lot of the sights and sounds that make Venice Beach a Southern California landmark.  First up-- Muscle Beach.  After watching I Love You, Man a part of me really wanted to run into Lou Ferrigno pumping iron or even just walking his dog on the boardwalk.  Instead, there were only a few patrons grunting their way from weight to weight.

One of the coolest highlights of Venice Beach is the Venice Art Walls.  Displayed on the sands is a section of concrete walls that are open to the public for artistic expression.  Artists obtain a free permit and can paint on the walls on weekends.  Art on the walls may change up to two times per day.  The Venice Art Walls were established as a memorial to the graffiti arts that have adorned the walls of Venice over the last 30 years.



Vendors line each side of the boardwalk while street performers try to gather crowds with either their unusual acts or impressive dance skills.  To the north of the boardwalk is the Venice Beach Freak Show.  For $5 you could enter the freak show and see the Electric Lady, Sword Swallower, and many other extraordinary sights.  Vendors sold handmade jewelry and even hemp.  Venice Beach is definitely an experience.



The Day's Damage= Crickets, Pineapple Fried Rice, and Mongolian Lamb $42 + Parking at Venice $10 = $52

Items 10 & 11: Check

The Edison - Darius Exposition

Parks BBQ

The notion of “all-you-can-eat” is quite the anomaly for me – on the one hand, it sounds awesome, what’s not to like? But, taking a deeper dive in, most all-you-can-eat establishments scrimp on quality and load you up with fillers. So, in an effort to find one of the best Korean BBQ joints LA has to offer, we decided to forgo the gluttonous cornucopia that is all-you-can-eat, and elevate our choice towards quality over quantity.

For us, Park's BBQ on Vermont was the best option for this criteria. With its hard-edged contemporary design, black walls and sleek stainless-steel hoods above the grills, Parks felt urban and modern, not a bit dodgy like many BBQ joints in the area.



The prices at Park's are higher than most, but what sets it apart is the quality of the beef, which is prime. We decided to order the Prime Ggot Sal, Seasoned Gal-Bi, and Bulgogi for five of us. Along with the rock shrimp and green onion pancake and 3 large Hite beers. For those put off by the cost, a good thing to remember are all the little dishes (pan chan) that come with the meal. Ours consisted of sesame noodles, kimchi, bean paste, raw garlic and jalapeños, spicy blue crab, mashed yams with raisins, potato salad, seaweed, sesame broccoli, crunchy chili zucchini, thinly sliced pickled radishes and rice noodle wrappers. We immediately started nibbling on everything as the trays of meat were revealed to our table.





Our waitress helped by spreading the meat over the hot coals in the middle of the table and stopped by from time to time to see how things were going, moving the meat toward the cooler edges of the grill as it cooked, cutting it into smaller pieces with a giant pair of scissors. The seafood pancake arrived at this point, deliciously crispy studded with shrimp and green onions and a hot pepper sauce for dipping. This was yummy, a crunchy Frisbee-sized disk of delicious-ness.



So, back to the reason we were here in the first place, the meat. We snatched up pieces of prime beef adding dabs of kimchi and bean paste, bits of jalapeño, wrapping them in rice noodles and dipping into various sauces – the combo of flavors are rich and earthy, juicy, charred….a delicious little bundle of complexity. We really could tell the difference in the quality of the product, the prime beef caramelized over the grill was real treat in all three preparations.



Even with the industrial stainless-steel hoods above the grills sucking up the smoke, we still left Parks with the smell of decadent prime beef in our clothes and hair, but after a meal like that I couldn’t have cared in the least.

The Day’s Damage = Prime Ggot Sal $33 + Seasoned Gal-Bi $32 + Bulgogi $24 + Pancake $17 + (3) Hites $21 + tax/tip = $160

Item 29 : Check