Last night I headed downtown and met my friend Nikki for dinner at the Original Pantry Cafe. I’ve been told that on the weekends there are lines out the door and even around the block, which is why we cleverly went on a Monday night. It wasn’t empty, but we didn’t have to wait for a table.
-White walls with blonde wood paneling, black and white square tiles on the floor, orange and red menus all over the walls with chalkboards for the specials, photos of the old days wherever Continue reading
Was planning on staying in last night but started feeling stir crazy, so I drove out to Du-Pars in Studio City for a late dinner.
-Golden chandeliers, lovely reddish Oriental carpet with a sort of ornate star design, rose marble counter with tall black chairs in front of it, a long row of booths–round booths against the windows and tall-backed two-person booths across from them, two large rooms of tables, lots and lots of potted plants, black and white photos on the walls showing scenes from the early days of Du-Pars, a bakery display of incredibly delicious-looking treats, old-timey ads for different flavors of pie scattered around on the walls, a high shelf holding ornate Continue reading
David (my husband) has been seeing the lovely Casa Vega sign his whole life and always wondered about it, so tonight we headed over there along with our friend Corey.
There was a twenty minute wait for a table; they suggested we wait at the bar but it was packed so we went for a walk around the block, getting back just as the pager they’d given us buzzed.
-The bar was stunning, with colored christmas lights and a sort of canopy sign with drinks written in script. The rest of the restaurant was dark rooms with white christmas lights, brick walls, hanging lamps that looked like Continue reading
Met my friend Marcie at Dinah’s Family Restaurant for a late lunch. Hadn’t realized that it is connected to Dinah’s Fried Chicken in Glendale until I got there and saw that above the take-out portion of the restaurant was the same bucket sign. Went back and forth on whether I should feel silly about that but decided no; it really doesn’t seem that impossible that there’d be two unaffiliated restaurants in the world named Dinah’s. I’ve now checked the websites, and neither mentions the other, which makes me think there must have been a rift at some point. Whatever, I can like them both. They couldn’t be more different, anyway. Dinah’s Family Restaurant is a large googie-type diner with a counter and many booths, and I only saw only one Continue reading
Sunday dinner with David (my husband) and my in-laws, Jim and Keren, at Billingsley’s in West L.A.
Billingsley’s was started by the husband of Barbara Billingsley, the mom in “Leave it to Beaver,” and the restaurant is now owned and operated by her sons.
-Just inside the brick entrance is a beautiful stone fountain. On the wall leading inside are wooden prints, pictures of spices and handwritten instructions on how to use them; they look like they came straight out of Continue reading
Drove out to Santa Monica to have dinner with my friend Ari at Izzy’s Deli.
I used to live not far from there, and I don’t know why I never went. It should have been my regular late-night place, but somehow it was never on my radar. The place has a very nice, friendly feel to it, much more Continue reading
I woke up early on Saturday and walked to Lancers to have breakfast before work. I’ve driven past Lancers many times, and while the turquoise roof and sign are kind of neat, the way they keep the shades mostly down on the windows always made it seem very plain and possibly not open. So I was surprised to find it crowded. It was much bigger inside than I’d expected, but not very interesting. This place might be the prototype on which all Continue reading
After a surprisingly uneventful dentist appointment, I stopped by the original Norm’s for a late lunch. Norm’s has a sign that always shows up in pictures of cool L.A. signs–for good reason, it’s neat–and the building is the quintessential Googie diner.
The inside doesn’t exactly look like the Jetsons, but it looks like it was designed and decorated by someone who thought the Jetsons was incredibly awesome.
-Sharply slanting ceiling, floor tiled to look like red brick, a gray counter with seats that are bright green with orange piping. The two long walls (which are crooked in a deliberate, interesting geometrical way) have one long Continue reading
I met my friend Jenelle at Miceli’s Pizzeria for dinner. I’d never noticed before that “pizzeria” is part of the name. It seems like such an old-fashioned Italian restaurant, I never thought of it as being a pizza place in particular.
-Brick walls, ornately carved wooden pillars and booths, red, white, and green Christmas lights, hanging tiffany lamps (they seem to be in almost every place I go), lamps that look like old-timey street lamps with red, white, and green glass panels. Covering the ceiling are those straw baskets they put around the bottoms of wine bottles, signed by customers. It feels very cozy and warm. There’s a short staircase up to another level where a piano is playing.
-Jenelle and I split the mixed green salad which, she says correctly, comes with the best bleu cheese dressing in the world. It’s amazing. We also split a Continue reading
My friend Ari, David (my husband), and I drove out to San Fernando and had dinner at James Restaurant.
By far the best sign yet. And underneath the sign, for no reason I can fathom, are two statues: a horse, and a lady holding what looks like a horn of plenty. There seemed to be a space for a third statue, but really, aren’t those two enough?
-the walls inside are rose stone with brown tiles making star patterns, to extremely pleasing effect. Reddish-wood tables, hanging Tiffany lamps, striped curtains, paintings on the walls. Our U-shaped booth had a painting on either side, one of seaside scene in what we think was Greece, and one of a deer at a stream near a house. Not necessarily great art, but very nice to look at.
-as we sat down I was exclaiming over how much I loved the place, and the woman finishing her Continue reading
Remains of L.A. 