This year I wasn’t able to head back east for the holidays, and I thought I’d be own my own, which, although not ideal, would have been fine. I have extended family in the area, and I like that peaceful feeling of solitude.
But at the last minute my brother found a reasonably priced flight for me to go down and see him and his girlfriend in Los Angeles, and of course that was much more fun.
Urth Caffe
We stopped here on my first day on our way to the Venice Canals. It was pretty crowded but we scored a table outside. I had the corn chowder soup, half a curry chicken salad sandwich, and, the best part of the meal, this chocolate cookie with chunks of white chocolate. So. Good.
The Factory Kitchen
We had a lovely dinner at this Italian place the night before Christmas Eve. For appetizers we shared chicken liver pate and pork belly, and for my entree I had their famous handkerchief pasta in basil pesto sauce. All of it was delicious, including my negroni.
Daikokuya
On my last night I had a ramen craving so we had dinner at this place in Little Tokyo my brother’s girlfriend had been wanting to go to anyway. She warned us the wait would be crazy long, but we were up for it.
To kill time we walked around a bit and got a drink at a nearby bar (unfortunately I can’t remember the name). I got an old-fashioned, which was yummy, and made me a little tipsy. We returned to the restaurant and waited another 30 to 40 minutes. People seemed happy when they finally got a table, especially since it was kind of cold out. We were the same way.
We got some tsukemono to share.
And while my brother and his girlfriend went with the classic pork ramen, I got the spicy one.
It wasn’t too spicy and the broth was very rich. The pork was also high quality, and the egg was cooked to runny perfection.
Next up: what we saw.