Los Angeles Nesties
candygirl29
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Visiting LA.... Part 2
I posted on this board a while ago about recs for places to stay and you all provided great recs. Now we need things to do so here goes..
My husband and I will be visiting the Los Angeles area this week. We need recommendations of things to do and restaurants to try while we are there. We will be staying in Santa Monica but will have a rental car and are willing to drive any distance. We are in our early 30's and enjoy sightseeing, water activities, beaches, shopping, live music and poetry. We love all types of food but we want to try something that is exclusive to California. Also, does anyone know of any good restaurants open on Christmas Day or other things to doon Christmas Day in LA?
Thanks bunches!
Re: Visiting LA.... Part 2
this should be a good resource for things to do and places to go. I think it even has a "best things to do in LA on (insert date here).." feature:
http://www.laweekly.com/ - this is a free weekly paper, a square shape, that you will see around town as well if you don't have a chance to look at the website.
The LA times probably has some good ideas as well.
This is also a good resource: http://www.lamag.com/
If you like hiking, I would recommend the Temescal Canyon Hike (moderate difficulty) - it is near Santa Monica, and has sweeping ocean views during the last half of the hike. There are also great hikes in Griffith Park - let me know if you want more info.
Santa Monica is also great for shopping - 3rd street promenade of course. Montana avenue for upscale boutiques, but there are several other areas around LA with streets like that, Montana is not the most well known. Other best known shopping areas are Rodeo drive (I guess more of a touristy or I have that much money so I can shop here kind of place), Melrose Avenue, The Grove at the Farmer's Market.
Some unique LA restaurants - Father's Office for a great burger (chef has been on Top Chef as a judge) - this place is in Santa Monica and also Culver City - I haven't been to the CC one, but the SaMo one is a bar atmosphere. They won't let you make any alterations or substitutions to the burger.
Jose Andres' Bazaar restaurant in the SLS hotel has at least 1 Michelin star and is supposed to be amazing. Mozza is hard to get reservations for, but it is probably considered the best Italian restaurant in LA, it is a joint effort of Mario Battali and .... I forget her name, Nancy Silverton maybe?, but she is head of La Brea Bakery, good bread over here in LA.
If you watched Top Chef, you know the guy that won this season, Michael Voltaggio, is the head chef at Langham Dining Room, the restaurant in the Langham Huntingdon Resort and Spa, a posh hotel in Pasadena. He was a-mazing on that show!
A definitely unique LA eating experience in Korean tacos out of a taco truck that travels around LA. This one inspired tons of copycats around the city. Their website is http://kogibbq.com/, and it's sort of all the rage right now, or at least it was the "now" thing to try several months ago. It's yummy if you like very savory food. Can't remember how spicy it was because I'm Korean so I don't know if my spiciness-measure is similar to others.
For water activities, it is whale watching season right now... don't know anything about other water activities, but I'm sure your hotel will have info about sailing, surf lessons, etc. A beautiful beach abour 40 or so minutes north of Santa Monica is Point Dume - if you go on the paved path to the left side of the cliff, you can walk amongst tide pools and see star fish and sea anemones, depending on the tide (go at low tide).
well, sorry so long, but hope that helps!
oh, I forgot to suggest, the Casa Del Mar hotel in Santa Monica is beyond beautiful with its tilework, and a great place to go at night for drinks in a cozy romantic atmosphere. There's a huge lounge with all these sofas and living room-type areas. I've also been there for lunch and brunch... the brunch was better food-wise, but all sort of standard fare. But such a beautiful ocean view the whole time you are eating! I think there are great ocean view restaurants at Shutters too. The best ocean view hotel restaurant (with great food as far as I can recall), was the Ritz Carlton Laguna-Niguel, just breathtaking, but it is near Dana Point, in Orange County, pretty far.
Sorry I'm mentioning so many hotel restaurants; the only one I know for sure that is really well rated is Bazaar. It's just a top LA restaurant that happens to be in a hotel.
There isn't much to add on to JujuBee's restaurant recs, other than I've heard Campanile on La Brea has a great Christmas Eve dinner. The theme this year is a Dickens Christmas with goose and figgy pudding. Yum. Added bonus: the restaurant used to be Chaplin's production offices.
For live music, we really like the Hotel Cafe on Cahuenga. The cover is usually around $5 for the night, with 2-3 performers a night.
Activity-wise, there is an ice skating rink downtown in Pershing Square. Across the street is the Biltmore Hotel, which has a beautiful Christmas display and English-style high tea in the lobby.
Have a great trip!
I really like Hotel Cafe too, went there more often when I lived in Hollywood and we weren't married. I saw Priscilla Ahn there, and Chantal Kreviasuk, both I really like.
The Biltmore that gingerbread recommended - used to be where they held the Academy Awards back in the day. it's a beautiful hotel, I enjoyed having high tea there and walking around a bit inside the hotel.