Back to my 2nd home

So it's been over 2 years since I was last in Los Angeles. Whilst I have absolutely loved being back in London, it's fair to say I have missed the massive smoggy sprawling urban landscape that I called home for 6 months...

The flight from Mexico was ok, but the plane wasn't nearly as nice as the one down from New York. No individual TV screens and a pretty ropey meal. We didn't land at the International terminal, but at Terminal 2, so immigration was the quickest ever at LAX. From getting off the plane to getting in my hire car was 45 minutes. Amazing!!! If only every journey could be that smooth

I thought picking up the hire car was going to be a nightmare when I saw 7 people waiting outside in the empty 'M' section, waiting for their mid size cars, but being a Blue Chip (Thrifty Loyalty Card) member has it's benefits, and the first car out of the garage was mine! 

I rushed down to the ocean to get a glimpse of the beauty before sunset and it was as wonderful as ever. I love the Pacific. It's just so damn big!

I was staying on the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) in Redondo Beach for 3 nights. The town is one of the beach towns down on the South Bay, right before the headland juts out for Palos Verdes. I liked the small beach towns down there. Hotels are cheaper than Santa Monica, and they have this very quiet nice vibe to them. 

I picked up my friend from the airport later on that evening and we settled in for an early night before exploring the coast the next day.

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We were due to meet friends of mine for lunch in Malibu at 12noon, so we got an early start on the PCH and headed north, driving through the beach towns, through the airport, on the edge of Venice Beach and Santa Monica and up to Malibu. We went straight past our lunch date and headed further up north, where the massive houses melt away and leave just rolling jaggedy hills plunging down into the ocean. 

Of course we enjoyed the scenery a bit too much and spent too long heading north, so we were a bit late for our lunch date! But eating by the ocean is a super thing to do in LA, and I thought the food and service at Moonshadows was pretty good! 

We then drove all the way back round the bay to explore Redondo a bit more, checking out the beach and the sunset whilst we waited for 2 more friends to join us later that evening...

Hair cut for charity (not mine!)

My lovely friend Faye decide to get her hair chopped in DF for a very worthy cause.
The charity recommend a hairdressers, who cut long hair, then take it and make it into wigs for kids who need it because they have lost their own hair through chemo etc. 
There are more details of the charity here:
http://www.rizosdealegria.org/

The hairdresser was lovely and did a good job on cutting Faye's hair whilst keeping the waste to a minimum, so as much as possible could be made into a wig. Well done Faye.

Boozy brunch

An institution in DF is the unlimited champagne brunches at the very sprauncy hotels on Reforma. 

In the past we have gone to the St Regis for unlimited Veuve Clicquot, but since they stopped the champagne flowing for free (there is now a time limit) my friends have changed their allegiance to the Four Seasons a bit further up Reforma.

There are around 8 different areas where people will either cook food for you on demand, or you can just take what you fancy. From sushi to sea food, tacos to steak, salad to omelettes and fresh pasta there is so much choice and everything I ate was delicious. The tacos with fish or chicken with courgette flowers, black beans and cheese were particularly lovely...

To achieve maximum champagne intake whilst tasting as much delicious food as possible you have to remember that the boozy brunch is a marathon, not a sprint, and the best thing is to try little bits of everything slowly over the 5 hours.

We slowly slurped our way through 5 bottles of Moet and Chandon, whilst people watching and gossiping, and making our way through the many food stations. 

I think more unlimited champagne brunches should be available in London. Preferably with the lovely sun, outside terraces and 5* service...

Street Art

Mexico City is full of public art. Wherever you go there are statues and murals.

Some beautiful and bronze, some massive, some rather small, some crazy, but they are everywhere for the people of the city to appreciate. 

The area around the road Reforma and the neighbourhoods of Condessa and Polanco have some particularly impressive specimens.

The Four Seasons hotel is also home to a number of holy men/wizards. I'm not sure which...

Down Mexico Way

So I had a very nice flight on Aero Mexico down to Mexico City (DF). I watched Big Hero 6 (which wasn't as funny as I thought it would be, although rather sweet) and St Vincent, which I really enjoyed with Billy Murray and Melissa McCarthy.

Immigration was a dream for a change and took 10 minutes to get through!

But just as I was about to leave the airport, I hit the dreaded red button just before I got out the doors to freedom, which means all your luggage has to be scanned then checked by immigration. It was the most ineffective search I have ever seen. 60 seconds of vaguely moving my clothes about, whilst chatting to each other. My case was no longer locked as the Transport Authority in the US had killed ANOTHER of my padlocks. That's the 3rd in as many years...

My friend's taxi driver was there to greet me, and we were off into the early evening sunshine of DF for some food, chat and an early night at my friend's apartment in Polanco, a rather chi chi part of town.

I was up bright and early the next morning for a breakfast date with a friend in Lomas (an ultra chi chi part of town) and had my favourite Mexican breakfast meal, Chilaquiles, along with a lovely chai tea latte.

The rest of the week has been catching up with my friend, doing some chores, swimming, eating, and drinking wine. It's been rather lovely relaxing and not doing very much. Her new baby is adorable and very quiet and smiley at the moment. I have also spent some time trying to teach my god daughter how to blow raspberries, which has not been as successful as I would have hoped, and she sprays rather a lot and giggles whilst she is doing it. I will continue to teach her, so one day she will be as good as me...

We had a lovely lunch in Condessa (another chi chi part of town - can you see a pattern here?) at a place called Azul. Being only 1pm, we were the first and only diners for a good hour - the Mexicans normally eat lunch from around 2pm onwards.  It was mango madness month, and I treated myself to a mango Margarita whilst my friend had mango guacamole, which was suprisingly delicious. Chicken, cheese and Mole enchiladas were lovely, although as always for me, way too much sauce...

Then Thursday evening I packed my weekend bag and moved to another part of town for a few days. I am staying with another friend in 222 Reforma, a great apartment block, with amazing views of the city above a fabulous shopping centre right in the heart of the best street in the city (IMHO). 

We had some dinner from my favourite Chinese chain - P F Changs, then went out to a Snow White inspired drag show (hilarious) before watching the original Broadway production of Into the Woods. A lovely evening was had by all!

Friday was dinner and wine tasting at The Four Seasons hotel. It has recently had a make over and the courtyard where we ate was super. Very green and full of lovely statues. The new Norman Foster building looms over it.

The menu was lovely, and the wines were reds and whites from Spain. My favourite was the Valdemuz 2009, which should have gone with the lamb course, but because I am a fussy moo, I had it with chicken instead. A super evening, where we were looked after terribly well by the lovely staff there. 

I can't wait to go back on Sunday for unlimited champagne brunch. 

Fodder on the North East Coast

So I have eaten a lot of soul food/comfort food/glorious fattening food during my time in the US. This has been filtered with days of not eating too much at all, to try and combat the dinner calories.
No fine dining this time, but some pleasant meals none the less.

In Washington the food was lovely at the neighbourhood restaurants I went to. One kinda like a bistro/living room combined with great food and enormous portions and one from the southern states: so fried chicken, greens and mac and cheese.

Hells Kitchen in NY has a plethora of different restaurants that suit just about every taste going. Some are really reasonable, some more pricey, but all guaranteed a pretty good meal! Reservations are recommended most nights of the week, as the theatre crowd go there to eat before or after shows in nearby Broadway.

Goats Cheese Bruschetta and baked Brie at Kilo were both lovely, but pretty pricey. These with 2 glasses of wine set me back $70.

Artichoke Dip at The Brickyard was immense...

This was artichoke with spring onions, spinach, cream cheese and 3 other cheeses (that I can't remember) with baked pitta chips. Divine!

44 1/2 served up very pleasant roast chicken (although I did prefer my meal at next door but one 44 and X last year more) but the dining room was so bloody loud I couldn't hear myself think. So no dessert for us as we went back to the veritable tranquility of my friend's apartment. I don't think the fact I was slightly hungover helped my tolerance for noise that evening...

I had obligatory pizza slices a couple of times, and they were pretty good, but I'm afraid I was spoiled by a potato, rosemary and bechamel sauce pizza from Caravan in Kings Cros a few months ago. It still lingers in the memory...

54 Below was a lovely cabaret and dining space that made me feel like I was going back in time to a bygone art deco era. The chicken was plentiful and the wine very pleasant, but the true stars were the cabaret act (a 60s cover band with a great female lead) and the venue - which was super!

Out of Hells Kitchen I had some good westernised Chinese food down in the village, which was the biggest portion of chicken and cashew nut I had ever seen and very reasonable price wise! 

My Turkey Burger at The Counter in Times Square (one of my fave quick bites in SoCal when I lived there) was definitely as lovely as I remember and I will be visiting again when I get back to LA...

Probably the Piece de Resistance was this:

A doughnut ice cream sandwich.

Pause for a minute and think about what that actually means...

Two ice creams: Salted caramel, and peanut butter cookie dough crunch in a doughnut where you choose the topping (vanilla for me) and the sprinkles (Heath bar for me - just like a Dime bar). 

It was the most decadent crazy ass thing I think I have eaten in many a month and it was amazing. I was on such a sugar rush after I had eaten it.

I am limiting my intake of these to one every decade...

so that's it for my culinary experiences for NY. Now onto Mexico for some more delicious healthy food (ahem...!)

Touring movie and TV sites

So this being my 4th trip to NYC I thought it might be a good idea to take in some tours to see where things have been filmed over the years.

The first tour was in Manhattan started at the Starlight Diner near Times Square, went downtown to Soho and the meat packing district before coming back up the west side and over to 55th.

Friends Apartment Block

The coolest thing on the tour probably was seeing the Friends apartment block (having been a big fan back in the day). As ever with the wonders of TV, none of Friends was shot in NY, but all on sets in LA! And the actual apartment didn't have a balcony, and was a one bedroom apartment - currently renting out for $4000 per month!

Other than that it was a bit disappointing. When I think about all of the movies that have filmed on Manhattan, it seemed strange to see some really rather odd locations from rather minor movies. the stop in Soho was great for me to take photos, but from a movie and TV perspective it wasn't all that. I wouldn't recommend the tour, and I would probably say better to plan it out yourself and walk through different neighbourhoods yourself...

Will Smith's house in 'I am Legend'

Men in Black Headquarters

Ghostbusters fire station

The Sopranos Tour was also disappointing. We met Vito (Joseph R. Gannascoli) before the tour started and he signed some autographs and had his photo taken. But then it seemed to go downhill. 

The driver got lost a number of times. Now I don't know about you, but one thing I am looking for in a tour driver, is that he knows where he is going!!! It meant we were 1.5 hours late back to the city. I was not impressed!

Some of the stops were a bit lame. Places that had only been seen perhaps once in the entire series! I wish we had seen the house that Tony, Carmela and family lived in, but apparently it is much further in New Jersey. We didn't see any of the houses that any of the characters lived in, or Vesuvio. The diner was good, and the Bada Bing as sleazy as you would expect. So again, wouldn't really recommend this tour either! 

The Diner where the final meal was held... ahead of the rather abrupt ending

The Bada Bing!