# 20 Kitchen 24

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway

#20 Kitchen 24


This one is kind of weird. I'm going to make this one quick. Kitchen 24 is a newish 24 hour diner/bar on that terrible stretch of Cahuenga that makes you want to shoot yourself in the mouth. The décor/ambience is consistent with the poopiness outside. The food is fine but forgettable, the service is terrible, the crowd is barely tolerable. I must really be selling you on the place.

OK, let me start over.

To many people, a neighborhood is defined by its bars. Because so much of your interaction with a particular neighborhood is sitting at a barstool, judging where you live based on what kind of drinks are poured and what kind of music is playing at a bar seems like a fine way to craft an opinion about a given neighborhood. I have no problem with this line of thinking. However, in my own judgment, I have a different criteria for how to judge an area: late night dining.

You may think I'm joking, but, as a career bartender, coming home at one AM, two AM, three AM, even four AM are normal to me. Weekend nights are almost always spent either behind the bar, or spending time with the people I don't get to see during the week. Going out is never THAT important to me. However, eating is. I get off work and I'm hungry. Sometimes I'm just home and due to circumstances ranging from lack of dinner to inhalation of smoke, I may be pretty hungry at an odd hour. This is one of the main reasons I couldn't live in Santa Monica. It is also one of the biggest draws to my new neighborhood. My current neighborhood, however, offers on of the best selections for this type of situation in LA.

Kitchen 24 is both the closest, and probably the most reliable of these places. Their menu is big enough, and despite what I said about it earlier, the experience could be quite enjoyable. Maybe I won't miss the people that much, and maybe the 24 hour dining necessity thing will be easily replaced by the soon-to-be-24-hour café that’s in my new building, but for a year and a half, Kitchen 24 has been my safety net. I have gone through the whole menu, from the breakfasts to the meatball sandwich, usually settling on the veggie chili. I have gotten drunk there, I've seen celebrities, I have been there at 9 AM for breakfast, and it's been a pretty big part of my life. Much like a lot of places back home that might not have been super good, but played a big role in my life, I will miss Kitchen 24.

# 21 Hollywood Freeway

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity#

21 Hollywood Freeway

This is a weird one. This is one of those symbolic appreciations for something that it is at once mythical and an everyday nuisance. Perhaps akin to New Yorkers' appreciation for Broadway or white America's obsession with macs, my love of the Hollywood Freeway is kind of stupid.

In California, the freeways are interwoven as part of our lives more than anywhere on Earth. For this reason, and to the why-the-fuck-do-you-care annoyance of the rest of the world, we refer to our freeways with the definite article "the" placed before the freeways titular number. Telling someone to take "the five" to "the one oh one" seems like the only way to give directions, to the point where I have often accidentally told friends that my parents' house is off "the two seventy one." It's just the way it is. Then, Californians go one step further by giving each freeway a geographic name to inform people of where they MAY be going. However, the logic behind this naming process is baffling. Sometimes, a freeway is named by direction such as the ten, which going west-bound is "The Santa Monica Freeway" but east-bound is "The San Bernadino." Sometimes the freeway is named independent of direction like 710, which is always "The Long Beach Freeway." Sometimes a freeway is named for it's terminus, such as the aforementioned Long Beach, or the aforementioned Santa Monica, but sometimes it is named for a minor city it passes through despite an incredibly small percentage of drivers actually exiting in that city (the Santa Ana freeway). There are funny idiosyncrasies, like the 405 being named the San Diego Freeway despite ending 80 miles north of San Diego, or the 90 being the Marina Freeway, despite being 3 miles long and stretching from outside the Marina to the Marina. But curiosities and incongruencies amongst the LA freeway system also give way to mythology.

No freeway, perhaps in this entire country, is as romanticized as the 101. The 101 leaves downtown LA, travels up the pacific coast, hops on the Golden Gate Bridge and keeps going until it rounds the Olympic Peninsula in the top left corner of the country. It was immortalized in America's "Ventura Highway," and has been mentioned in countless songs and films. But to me it's meaning is a something a little different. Living in Long Beach, south of the city, and coming into Hollywood was always intimidating for me. Getting through downtown on the 110, and rounding onto the busiest interchange in LA was always scary. But then you hop on the "Hollywood Freeway" and I always felt instantly like part of it all. The Hollywood Freeway lasts for exactly twelve exits, and about eight miles before it turns into the Ventura Freeway. But amongst those exits are the most exalted streets in America: Melrose, Santa Monica, Sunset and Hollywood. The stretch included sights of the Hollywood sign, Griffith Observatory, and the Capitol Building. Here's where I mention that this stretch of highway is almost ALWAYS jammed up, going both ways, at almost all hours. It is almost always to be avoided. However at dusk, read: evening rush hour, the view of the Santa Monica Mountains dotted with the lights of millionaire's houses is breathtaking, and the towering San Gabriels behind them remind us of our little corner of the country that without them would never be as temperate and desirable as it is.

From the other direction, coming into Hollywood through Cahuenga Pass, past Universal City and into the lights of Hollywood is equally as breathtaking. For romantic purposes, the sign as one passes Barham on the 101 that reads "Hollywood Next Eight Exits" is a beautiful and almost novelty reminder. And for the last eighteen months, I have been lucky enough to take one of those legendary exits on my way home. This may sound like the ultimate pain in the ass, but I assure you it's not. Five years ago, I lived in Washington, right off the 101 (although up there is was just called "101"), miles before its northern terminus, and now I've lived in Hollywood, miles before its southern start. My new exit off the 110 will be equally as bothersome, but not nearly as romantic.

# 22 Proximity

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle

# 22 Proximity

LA is one of the most sprawling cities in the world. This sprawl can be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, there is no easy way to get ANYWHERE in this city. Unlike New York, Chicago, or San Francisco, public transportation is the last thing you think about when getting around here. The fact that the city is so spread out makes it somewhat difficult to meet up with friends on a regular basis, but it has its advantages too. The thing I love about it here is the plethora of distinct neighborhoods dotting the city. Different bars, apartments, scenery, restaurants, people, and music assures that every time you leave, you're getting a unique experience. Which brings me to my place.

There's a saying in LA that everything in LA is twenty minutes away. This is never truer then it is from 6615 Franklin Ave. From my front steps, you can get downtown in twenty minutes, Echo Park in twenty, Silver Lake in fifteen, Los Feliz in ten, Franklin Village in five, Koreatown in ten, the grove in ten, Melrose in ten, West Hollywood in ten, Beverly Hills in fifteen, even the valley and the beach is in play. I work near the beach, and it never takes me longer than forty-five minutes to get to work. Never. There are plenty of places that are buried in this city. People that live in Brentwood can't get anywhere without bringing a few CDs in the car with them. And that completely changes one's view of the city.

To me, here, traffic is an issue, but never a problem. To me, here, any time someone invites me anywhere; I am never worried about how long it will take me to get there. To me, here, the city is large, and accessible, and vibrant, and diverse.

Furthermore, another great thing about Hollywood is the walkability factor. From my place, Yelp! lists 299 bars within walking distance, 369 restaurants, thirty-four theatres, and one music store that is the best place in the entire city (foreshadowing). People that know me, know I'm an explorer, and my location alone gives me the best possible jumping off point for exploring, for checking out neighborhoods, for drinking with friends, eating, and shopping.

Our new location will be pretty buried as far as LA goes, but one of the best places in town to disembark from LA proper and check out the rest of SoCal, so friends in the South Bay, and friends in Long Beach now are much more accessible, which is good. But the great City of Angels will become a little smaller with a move southeast, which is bad. Might suck a little bit.

#23 The Griddle

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria

# 23 The Griddle


What's always been off to me is the way that American high culture seems to revere food and drink in a way that's very stratified and separated. What I mean is that styles of foods are appreciated by intellectuals only as the style or ethnicity and rarely as a meal itself. For instance, rarely does a liberal intellectual faux-foodie discuss the actual dish they have eaten or plan to eat such as eating duck confit or seafood paella, but instead the discussion is about a particular restaurant's French or Spanish cuisine. Even subcategories stand in for actual meals such as "tapas" or "dim sum." Food is not any particular dish, but instead a collection of dishes making up a particular style of cuisine. These styles are grouped together, usually by cultural origins, but size, or temperature, or season of consumption also can play a part in a grouping. Angelinos LOVE to talk food, and despite most of their inabilities to tell the difference between a cabernet and a zinfandel, they are almost all experts. But throughout all of this stratifying and circle-jerk food discussions, very rarely will a liberal intellectual stoop so low as to discuss the merits of my favorite of the food categories: breakfast.

For a liberal intellectual to discuss breakfast, this discussion better consist of croque monsieurs or eggs Florentine, because the moment you begin discussions of pancakes and waffles, you are immediately low. Unfortunately, breakfast is the King of all Meals, and is not given the respect that other meals, like…say, lunch or dinner are handed. It really is a damn shame to live in a food city as diverse and beautiful as LA and have breakfast shoved to the same corner as chicken fingers and fish sticks. Even traditional foodie no-nos like hot dogs, burgers, and cupcakes are treated like fois gras out here, but breakfast is tossed to the side. Except for one place, on the corner of Sunset and Fairfax, at the Griddle.

The Griddle may or may not have my favorite breakfast in LA, but right now I'm leaning towards "not have." It's certainly not perfect, but every Saturday and Sunday, the line grows outside early and often. Even the celebrities get up early and show up for eggs, coffee, and the biggest pancakes you'll ever see on the planet. On one corner in the city, for two mornings a week, breakfast's place as an unimportant food group, eaten only out of necessity to get to lunch, is forgotten and we all gorge ourselves with espresso-packed pancakes and cholesterol–busting breakfasts.

At the risk of turning this entire project into a series of glorified Yelp! reviews, I'll do my best to limit the sausage sucking. I really just love the food here, I love the atmosphere, I am intrigued as to why the wait staff at a breakfast place consists of the best looking men in the USA, and I won't lie, it's a little intimidating; I love the line outside, I love getting up on a Saturday with friends on the couch and making the pilgrimage, I love missing NFL games in lieu of eggs and pancakes, I am also confused as to why my girlfriend always orders the veggie burger despite being surrounded by eggs, waffles, and pancakes; and I love walking out talking about the food despite the lack of port reductions and charcuterie plates. That's really it for me. It's a great spot, in the middle of the city, that brings out the best in people's appetites, during the best meal of the day. To me, the griddle stands for more than stunningly good-looking men and stunningly large pancake concoctions, it stands for breakfast in LA . . . and that's what I'll miss.

#24 Loteria

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville

# 24 Loteria


Los Angeles is a city that is desired by many people for many different reasons. Most would argue the sun is the biggest draw, while I would argue the natural landscape is the greatest draw. There are so many fucking draws to this place that every morning I wonder why anyone lives anywhere else. I don't mean that in a condescending way, I mean to read between the sun, mountains, beach, women, music, food, proximity to other places, opportunities, people, shopping, drinking, and everything else, why are you not here already??? It's awesome here.

But of all the draws, one of the more underrated draws, a draw which I never realized I cared about until I would venture home for more than three days, is the Mexican food. I know that sounds retarded, not just because Mexican food is the cheap, overweight sibling in the global cuisine family, but also because Mexican food is not something that should be factor in where one chooses to spend their twenties. Before moving here, my Mexican food experiences were limited to Taco Bell and being dragged to bullshit chain Mexican places by an ex-girlfriend who was more in love with frozen enchiladas than she was with me. (In her defense, what girl can resist a "celebration of food?") Since moving out here, my Mexican food world has changed more than anything other than the way I rate women (in case you were wondering, the correct equation is to take an LA rating, multiply it by 1.1 and add 1, to get her Cleveland rating. So an LA 7 is a Cleveland 8.7, get it?). Taco shops on every corner, trucks parading through the city churning out tacos as if they were popsicles, Oaxacan places, Baja-style…essentially my world has been flip-turned upside down. There are so many different styles of Mexican cuisine that, though I never considered a part of my life before, it has become integral to my daily life here.

But from the proximitity to Mexico, the plethora of Mexicanos living here, and hence the authenticity of the Mexican cuisine derives a problem: Why is "authentic" better than Americanized. My answer to this is: it's not. American style Chinese food BLOWS away authentic Chinese cuisine. Authentic thai is often street cuisine eaten off sticks, which may be good, but cannot compare to my spicy thai noodles. Authentic Mexican however, is a fucking bullshit term because it changes every day. Which brings me to Loteria.

I don't know whether the newish, lightweight 'spensive Mexican place on a touristy stretch of Hollywood is authentic or not, but I do know this: Enchiladas probably don't cost 15 bucks too many places in Mexico. But to that I say, who cares. Loteria has the biggest tequila selection I've ever seen, most of which cost way too much for me to try. They have an incredibly diverse and original menu that has introduced me to many items I have never had before. They also are one of the few places on Hollywood to attract neighborhood people and actually has become a destination on the block. It is not necessarily "American-style" Mexican food; it is more "LA style" Mexican food. Small portions, large prices, original creations, and a clientele that resembles La Cienega and Beverly a lot more than Oaxaca or Ensenada.

And that is what I will miss. My new neighborhood is sure to be chock-full of the best tacos, nopolitos, y tortas in the ciudad. I have no doubt that I will never be lacking in Comida Mexicana in any way, shape, or form. My new neighborhood has throngs of Chicanos y Mexicanos Veros walking up and down almost every street. These are the people that have helped create such a rich culture downtown. But every time I bite into a $1.25 carne taco, or chile relleno, I will miss my 16 dollar enchiladas rojas with a side of cactus salad. I will miss sitting in the sterile, white LA dining room eating high-end cuisine that can paradoxically not be high-end and loving every bite. I will miss the gigantic Loteria cards hanging over the bar, and the tourists walking by and looking in wondering what it is we've found. God I'll miss Hollywood.

#25 Shmutzville

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar

#25 Shmutzville

This one is personal, and any of the 3 people that have been reading this will have little-to-no mind for anything I'm about to write. I'm writing for me, not for you.

What is Shmutzville? That's where I've been parking for the last eighteen months. You see, in this neighborhood, finding a parking spot is like finding a white chick Tiger Woods hasn't fucked. It's like finding a book you actually want to read at Barnes and Noble. It's like finding a black person in Santa Monica. Quite simply, it's like getting struck by lightning twice at once. So, my roommate and I made a deal: He got the underground parking spot, and I got the bathroom in my room. This forced me to go out and get a neighborhood parking permit. The problem is that parking is only permit NORTH of Franklin. Everything on Franklin or below is open to every tourist, club hopper, or shitkicking businessman in the area. So for me to get a parking spot, I either needed to luck out with a below-Franklin spot, or find one above Franklin with my permit.

The stretch above Franklin closest to me is on Whitley, which consists of exactly 18 parking spots, that are 90% of the time full. So that left a stretch of Wilcox, about a quarter miler away. I ended up parking here about 75% of the time that I came home. It was so far away, that I deemed it Schmutzville. Worse yet, on Sunday nights or Monday nights, morning street sweeping prohibited people form parking on a particular side of the street making parking even harder. I ended up all the way down Wilcox, up a hill, and in some random residential area a good 15 minute walk from my place. I would quickly deem this area "Outer Schmutzville"

So why will I be missing this decrepit part of Hollywood? Because it is my own little corner. Quite literally, Shmutzville was about as close as you can get to the hills to leaving the neighborhood. It abutted the 101 Freeway. It sat quietly beneath the Hollywood Sign with everyone's cameras pointed directly over it, leaving Shmutzville a quiet and deserted stretch of bullshit road.

I will miss having this little corner on the busiest neighborhood in LA. I will miss the long walk past the homelesses, the auto-shop, and the other dry-cleaner that I never used (despite constant complaints about my old dry cleaner). I will miss the peripheral friends asking me "do you have to walk out here all the time?" as if a five minute walk is akin to the Israelites walking through a desert. I will miss game 6 of the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals in which getting out of my car in Schmutzville, and having taped the first half, unaware of anything that had happened, I got a text from SDP that read "Well that was a fun season," prompting me to throw my complimentary meal from work in the middle of the street, leaving it there for the luckiest homelessman. I will miss walking towards the Hollywood sign on my way to my car, parking in front of people's houses no where near my place, and trying to explain what "Shmutzville" is to my friends. And I will miss the serene sense of security that no matter how busy my neighborhood is with bullshit and more bullshit, there's a parking spot for me, no where near my place, but always with my heart.

#26 Piano Bar

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen

#26 Piano Bar

Piano Bar, like so many gems, was a place that Katy and I stumbled upon. Last year on my birthday, after a lovely viewing of Woodie Allen's Vicki Christina Barcelona, we went out in search of her friend's DJ set at a local nightclub. After finding nothing but an unwelcome line and an unreasonable cover charge, we set out in search of a drink. We rounded a corner that I'd never rounded before and found a small, dark, and quiet bar called "Piano Bar." We went in and had a drink.

Piano Bar is just a bar. Nothing fancy, special, or particularly interesting. I order rum and cokes, or Jack on the rocks; just like everywhere else. That's not what's special. Piano Bar is literally footsteps from the boom-boom club scene on Cahuenga Corridor. This section of town is incredibly close to my apartment, yet can be so offensive and repugnant, it has turned me off from even traveling this street at the wrong time. However, Piano Bar seemed to be miles away. A long, crowded bar with an unbelievable outside smoker's patio, and great music such as the Black Keys or Wilco playing on the speakers when there wasn't a band playing. When there is a band playing, it can be garage-rock, low-key singer, or Friday night jazz ensemble. The people, the music, the drinks, the bartenders, even the volume makes this place the ideal bar for my tastes. In fact, now that I start to think about it, I am moving downtown to find more Piano Bars and less Velvet Margaritas.

This brings me to one of the keys about why I love Hollywood. When people from back home think of Hollywood, they think of Beverly Hills. They think of stupid MTV "reality" shows that don't really show anything authentic about what Hollywood is. When soulless phony white liberal intellectuals on the west side of LA think of Hollywood, they immediately begin thinking of crime, the boom-boom club scene, and parking woes. But the true Hollywood, the Hollywood I live in, is nothing like that. It is the most diverse scene I have ever been a part of. The music, the people, the food, and the drinks are so different from one corner to the next that you can be whoever you want to be. You can make Hollywood whatever Hollywood you want. Hollywood is a mythical place romanticized for years and this is why. If you want, it can be loud, gaudy, and the heart of the limo world. If you want it could be low key, high-end, and four-star. Or, for me, I want it to be darker, smokier, and exist among a world of exposed brick, low ceilings, and every different kind of person creating their own scene. The east-side scene is most certainly that: a scene. Same with the west side. But Hollywood ISN'T. Hollywood is itself, paradoxically authentic in its own inauthenticity. And that is what Piano Bar means to me. There is nothing "scene" about Piano Bar. Nothing "authentically" LA, and to me, that makes it authentically Hollywood.

Luckily, downtown, more Piano Bars wait for me, and I could make myself who I want to be there to. But I will miss the people, I will miss the music, and I will miss the little location, on Selma, in the middle of everything, yet hidden away.