Mmm, Zankou chicken. I used to work right across the street from one and got lunch there all the time, garlic breath be damned.
If you’re going to the Getty Center, drop by the Sawtelle district between Santa Monica and Olympic for dinner. My favorite restaurant in L.A., the Japanese izakaya Furaibo is there. Chabuya is a very good Japanese noodle house. Tofu-ya is excellent Korean food. All of these are casual and reasonably priced. Then walk to Yogurtland for dessert.
P.S. Really, go to Furaibo! And get the teba saki!
Actually, though I loved the place and ate there like once a month, I can’t explain why I liked Tito’s so much. I liked the combined softness/crispiness of the shells. I liked the shredded beef. The shredded cheese seemed a little artificial though. (They claim it’s Cheddar.) A proper taco should be made with two warm, soft corn tortillas. And yet… I couldn’t resist the fried ones. I liked the chili Colorado. It was good with the tortilla chips. Beef burrito? Put the chili in a big flour tortilla! Not what one would expect, but I liked it. And the refried beans were good. I liked to get two tacos and a bowl of refried beans or chili and kick back with a beer after flying.
Mariella’s is often crowded as well, and the service is slow because it is all made to order, but you gotta try it next time you are in town. Tito’s, well, it just seems kind of bland. And at least I always manage to find a parking space at Mariellas. Often at Tito’s, the cars are circling the lot like vultures. Very annoying. But if you are on the west side, Tito’s will do in a pinch, I guess.
Speaking of the West Side, I gotta mention Apple Pan. Another great burger place!
Back in Koreatown, Cassel’s on sixth used to be pretty special, custom grilled burgers made from meat ground on the premises, with homemade toppings and fresh lemonade. I have heard that it has gone downhill recently, and I haven’t been there in a while, but it used to be amazing. Anyone know if it still rocks? Caution: only open for the lunch rush, like from 11 till 2.
It is a city with lots to see and do- spread out over a huge area with bad traffic and no mass transit to speak of.
This is why other cities, even those with less to see and do- are more popular with tourism, as you can do most of it from a central point without spending half of each day stuck/lost in traffic.
Riiiiight. That’s why LA is #1 in number of tourists per year in the US, with more than 58.6 million tourists in 2006. And those numbers don’t include people who go to Disneyland or other places in Orange County. More popular? In your jealous Northern California dreams.
Umm, NYC beats out LA by a bunch, in fact LA isn’t even on the list of 15 most popular cities for tourism.
It is #2 in the USA, far behind NYC, and more or less tied with Orlando and Miami.
I cheerfully admit San Jose is 14th or so. http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=318827
New York City 22.0% 4,803
Los Angeles 12.9% 2,816
Miami 11.7% 2,554
Orlando 11.3% 2,467
San Francisco 9.0% 1,965
Oahu/Honolulu 8.0% 1,747
Las Vegas 6.9% 1,506
Washington D.C. 5.5% 1,201
Chicago 4.9% 1,070
Boston 4.9% 1,070
Atlanta 3.2% 699
San Diego 2.7% 589
Tampa/St. Petersburg 2.3% 502
San Jose 1.9% 415
As far as single locations go, LA doesnt even get one on the USA list of top 25 sites:
Forbes has different numbers (for a different year). But I do sit corrected - the figures do include Disneyland, it appears.
Bloody tourists…always clogging traffic and getting in my way!
While other cities have sat complacent, we have quietly built a cultural wonderland here. This thread should prove that!
Sigh.
LACMTA has been awarded #1 status as the best mass transit in the United States. We have gone from zero miles of rail twenty years ago to 73 miles today, and including the dedicated busway, the Orange Line, brings it to 87 miles. It is about to expand with the addition of the Gold Line East LA extension and the Expo Line to Culver City, will expand the system to 102 miles, within the next two years. Passage of the 1/2 cent sales tax (measure R) will assure continued expansion of the system, including extending the Gold Line to Chatsworth and eventually San Bernadino. The Red Line subway will eventually reach Santa Monica, although this will take many years to complete.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority operates the third largest public transportation system in the United States by ridership with a 1,433 mi² operating area and 2,000 peak hour buses on the street any given business day. Daily ridership stands at 1.6 million.
Our bus fleet is probably the youngest and most high tech in the nation, with automated GPS announcements of upcoming stops, live LCD route maps, handicap access and bicycle provisions on every bus, high tech TAP cards for fare management, etc.
Not to mention Metrolink diesel commuter service, Frequent Amtrak service between San Diego and Santa Barbara, and various other commuter bus service, local DASH service downtown and in many other areas, and we have a pretty damn fine system here.
I was in Union Station the other day and I would venture to say that it is every bit as busy today as it was in the heyday of rail. Compare that to twenty years ago, when the place was a ghost town…
So, DrDeth, when exactly was the last time you were actually IN Los Angeles? Your information is out of date, to say the least. The last twenty years have seen a revolution here, and the next ten and twenty years will see us with system that will exceed the reach, speed, and capacity of the old, beloved, Red Car system.
Disclaimer: If you are a tourist, you should certainly rent a car. But do take a day and check out our Subway, or one of the light rail lines. Unlike some, ours doesn’t smell of urine. And check out the great LACMTA website. Lots of information about the system, trip panner, and details about all the great things to come!
And as far as bad traffic is concerned, I travel a lot around the United States, and guess what? There is bad traffic in EVERY CITY I HAVE VISITED! Chicago? Boston? New freakin’ York? Atlanta? Seattle? You guys aren’t moving either.
Los Angeles is the best city in the United States, and the reason that so many people dis on us is pure and simple JEALOUSY. Awesome weather, amazing cultural diversity, the beach, the mountains, the desert, all within an hour’s drive from any point in the metro area, are all here. So when you are sitting back east with snow on the ground and shoveling out your car, we are running around in short sleeves, and if we feel like playing in snow, we just drive to the mountains and strap on the skis. When you are roasting in the summer, with those hot, humid nights, we are usually having dry heat in the day and pleasant cool breezes starting when the sun goes down. And when you are bragging about your cultural ameneties, re-read this thread, and you will see that we have world class performance spaces, museums, and restaurants.
To quote an old bumper sticker: “Welcome to California. Now go home.” And please spend some money, tourism is one of our biggest businesses. And if you hear someone snicker as you admire Tony Randall’s star on the walk of fame, it is because you are wearing tourist clothes and look like a dork. But we still love you. Well, your money anyway!
And here is a summary of Measure R funded projects that will occur in the first five years of the thirty year plan, and note that it includes resuming construction on the subway to Santa Monica, and the light rail line to San Bernadino.
The Red car system wasn’t that great, it went about 25 MPH. In some areas, even slower: wiki "At its nadir, the busy Santa Monica Boulevard line, which connected Los Angeles to Hollywood and on to Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, had an average speed of 13 miles per hour." I even rode it (The Yellow Car, iirc) as a kid, down to Long Beach. Not many can say they actually rode the old Pacific Electric Railway! (last run was in 1961)
Yes, you are correct in that I last lived there 20 years ago. However, I was there just this spring (I visit once in a while, and occ drive through to Disneyland). Traffic on the 405 and the 5 was pretty damn bad. Worse than it normally gets here.
And, although the new light rail has great promise, I concede- it ain’t there yet.
Some of the suggestions above really depend on what exactly “a few days” means. San Diego or Catalina would eat up a whole day, and might not be worth it to you.
I email friends from other countries an MS-Word file with links to info and maps so they can get a better idea of what to do in advance. I’ll cut and past some of that for you.
As for traffic, the hassles can be minimized if you know when to go where (I say this with over two years’ experience of driving a taxi in L.A.)
Go when the sun is setting, and hike all the way to the top of Mt. Hollywood (only the locals do this), to see 360 degrees of lights that never end. (And be prepared to hike down in semi-darkness.) Go early and see the show in the planetarium, as well as the exhibits.
It has a great view of the city, especially at night.
Also Little Tokyo downtown, not as good, but really in L.A. proper
Seconded, and close to museums, as well as Olvera Street, where L.A. began.
Good examples of places that tourists rarely hear about, and of why outsiders think L.A. doesn’t have much to do: You have to work to get to the really good stuff.
I love LA. I think it’s a fabulous town, and it has so many great things to do, so much great food, and so many interesting people, that it is clearly one of the world’s great cities. I agree that it often gets a bum rap from people who have never really given it a chance.
But the fact is that it’s a very different type of city from places like New York, Boston, and Chicago. Yes, those places all have their share of awful traffic. I, for one, am glad that i don’t have to spend time on the Long Island Expressway every day, or negotiate downtown Boston with its insane drivers and equally stupid pedestrians.
The thing is, though, that if you’re visiting those cities, you don’t have to drive just to get from one attraction to the other. Spend a day in LA and try to visit the Getty, the beach, a Dodgers game, and a couple of different types of restaurant. Then spend a day in New York and try to visit the Guggenheim, Prospect Park, and a Yankees games, with a couple of different types of restaurant. See how you go, in each case, without a car. Hell, see how you go with a car in LA; it would probably still be mopre of a pain in the ass than the New York experience.
Hahahahahaha. Maybe if you leave a 3am. Sometimes you can’t get from one metro area point to another metro area point in an hour, let alone out to the mountains or the desert.
I have a couple of friends who lived in Pasadena, and they stopped going out to the beach after a while because it was a marathon effort just to get there. Even if you avoid rush hour, it was still a major hassle.
Look, as i said, i love LA. I’m heading back up there again in a couple of weeks for a Dodgers game and a visit with some friends in the West LA area. But to dismiss the traffic and transit issue by arguing that cities like New York and Boston also have traffic is to completely miss the point about the way that people actually move around those cities.
I always have lamb at MidEastern restaurants, and theirs was great, but the chicken Mom ordered was damn fine also. But the RICE (basmati I think) is heavenly!
OK, let me chime in on the public transport of LA - it’s crap. This is speaking as somebody who lived in downtown LA with no car for 6 months. I lived in London for a decade before LA, and London’s public transport pisses all over it. NYC’s public transit seems to be a lot better.
One thing I’ve noticed about LA public transit is how racially divided it is - you very rarely see white faces on the buses in downtown.
(last run was in 1961)