Once You Go Yak, You Never Go Back

The wonderful thing about eating in a town as wildly diverse as LA, is that certain foods have the ability to go from utterly unknown to indispensable in the blink of an eye. One minute, you would never have given a dish the time of day; the next, you’re daydreaming about oxtail poutine at Animal, or the carmelized kimchi at Chego, or the chicharrone burrito dished out at an Arco station taco shop on 24^th and Hoover. But while we’re on it, feel free to add yak chili at Tara’s Himalayan to the list.

Tara’s, a cozy little hideaway on Venice blvd just east of Overland, serves up bottles of lethally strong Yeti beer (named for the kind of body mass you’d need to have in order to drink one of these solo and then drive home); thin-skinned, lightly fried momos, Nepalese dumplings that are like a silkier, more subtle version of Japanese gyoza; a potent-as-all-get-out vindaloo, with chunks of potato that erupt steam when stabbed with a fork. There’s also a not-half-bad chicken tikka masala. 

But enough foreplay. Order the yak chili and prepare to be ridden hard and put away wet. (Did that just put an image in your head of you getting sexually assaulted by a yak? My apologies. Unless that’s your thing. In which case, rock on!) ANYWAY, this chili is different from any you’ve ever had in your life; don’t think “vat-stirred mass of spiced ground meat and tomatoes” Think Mongolian bbq turned up to 11 -- thin, rectangular strips of velvety-tender pan-charred yak, with a mild gaminess that gives it infinitely more character than your average flank steak; sitr-fried green peppers, yellow onion and cilantro; and a coating of thick, dark sauce with a garlic/serrano chili/cumin kick that opens your sinuses like the DEA to a crackhouse door. Your eyes will water, your lips will tingle, and you. Will Not. Be Able. To Stop Eating It.

(NOTE: Don’t try making it yourself. It is impossible to buy yak meat in this city. There is not a single butcher shop that sells it and you are not about to get yourself involved in some kind of black-market yak deal.)

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• WHAT: Rockin' Nepalese cuisine at Tara's Himalayan 
• WHERE: 10855 Venice Blvd LA CA 90034
• WHEN: Mon-Thurs 12-10 PM, Sat-Sun 12-11 PM
• $$$: About $8 a plate



The Joys Of Going 'Berzerk'

Have you spent any time at LA Live? That place is TERRIBLE. It's like someone picked up Universal City Walk -- with its steroidal "FUN!" vibe, parade of shitty theme restaurants, hermetic disconnection from the surrounding community, waddling masses of tourists and baggy-shorted thugs looking to get their stab on -- and dumped it right in the middle of downtown. If LA Live were a person, it'd be the kind of person destined to be dangled off a balcony by Suge Knight. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH TO GO TO LA LIVE.

Except for this month, when they're hosting Cirque Berzerk at Club Nokia. Gotta take the good with the bad.

Cirque Berzerk is -- and I don't use this word often -- magical. Started at Burning Man in 2005, it's a sublimely talented crew of acrobats, aerialists, fire-spinners, burlesque dancers, stilt walkers, singers, contortionists, and punk-rock clowns. The whole enterprise brims with cheeky gothic energy, casual pansexuality, merry gallows humor (there's a corpse-fucking joke that somehow doubles as a brilliant bit of gender commentary) and enough physical prowess to power a small city. I don't want to ruin any suprises, but my personal favorite involved four men doing sychnronized jumps over a tall wall between paralell trampolines -- like a Busby Berkley extravaganza in zero gravity, or Fred Astaire being directed by The Wachowski Brothers. It's a spectacle that'll leave you dizzy with delight -- more than enough to carry you out of the teeming depths of LA Live and onward home.

(Quick side note: if you go, go early enough to check out WP-24, the bar atop the Ritz Carlton building. It gives you a God's-eye-view of downtown and the blindingly spotlit roof of the Staples Center, and they make a pretty handy martini to boot.)

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• WHAT: Cirque Berzerk -- LA's freaky alternative circus 
• WHERE: Club Nokia -- 800 W. Olympic Blvd, LA CA 90015
• WHEN: Runs through January 30th, Wed-Sun, 8 PM
• $$$: Tickets start at about $20

Part-Time Steampunks

Never heard of Palmetto Street? That's because Palmetto Street wants it that way. It prefers to keep a low profile. Very low. If it were the hero in an action movie, a government agent played by Danny Glover would be showing up at its house saying "You're a hard man to find, Palmetto", to which the street would gravely intone, "Not hard enough."

Too bad -- because this east-of-Alameda warehouse wasteland is home to of one of the best bars in LA: a steampunk joint known as Villains Tavern.

Steampunk, the sci-fi/western genre mashup that somehow survived its inclusion in Wild Wild West, is undergoing something of an LA renaissance, thanks to our friends at The Do Lab and Malediction Society -- and at Villains, it reaches a kind of maximalist perfection. The towering windows are lined with apothecary bottles; the mirror behind the bar looks like something from a comic-book bad guy's lair; the drinks have names like the Bluebeard, the Poison Apple, and the Stan Lee; an outdoor stage throbs with live music exactingly suited to the ecletic vibe. It's a transporting experience in a way that few LA bars even attempt.

That said: is it packed with hoodie-clad USC kids? It is. Are the bartenders trying to make time-consuming Varnish-style drinks for an Echoplex-capacity crowd? They are. Will you feel like you should've carried a switchblade with you, during the walk across the DMZ from the front door to your car? You will. But then again, something tells me that's how Palmetto Street would want it.

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• WHAT: Villains Tavern -- steampunk bar in the warehouse district
• WHERE: 1356 Palmetto St, LA CA 91003
• WHEN: Tuesday-Saturday, 8 PM - 2 AM
• $$$: About $10 a drink

The Secret Panorama Room and Carnivorous Plants of 24th Street

Nestled on a street corner notable only for its proximity to USC (as well as to the house I lived in during college, the continued existence of which speaks volumes about LA's Department Of Building Safety), lies the The Velaslavasay Panorama: an under-the-radar throwback to the entertainments of yesteryear.

The experience is nothing if not immersive. You head up a murky spiral staircase, like the kind that invariably lead to haunted attics in horror movies, and finally end up in a large, dark circular room with a 360-degree painting of an arctic landscape. Unseen speakers play a 35-minute loop of howling wind and whispering snowfall, as subtle lighting shifts reveal icy waters, walls of icebergs, and even the glimmering specter of the aurora borealis. It could be 85 degrees outside and this place will still send shivers down your spine.

Downstairs, there's a rickety theater where they do "illustrated lectures", currently featuring professor Zed Adams and his succinctly named "What If Esquimaux Had No Word For Blue? The History and Philosophical Significance Of 19th Century Color Vocabulary Studies."  (If you've ever stayed up late with a friend and delved into such queries as "How did they decide to call 'red' red?", you should get over here.) And tucked away behind the building, you'll find a little overgrown oasis of a garden, featuring a gazebo lined with windowboxes full of carnivorous plants. 

The term "hidden gem" gets thrown around a lot these days. The Velaslavasay Panorama earns each word of it.

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• WHAT: The Velaslavasay Panorama -- secret old-timey gallery and garden
• WHERE: 1122 W. 24th St. LA CA 90007
• WHEN: Friday, Saturday, Sunday -- 12 PM - 6 PM
• $$$: $6 for civilians, $4 for students

Places To Have Sexytime In Public: The City Hall Observation Deck

Tired of getting boned over by The Man? Thanks to LA City Hall's surprisingly unknown and easily accessible obersvation deck, you have a chance to return the favor, if only in a largely symbolic way that will probably get you arrested if you aren't careful and speedy.

Find some insanely overpriced parking (or better yet, take the train), head over to the towering, white, not-at-all-phallic edifice north of skid row, and hop the elevator up to the top floor. Here, amidst columns of stately stone, you'll find a (most likely unoccupied) open-air viewing deck, granting you gobsmacking 360-degree views of downtown, the southland, and on clear days, the ocean and the mountains beyond Pasadena. It's enough to install civic pride even in the most hardened (ka-boing!) of Angelenos.

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• WHAT: Los Angeles City Hall -- gorgeous observation deck
• WHERE: 200 N. Spring St, LA CA 90012
• WHEN: Monday-Friday, 8 AM - 5 PM
• $$$: Free