The Diner of Your Dreams

You’ve dreamt of this place. The local eatery. Patrons at a U-shaped formica counter. Hustling waitresses call you “baby” and ask how you’re doing.  They have no need to ask what you’re ordering because they know your name and “the usual.” You see other regulars there: the Police Chief; the Young Hipster Couple; The Guy Off the Night Shift on His Way Home. They might know your name. You might know theirs. But to all of you, this diner, this restaurant, is home.

Your dream is real. Nick’s Café has been serving up yummy grub just north of Chinatown in Elysian Park since 1948.  The kind of place that takes diner staples – ham & eggs, corned beef hash, chilaquiles, burgers – and ups the elbow grease. Nick’s makes everything, homemade. Particularly the ham. Let that settle in for a moment.

They make. Their own. Ham. 

Ham is the signature item at Nick’s. The breakfast ham steak is succulent, sweet, and doesn’t taste like it’s been pumped full of chemicals to keep it dangling in the cooler at Ralph’s for months.

Another specialty is the corned beef hash. Again, homemade. Dotted with anis seeds, it’s the kind of corned beef hash your grandma would have made. Which isn’t to say it’s made with love. But it sure tastes like maybe they sprinkled some on top.

Of course, both the ham and the corned beef hash are best served over toasted, buttered English muffins, topped with perfectly poached and fresh hollandaise sauce with a side of cottage fries or hashbrowns. The “regular” eggs benedict and the M.C. benedict, respectively, are must-tries.  The waitress will pull a bottle of homemade salsa out of the Coke cooler under the counter and suggest you try it with your meal. You will. And your mouth will burn a little bit (all those pepper seeds will do that), but you’ll remark to the couple sitting next to you how fresh it tastes. Did they make this here? Of course they did. They make everything here!

Make sure to get to Nick’s early; Sad is the occasion when you sit and prepare to order only to hear that “Benedicts are 86ed.” The ham steak and eggs, chilaquiles, and biscuits & gravy are all great. For the ambitious there’s always the Pan San: three pancakes stuff with two eggs, and bacon, sausage, or ham. Oh, and free coffee on the weekends.

When you dream of that place your town never had, the place with the sassy waitresses busting the busboys’ balls, and you want something that tasted like humans made it from scratch and with love, Nick’s is your place.

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• WHAT: Delicious Old-School Diner (Breakfast & Lunch)
• WHERE: 1300 North Spring Street, Downtown
  
• WHEN: Monday-Friday 5:30am-3pm, Saturday & Sunday 6:30am-4pm
• $$$: Approx. $15 per person (with tip)

Charlie The Unicorn: Back In Action

Last year, we made a big brouhaha about Charlie The Unicorn -- a Burning Man art-car spearheaded (so to speak) by intrepidLA fairy godmother DivaDanielle, designed as a big pink double-decker dance floor replete with DJ booth, candy-cane stripper poles, and a horn that shoots fire. Suffice to say, many, many good times were had on that fucking unicorn.

Now the question is -- how do the good people of Camp Charlie keep those good times going for the rest of us?

Answer: Invaded By Unicorns, a fundraiser party at the Red Loft this Saturday night. Hold onto your kidneys, because if Charlie's gonna keep bringing joy to the playa, he's gotta keep himself in good repair.

Reason #1 to get out there: The Red Loft is the sexiest venue in downtown LA -- a crimson tinged den of mischievous iniquity, tucked away several stories above the fashion district. Reason #2: tag-team sets by Joplin & Erik Nelson and DivaDanielle & Nick the Neck (the tech-house alter ego of indie-remix king Pumpkin.) Reason #3: Saynt, who is rapidly becoming one of our favorite house DJs on the planet.

Reason #4: anyone who says they don't want to ride around the desert on a bass-bumping unicorn that shoots flames into the night is... deeply misguided. Get to the Red Loft and help keep the dream rolling.

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• WHAT: Fundraiser dance party
  
• WHERE: The Red Loft (RSVP for location)
  
• WHEN: Saturday 14th of January, 10 PM-4 AM
  
• $$$: $10
  

Say it IS Sno

SNO.  In L.A.   

Hold on to your hairplugs, Dallas Raines!  We don't mean this kind.

Nor do we mean the kind of "snow" we oftentimes suspect this city runs on (although, the kind we're talking about might prove to be equally addictive).

Nor do we mean the fake kind they sh*t-- errr... "sprinkle" all over The Grove every December that ends up wrecking your cashmere sweater.  

Not even the kind that gets a sorority banned from rush week and results in its slowly devolving into "the fat house."  True.  Same kind as aforementioned city fuel.

We mean SNOBAR SNO, the exquisite, palate-pleasing, shaved ice confection now being served up at a boutique dessertery right smack dab in the thick of West Hollywood (you know, that strip where the crosswalks make you feel like you're living in Frogger).  

If shaved ice conjures nightmarish childhood memories of purple-stained tongues, and brain freezes, and tooth pain, and wax-covered paper cones leaking sticky sadness down your arm, then SNOBAR will straight up Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind your snow cone associations.  SNO is definitely not your grandpa's shaved ice (unless your grandpa drinks a lot of frozen Margaritas… but more on that later).

So what is it?  Instead of pouring syrup over dentist-enraging ground ice, SNO, according to the company website, "uses purified water infused with flavoring before it is flash-frozen," then they shave it to order with a fancy machine that resembles something Rumpelstiltskin could probably jerry-rig to spin gold.  The result is a texture that has been compared to cold cotton candy.  Think of it like delectable ribbons of icy lace that melt in your mouth.  What's more, SNO is available in a tantalizing span of rotating flavors (and they'll let you sample any of them). 

Fun fact, every Monday night, SNOBAR holds an "all the SNO you can eat!" bonanza for $6 (with email RSVP).  Funner fact, the company also has a catering service so you can have SNO at your event!  Funnest fact, for those catered events, they'll even toss some booze into the mix on your request.  That's right.  Kahlua chocolate SNO.  Mango margarita SNO.  Et cetera, et cetera, pass out… call Grandpa.

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•WHAT: Shaved ice v.2.0
•WHERE: SNOBAR, 8717 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood, 90069
•WHEN: Open daily, 12 noon to 12 midnight
•$$$: $4 - $6

Floating In A Winter Wonderland

Occasionally, you have to admit there are ways in which Long Beach outdoes LA. They have a fully functioning seaport, which tends to be important when you build a city near water. They gave us Snoop Dogg, Sublime, and Zach De La Rocha, without whom high schoolers in the 90's would have had nothing to listen to. They have a really big boat, just sitting around waiting to be hijacked by a drunken Lucille Bluth.

Here's something a lot of Angelenos don't know about the LBC: they have a gorgeous series of canals, like a bigger, more majestic version of waterways in Venice Beach, running through the seaside suburb of Naples. Even better: you can rent a nighttime gondola tour of the place -- where, for the next three days, the neighborhood will be transformed into a surreal phantasmagoria of holiday lights.

How it works: first and most importantly, find someone you want to get cozy with. Book a trip with Gondola Getaways. Dress warmly, it gets cold at night on the water. Bring wine. (Don't bring cups, they provide those. These people's mamas did not raise no fools.) Head down a dock, past group-gondolas the size of Viking ships, and climb into your own little personal vessel. Your gondolier will gracefully paddle you off through the main channel into the misty splendor of the inner canals. You'll drift soundlessly past towering boats, under arcing foot-bridges, and past houses that look like they belong to wealthy superheroes -- all decked out to the nines with every type of illumination imaginable. It's a slightly hallucinatory, swooningly romantic way to spend a night.

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•WHAT: A gondola trip through Naples Canals
•WHERE: Gondola Getaways
•WHEN: Nighttime holiday light tours go now through December 31st
•$$$: $125 for a couple

The Hidden Delights of Malibu Canyon

Photo courtesy of Makaela TrussellIt's easy to forget that there's more to Malibu than the windswept curve of the PCH, the golden span of Zuma Beach, and Highway Patrol officers who can't wait to hear your theories on how the Jews started all the world wars. But let me put your mind at ease; Malibu contains multitudes.

First off: hidden up in the canyon, there's the Malibu Cafe, which wins my award for Most Magical Restaurant That Almost Nobody Knows About. Nestled in the glades of the Calamigos Ranch, the site resembles a hybrid of the Shire, a game room, and an aging gay cowboy's backyard. Let me explain...

The restaurant is on an open-air deck overlooking a lawn, where you can have your lunch hidden away in a cabana or do it picnic-style on your own little island in the nearby lake. 20-foot-tall steel rose stems bloom flames that act as heaters for the tables on the deck. Scattered around the grounds are an outdoor pool table and a shuffleboard set-up, poised under chandeliers hung from trees. Locally grown wines pour freely and plates of lobster cobb salads, devilled eggs and smoky pulled pork sandwiches glide past. You'll probably be seated by a long table of local ladies on a girls-day-out who pull off the remarkable feat of all looking and sounding like exactly the same person, but that won't matter. You'll spend the entire time with that tingly sensation of having discovered something special.

Onwards. Next stop is a hike at The Paramount Ranch, a fake western town built by the titular movie studio in 1927. It's played the OK Corral for Gary Cooper and ancient China for Cecil B. Demille. More recently, it was the set of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and HBO's Carnivale. Most importantly, last year it housed the production of Insane Clown Posse's Big Money Rustlas (which, for those philistines unfamiliar with ICP's body of work, is the Old West "prequel" to their 2000 think-piece Big Money Hustlas. It stands as a deeper, more nuanced examination of the duo's pet themes: morality, class warfare, and being fat despite doing a bunch of meth.) Any self-respecting film buff must pay a pilgrimage to this hallowed ground.

It's spooky and silent, a favored hangout for coyotes and quail. Thin arteries of hiking trails snake up into the canyon, leading you to cinematically monikered places with names like Witches Wood and Marco Polo Hill. It's all easy hiking, but it's got its charms.   

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•WHAT: A dreamy lunch spot and a ghost-town hike in Malibu
•WHERE: The Malibu Cafe, Paramount Ranch
•WHEN: The Cafe = Thurs-Sun, 12-10 PM, the hike is all week dawn to dusk
•$$$: Cafe = $12 a plate, hike = free