Los Angeles: Where to stay?

I don't know what this place - http://www.MagicCastleHotel.com/ - is like, but it's walkable (tho not next door) to the Hollywood and Highland metro stop as well as to Runyon Canyon.

The Magic Castle Hotel is right by all the touristy stuff - it's pretty much the backyard of the Kodak Theater. There's a classically seedy L.A. dive bar right around the corner (The Power House), and it's at the foot of the hill that has Yamashiro's on it (which is a pretty crummy Japanese restaurant that's really fun to drink at, with excellent views of the city).

I lived literally next door to the Magic Castle Hotel on Sycamore for years. Lots of other classic dives around there - Boardner's, Frolic Room, Burgundy Room.

Ste, yes I do think that LA is much cheaper to visit than New York. This is particularly for food and hotel. It's not really seasonal. I still get reverse sticker shock every time I go out to eat. Where are you visiting from?

Jeff and Spencer, I do rib you about Santa Monica occasionally for personal and stylistic reasons (nothing to do with ILXors), and because I think it's funny in the Hipster Olympics when the play-by-play commentator says "I haven't seen performance like these since the Douchebag Summer Games in sunnny Santa Monica, California!" The term douche tickles me. My theory is that is something we Californians excel at to the exclusion of East Coasters and I have been busily reclaiming the term and trying to define "Douchebag Style" since I moved back here. Douche pride.

However, we haven't really discussed many West Side places in any detail on these threads for a while. The Santa Monica public library is gorgeous architecturally (especially in nice weather) and has a fantastic collection, which they are very liberal about lending to the rest of L.A. county. And the Kelly Wearstler-decorated designed Viceroy Hotel bar is one of my favorite rooms in L.A.

What else do you recommend in Santa Monica and Venice?

I'm coming from England.

For the past three years I've been visiting NY so for a change I thought I'd sling shot to the west coast this year.

Splitting this between two hotels sounds tempting actually. One for the beach side and the other for downtown? what do you think?

i've been to axe in venice. is that douchebaggy? the food was very good.

Felicity, I DON'T LIVE IN SANTA MONICA.

I haven't lived in Santa Monica since the summer of 1984 :(

Movies...

http://egyptiantheatre.com/sched.htm
http://egyptiantheatre.com/Aero/aeromastercalendar.htm
http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/public/calendar/calendar_f.html
http://www.lacma.org/programs/FilmSeriesSchedule.aspx
http://www.silentmovietheatre.com/

arclight

This is my hood!

http://www.midcitywest.org

http://www.midcitywest.org/images/M_images/midcitywestlimits.gif

spencer lives in a good neighborhood (except for Grove congestion). definitely not "westside" in my book

Yeah, getting around the Grove can be a pain, but I can actually walk there when I want to see a movie or go to the Farmer's Market.

A: Away.

Gabbneb is right, we hung out at the Venice Beach House a lot because we were totally stuck in the immediate area of Venice until someone came and got us. Luckily, our kind friends drove us all over the place: Museum of Jurassic Technology, Griffith Observatory, art museum, Little Tokyo, Dim Sum in SGV, downtown, but usually after dinner we ended up chilling at the beach house because we had all just been in Vegas so we were nightlifed out and wanted to keep it low key.

It was a great place to stay without a car because there was quite a bit of stuff within walking distance, but it was a long-seeming drive to other places. So if you have people who want to drive you places then it would be good, but probably very inconvenient if you didn't have that. The moving around idea is a good one, I think.

This is my hood!

That's my hood also! (though I'm closer to La Brea)

Also for movies: http://www.newbevcinema.com/

What else do you recommend in Santa Monica and Venice?

I heart the Santa Monica camera obscura: http://gridskipper.com/travel/los-angeles/la-letter-camera-obscura-143840.php

Also, this is where I mention the Museum of Jurassic Technology and the Center For Land Use Interpretation again...

http://mjt.org/
http://clui.org/

The Wende Cold War museum in Culver City is pretty dang strange:
http://www.wendemuseum.org/

Only open on Fridays though

Really, for Santa Monica there's nothing that beats a drive up PCH to the Ventura county line and a meal at Neptune's Net: http://www.neptunesnet.com/

I'm glad to learn the Mid-City West designation. There's something about the mix of use and the low rise and the gentle elevation and the quality of light at certain hours around there that works for me. I just wish the Grove/Farmer's Market lived up to their billing more.

Chris, I didn't know you lived here, let's hang!

Gabbneb, yes, it's no longer a "farmer's market", but some of the food places are truly amazing! (and yeah, the magic hour here can be especially magical)

Farmer's Daughter looked great and we looked forward to our stay their, until they fucked up our reservation and left us stranded making us stay at a more expensive much less nice place in Beverly Hills. That was total bullshit.

in that neighborhood, I might opt for the El@n Hotel Mod3rn, which may be doing renovation work at the moment

dinner tonight, anybodies?

Sierra Madre beats Monrovia, easy. Pasadena has good stuff but we get enough tourists.

Oh dear. felicity in overexplaining making things worse shocker.

Mid-City West has a lot of favorites: Centerfold News, Pinks, Cantors, Ethiopian Village, 3rd and Fairfax, Damiano's (bad pizza, good soda pop).

Sorry, Spencer, it was all the brunch talk. Now that you've identified your coordinates, the penalty is you have to come talk to me in Los Feliz about the awesomeness of Tokyo Drift and Teriyaki Boyz.

i've been to axe in venice. is that douchebaggy? the food was very good.

aw, lauren, always got my back. :) I have never been to Axe (apparently pronounced "ah-shay)." Will try.

the pronunciation might render it douchebaggy, but major points for the porterhouse pork chop.

Pasadena has good stuff but we get enough tourists

srsly. it's packed every fucking minute of the day now except between 2 and 7 am

lord knows why anyone would want to spend their drinking time here anyway, other than a couple of spots people don't know about.

March 19-21

maria at the experimental cafe in oxnard

Oxnard has something called the experimental cafe? What, did they get an espresso machine or something? (I kid because I love.)

Which bars are good here, Keith? How's El Rancho (I think that's the one near you)? The gallery next door seems to like it lot.

a few weeks ago my car transmission waited until i got to oxnard to die. there are much worse places to breathe sighs of despair in. I've gotten lost enough that i feel like i know the place.

I might buy a car, I think. You know, a foreign car.

I think chaki has a show March 21 at the Derby.

i do! thanks, felicity! and march 22nd at molly malones I THINK.

from reading this thread.. am i right to think then that the best place to stay is hollywood?

i will spend 3 nights there (3rd apr - 6 apr) and will be on my own. Any recommendation as to somewhere fun to go on Saturday night appreciated also! I've heard that the Viper Room is surprisingly small.

Hollywood, yeah:

-breakfast/lunch at Lucky Devils
-pick up an LA Weekly and see what appeals, with special notice to J. Gold's restaurant reviews
-Amoeba Records
-Jitlada for Thai food, or maybe this other place next to Jumbo's Clown Room. "other place" has excellent little Thai fried bar snacks
-that pho place on Sunset in Silverlake/Echo Park sorry I don't remember the name
-take the subway downtown, walk around
-Solar de Cahuenga is a decent place to get coffee and wifi

that's what I'm going to do when I get back to LA, anyway. Which happens to be on April 2nd, so lemme know if you want to get coffee.

I haaaaate the Strip and so I've never been to the Viper Room, maybe I'm missing out.

yess will be up for meeting up deffo.

would also like to see some awesome metal shows while there obv.

lukasb AT googlemail

unfortunately i don't know anything about metal in LA. but i know it's there!

cool will email! look forward to LA FAP/FAC

argghhhh.. now kind of tempted to stay on the Queen Mary... might be fun for a night but has potential to be actually pretty lame

PEOPLE WHERE DO I GET GOOD MEXICAN IN DOWNTOWN LA AT THIS HOUR(7PM) on A WEEKNIGHT? I AM HEAR THE STANDARD DOWNTOWN

central market is closed at this hour : (

take the gold line to mariachi plaza.

We took the red line to olvera st and got ratty cart-style mex ^______________^

what's the best way to get from the bay to LA without a car?

and without spending a lot

or taking 12 hours

craigslist rideshare

dunno where it leaves from but there's a bus from the bay that my cousin used to take that drops people off at usc or ucla I think, and according to her it took at long as a car ride or w/e