Los Feliz walk, Fred’s 62, Nickelodeon, and Portos…Los Angeles

Very Full day. We followed a walk in the excellent “Walking L.A.” Guide by Erin Mahoney through the Los Feliz neighborhood, walking up narrow winding roads near Griffith Park Observatory, lined with spectacular homes, culls of lush landscaping, amazing on-high views of downtown, with the occasional unfriendly dog, black Bentley, and signs warning of “armed security patrols.” A highlight is the amazing FLWright EnnisBrown House. We also walked down and up several near-hidden pedestrian walkways that reminded us a bit of the hidden staircases between villages on the Amalfi coast.

We walked south on Vermont to a few interesting shops and restaurants south of Franklin, landing at Fred’s 66, a hipster diner, as advertised, with interesting salads, good burgers and sandwiches and breakfast. we drove awhile more around Laurel Canyon, marveling at yet another pocket of wealth, this one a different vibe than Los Feliz, more

Enjoying FLWright house in Los Feliz neighborhood of LA

Enjoying FLWright house in Los Feliz neighborhood of LA

rock star than studio exec neighborhood.

Next stop a visit to Nickelodeon headquarters in Burbank where my brother works on a new show Loud House (looked for it in about a year!) Cool place and glad my talented brother landed there. last stop a terrific Cuban bakery Portos, where the woman behind the counter didn’t just give us little samples but whole pastries to try. Delicious and it worked. we bought a bunch. We have loved our visit and slowly getting reacquainted with LA.

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LA Farmers Market for tacos, falafel, Brazilian BBQ, crepes and more

Loteria At the LA Farmers marketmakes some mean tacos, among our favs the shrimp and pork, also excellent black beans. My niece had a delicious Nutella crepe at a nearby stall and the Moishe’s falafel. The ambiance alone is great – an old fashioned food hall of sorts (the “farmers market” moniker is a bit misleading) with a series of little stalls around since the 1930s, each with a different ethnic or regional offering. The Brazilian BBQ had a strong following, as did the falafel place. Their is also a best French gourmet food and cooking ware store. All this is surrounded by a very upscale open air mall, sort of Disneyland-esque make believe world with fancy brand mpname outposts like anthropologie and top shop.

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United gets us to LAX via competitor!

we didn’t realize United had fixed us up with an alternative flight to LA on a competing airline until we got to the airport in Des Moines. These airline mergers are hard to keep straight. But United merged with Continental and American with USAIR. We were supposed to fly United to Denver to LA but our flight was two hours late so we would miss our connection. I stayed calm and called United and soon we were flying us air to LA via Phoenix, out of frigid subzero Iowa to sunny warm LA. And here is my sweet breakfast companion in Burbank!

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Kansas City – Cafe Trio

I’m always trying to remember the restaurants we eat at, particularly in a place like Kansas City (beyond the ones I’ll always remember like Gates, Stroud’s, Joes — formerly Oklahoma Joe’s, and Bryants.) So for the record we had a good meal with wonderful Uncle Kenneth at Trio, near the Plaza. I wasn’t that hungry, having had a big bowl of Bun at Saigon Cafe in Wichita a few hours earlier, so I just had a small plate – mainly grilled Brussels sprouts (a new favorite veg) well-seasoned with big pieces of lardon (bacon), little bits of pear and a small dab of orange-colored sweet potato (I think) puree. D had good crab cakes. N had salmon. K had chicken. The place was all decked out for the holiday, as of course was the Plaza, with its Spanish-style buildings lined with Christmas lights.

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Dodge city dining– tacos Jalisco

imageNo visit to Wright, Kansas is complete without a visit to Tacos Jalisco in nearby Dodge City so we found ourselves here, yet again, on a suddenly snowy bleak day after Xmas. Good nothin fancy soft tacos (fried pork is my new fave) and carne asada and flan in a long open dining room with lots of murals of the old country. We also did a little antiquing at the dodge city antique mall near Hastings dept store and stopped at Dillons grocery for some Art and Mary jalapeño potato chips, a Kansas Classic (it was just arts when we lived in Wichita many years ago.)

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Eating en route to Dodge City: Liberty, Mo (Stroud’s chicken), Lawrence, ks (Wheatfields), Salina (cozy inn)

Fine dining en route to dodge city Kansas from Des Moines for Christmas:

Stroud’s (“we choke our own chickens”) off I 35 north of Kansas City). We didn’t think we’d be able to stop here because there is usually a long wait but we drove right into a prime parking spot on a Tuesday night at 8:15 pm (albeit holiday date) and sat at the small bar rather than waiting  40 minutes for a table. Great pan fried chicken and what everyone needs after a chicken dinner – killer cinnamon rolls, buttery and warm. Perfect stop before picking our son up at the Kansas City airport.

Wheatfields bakery in Lawrence where we learned we could avoid the long line for take out pastries and bread if we ordered breakfast as well at a counter with no line. And good grub too although I just had a small croissant (still recovering from Stroud’s.) Our waitress enthusiastically recommended another old tome bakery in town for its cream cheese donuts. Next time. (And there will be…)

Cozy Inn, we took up three of the six seats at the counter in this shoe box of a burger joint, with a great view of the two tattooed guys cooking sliders on a griddle. Forgot how good those sliders are..small and mighty, slightly rare with grilled onions and pickles (no cheese or fries allowed) on a small moist white bun.

Ad Astra, a hipster coffee shop around the block on Salina’s main drag where I had a good chai latte and found a great used book about Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton, a sweet older lady from small town Kansas who painted brilliantly wicked self portraits. (One of which hangs in our kitchen nook.) We met her in the late 1980’s when some friends and I were playing pool at a bar and met her nephew, or some such, who called her to see if she was receiving visitors. She was . So we went to her house and she served us lemonade and showed us around and let us buy signed posters of her work. Only in Kansas!! She died in 1993 I see from the book (which I had to buy!)

The sun is finally out with endless blue sky, bald brown hills, the occasional wind-whipped tree and lots of gleaming white whirling wind turbines. Life is good.

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Dos Rios – I agree with the Datebook Diner’s review today

I had to agree with the Des Moines Register’s  review today about Dos Rios, a restaurant serving modern (aka Rick Bayles- style) Mexican fare on Court Avenue in Des Moines. I hadn’t been there in ages, after a few mediocre overpriced meals but was presently surprised after a recent lunch there (suggested by my friend Anne.) The taco special was good value and good food – I had the pork and steak tacos plus a hearty bowl of spicy tortilla soup with visible bits of chicken (and tortilla strips).

 

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Even more reasons to go to Chicago in 2015: “the 606”, David Adjaye show at Art Institute

The 606Just heard the Art Institute of Chicago will  host the first show of work by British architect David Adjaye next September. He first came to my attention thanks to a profile last year in The New Yorker. He’s designing the new  National Museum of African American History and Culture, on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

Also new next summer – “the 606” – the Chicago version of NYC’s High Line. It includes parks and trails along 2.7 miles of a former elevated train track connecting four neighborhoods (see the606.org)

And as always, some new restaurants to check out:

– Chicken Shop, which serves free-range rotisserie chicken at the new Soho House hotel.

– GT Prime (a meat place from the chef who owns GT Fish & Oyster)

 – A Mexican food brewpub from Homaro Cantu (of Moto)

Thanks to the travel Mag AFAR for these suggestons.

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What our out-of-town guests liked in Des Moines/central Iowa

We had 19 out-of-town guest for Thanksgiving this year (from L.A., Tucson, Chicago, suburban Chicago, Springfield, suburban Detroit, Brooklyn and Washington D.C.) and enjoyed showing them around the new improved Des Moines. Among their favorites:

– La Mie restaurant for lunch

– East Village for shopping – including Raygun, Porch Light, Kitchen Collage, Gong Fu, Eden

– Winterset – lunch at Northside Cafe (complete with a visit from Santa, who inadvertently spooked our 2 1/2-year-old niece), shopping at the Ben Franklin on Shop Small Saturday (as fate would have it), a visit to Roseman Bridge.

– Star Bar for lunch

– Django for dinner

– Raccoon River Brewery for afternoon billards and drinks

– Confluence Brewery, hand-crafted beer served in the taproom and in refillable half-gallon bottles (aka growlers.)

– The Des Moines Art Center’s Halston-Warhol show.

– The downtown Pappajohn Sculpture Park (although it was too nippy when we visited to walk around.)

– Gateway Market for cheese and bread shopping.

– The state historical museum (good places for a little girl to run around…and I need to revisit the Hollywood in the Heartland exhibit)

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Where to go in Portugal …Sintra, algarve, Tavira

I met a woman on a flight to Dallas who had recently visited Portugal. She showed me photos of gorgeous gardens and moorish tiled buildings and courtyards. And she gave me several names of towns to visit including Sintra .

 

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