This will be a quick post, as I know I'm behind, but have just arrived in Las Vegas, so I'm keen to get out there and see what is going on.
Following on from my last post, our third day in LA started with brunch at the 101 Coffee Shop in Hollywood. I had read about their "No Huevos Rancheros", a vegan brunch dish consisting of scrambled tofu, soy chorizo, corn, black beans, avocado, peppers and tortillas. We also indulged in some onion rings, which were tasty, but it was a little hard to stomach the amount of oil involved. What did I expect from onion rings though?!
While it is good that there is a vegan option at a diner like this (which is open until 3 am), but my suggestion would be that the soyrizo in the NHR be served in circular type slices rather than being ground up (if that is possible). It seemed to blend too much into the black beans, and indeed, I had trouble even finding it to start with.
Then it was time to hit the main Hollywood sights. In T's view, this meant Amoeba Music. We spent about 2 hours there, and found albums/EPs that have long been out of print or just impossible to find anywhere else. Here is a list of what we found (and purchased):
I'm Gonna Stop Killing - Carla Bozulich
Dear Companion - Meg Baird
Asa Breed - Matthew Dear
Tiny Mirrors - Sandro Perri
The Verve EP (now out of print for about 10 years - I had coveted a friend's copy since about 1998)
Yes, I'm a Witch - Yoko Ono
The Seldom Seen Kid - Elbow
Lie in Light - Cloudland Canyon
6 Peace EP - Schneider TM (Finally after years of searching it appeared in front of me for $5.99)
Life on a String - Laurie Anderson
Andre Sider Af Sonic Youth - Sonic Youth, Mats Gustafsson & Merzbow
Circular Sounds - Kelley Stoltz
Sandro Perri Plays Polmo Popo
Young Team - Mogwai (Deluxe Version)
From a Basement on the Hill - Elliott Smith
After dragging ourselves out of there with our stash (ok, it was mainly me dragging T out of there), T showed me a metro station on Hollywood Boulevard that he had seen many years ago: the walls are lined with thousands of old film reels. We trawled over stars on the sidewalk on our way to the theatres - namely the Kodak and Grauman's Chinese. I don't mean to sound jaded, but the Kodak seemed to be part of a big shopping mall and quite far removed from the glitz of the Academy Awards. There was however a nice view of the Hollywood Sign, with the obligatory swarms of people crowding the viewing platform.
Grauman's Chinese Theatre required a little more time to explore, with all the hand and foot prints etched in concrete out the front. Some highlights for me included John Woo, the cast of Star Wars, Doris Day and Jack Nicholson. T tried to fill Jack's shoes, and I tried to get my hands into Doris' tiny prints.
It was then time for some true celeb hunting, or should I say celeb house hunting - for us this meant the houses of David Lynch and Trent Reznor. Some internet research had turned up the addresses, as well as some locations for Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, so with our trusty travel companion TomTom, we headed for the Hollywood Hills. We located David's house, which is well known to be the Beverly Johnson house. The two houses next door are also owned by David, the last one being Fred and Renee's house in Lost Highway ie the creepiest house I have ever seen committed to film. It was eerie standing outside as it was so quiet. Someone then appeared out of the middle house, talking loudly on a phone and asking "What is his schedule like for tomorrow?" David's schedule perhaps?
We then located the octagonal body double house and the corral from Mulholland Drive. It was getting quite dark by this stage, and the corral was lit by a single lightbulb as in the film. Creepareno.
T had managed to find out about a vegan japanese restaurant called Shojin in the downtown area, so we made a beeline there to shake off our creeped out-ness. We ordered the Crispy Tempeh Salad, Seitan Katsu Curry and Seitan & Broccoli. The salad was amazing - crispy barbecued tempeh and a gorgeous miso dressing over the salad leaves. The curry and seitan/broccoli combo weren't really to my taste, but T hoovered them up. The service here was wonderful, and our waiter Ken and I exchanged some shaky (on my part) pleasantries in Japanese before we headed off.
More on our last day in LA tomorrow.......
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