Los Angeles - Day 1

We decided to kinda roam around in LA today - no agenda, just go around. We started the day with dim sum at a place called Elite Restaurant in Monterey Park. We found this place via a recommendation from my co-worker. It's a decent dim sum place ~ taste-wise very comparable to the ones in SF - the choice menu was a bit tight, but I guess their most popular dish is this Rice roll Chinese donut. Their point of differentiation is this donut is stuffed with shrimp paste. It tastes rather good. Different.

LA is known for their traffic, and today's drive was no different. After being stuck in traffic for a good 10-15 minutes, we got to Hollywood's Chinese Theater. We walked around the Hollywood & Highlands stores, the Walk of Fame area - it was crowded and warm. We kinda wanted to join those tours that take you to the celebrity homes, but later decided to go against it. Ok, we're lame even to think about going...

We ended up doing the next touristy thing, which is to get a chili dog at Pink's. This place is advertised like crazy as one of "LA must-do's," kinda like visits to Hollywood & Disneyland. So we went... and... the line to Pink's snaked around the building.. No kidding!

We waited for 1 hour... yes, ONE long hour for our chili dogs! I was quite surprised that SQ was willing to wait because he doesn't believe in waits for any food. But we waited and finally got our chili dogs. SQ got his with sauerkraut. With a couple of root beers, we're good to go! Now, are these chili dogs good? Yes, absolutely. Are they 1-hr wait-long good? No, probably not.

After Pink's, we drove around the LA downtown area and then ended up at Beverly Hills/Rodeo Drive. I've been here before but don't remember much about it. When we drove along the street this time around, I recognize so many of the brand names there (working at a luxury retailer) obviously got me informed. Cartier, Hermes, Chophard, Bvlgari, Chanel...every designer brand name one can imagine. Wow. It's crazy.

In addition to Pinkberry, the other Southern CA hip thing is Sprinkles Cupcakes. Sprinkles still has a limited distribution right now - the closest one in the Bay Area is in Palo Alto. But they started at this Beverly Hills location serving cupcakes to the rich and well to do. They have different flavors each day of the week with a handful of flavors being baked everyday. We ordered the most popular flavors: Red Velvet & Black/White.

Have you noticed that our trip is mostly about eating? Well, because we both love eating! We gained like 5 lbs from this trip! No joke! Because we not only ate a lot, we also vegged a lot. After Sprinkles, we went to the Santa Monica Pier/Beach. SQ went for a swim and I sunbathe and people-watched.

After laying around for a couple of hours, we met up with my friend, EW, for dinner at Baby Blues BBQ. It is in Venice, only a few minutes away from Santa Monica. This place is a hole-in-the wall type of restaurant (literally, there are holes in the wall!) Very run-down, but serves a mean BBQ baby-back ribs. I ordered 1/2 rack A la carte (since I was still full from all the junk I ate throughout the whole day). The ribs were huge!! There must be like 6-7 rib bones in that 1/2 rack! They were so tender they literally can fall off the bone. The home-made BBQ sauce was also very yummy. We got engaged in our catch-up conversation, that I actually forgot to take pictures of the food and our gathering!! Good times...