The Getty Villa, Pat’s Topanga Grill

Even since I moved here in March, I’ve been trying to get into the Getty Villa. One evening a few weeks ago I was clicking around on the Getty website and thought I would look to see if they had a spot for the upcoming weeks, and they did! On a SUNDAY! So I clicked for my timed reservation for two and I was in.

The Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles is part of the J. Paul Getty Museum. The Getty Villa is an educational center and museum dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome and Etruria.

In 1974, J. Paul Getty opened this property as his first museum in a re-creation of the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. In 1997 the main part of the museum moved to its current location in Brentwood to become the Getty Center and the original Malibu museum, renamed the “Getty Villa”, was closed for renovation.

Reopened on January 28, 2006, the Getty Villa now holds Greek and Roman sculptures once housed in the Getty Center. The Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities are arranged by themes including Gods and Goddesses, Dionysos and the Theater and Stories of the Trojan War, housed within Roman-inspired architecture and surrounded by Roman-style gardens.

This museum does timed entries the right way. It allows few few people into the museum so it’s not ever crowded and always pleasant.

Admission to the Getty Villa is free but timed tickets must be obtained in advance. You can obtain these tickets (if available) by calling (310) 440-7300 or visiting the Getty website. There is a $8.00 charge for parking . The museum is open Thursday to Monday, 10am – 5pm. It is closed Tuesday, Wednesday and on January 1, July 4, Armed Forces Day, Thanksgiving and December 25.

It is difficult, but not impossible, to get tickets currently. This is due to the fact that only a limited number of visitors are allowed in each day, and demand is very high. Easiest way is to just keep on checking their website and try and find a day that’s available. And of course weekends are the hardest to get. Try and get later in the day

From top of the villa overlooking the Pacific.

It’s really just a okay collection. There’s nothing that really wowed me. It’s a lot like the big Getty’s permanent collection. Except there is a mummy at the villa. But it’s a great weekend escape. And the cafe there looked really good and had good prices. I didn’t eat there but it was very busy and smelled great.

The museum is located at:
17895 Pacific Coast Highway
Pacific Palisades, CA USA

Visit their website: http://www.getty.edu/visit/

On the way back my friend and I took Topanga back to the 101 and came across Pat’s Topanga Grill and decided to stop for brunch. It’s a cute restaurant with a very laid back feel. About four and a half worlds from LA. There’s cowboy hats and surf boards hanging from the ceiling. Pat’s art hangs from the wall as she serves you up the $3.85 breakfast special that includes two eggs, potatoes, and toast. I’ve heard they also serve up great mexican food… Juan’s Burrito is good and they also serve great burgers. It’s open 7 days a week breakfast and lunch only.

Very dog friendly, outdoor seating with heaters for the cooler months, kid friendly… if you’re looking for a casual weekend breakfast/lunch this is a great place. It’s a good escape from the typical West side brunch scene. And did I mention cheap?

Pat’s Topanga Grill
1861 N Topanga Canyon Blvd
Topanga, CA 90290
310-455-0533

Guerrilla Gay Bar at the Whisper Lounge

Okay so I normally don’t write posts about places I don’t like. In fact, if I go to a place or see a show that I don’t like, I typically don’t even bother writing about it. But I’m so over Guerrilla Gay Bar.

A couple friends and I checked out Guerrilla Gay Bar at the Whisper Lounge at the Grove last Friday night. It was my second time and it was their first. Who chooses these places? The Whisper Lounge is a small restaurant with a SMALL bar. And then you invite 300 people to come and crash it? Are you crazy? Can we say fire hazard? Will we ever get a drink?

The Daily Grind: LA’s 911 service, 99 Cent stuff, Tacos

First off, what’s with LA’s 911 service? I was on the 101 going north this morning and right in front of me a 18 wheeler starts going sideways like in the movies right after a pickup hit him in the rear driving a third car to crash into the center of the truck as it was skidding sideways. I was like 10 cars back so I didn’t get involved but I called 911 and I was on hold for 3 minutes! And I pressed 1 confirming it was a emergency… I hung up after 3 minutes because I saw a few other people stopped on their mobile phones and nobody was seriously hurt. But 3 minutes! Someone could have died!

My day job involves a lot of me watching movies I’ve seen 492 times. You know, viewing changes, showing them to people… whatever. So I generally use this time to sit in the theater and surf the net… mostly blogs, news sites… that sort of thing. So I’m afraid it’s another day of an unorganized blog of randomness. Or more like my to do list.

I’m so excited for the 99 cent store chef! I’m still new to the 99 cent store thing. I’ve never been to one. They don’t have them on the east coast. The east coast has dollar stores that are just filled with a lot of cheap things you don’t need or want. After watching Billy’s video, I now see the 99 cent stores have decent stuff.

I’ve been obsessing about noodles all morning. I want to try Wonton Time asap. It’s a bit far from me but I’m sure it’s worth it. I’ve also made a list of noodle places I want to try that I’ve heard about from Meet me at third and Fairfax.

ruen pair
5257 hollywood boulevard,
hollywood 90027.
323.466.0153.

Food: Pizzeria Mozza

After all the rage of Mozza from LA food bloggers (Eating L.A., Rate-A-Restaurant, The Knife, Tuna Toast, Chowhound) I figured I HAD to try this place.

This anticipated pizzeria is owned by Mario Batali (From FoodTV), Nancy Silverton and Joe Bastianich. And on Oct. 28, someone broke into the restaurant and walked away with $700 of hand-crafted cured meats made by Batali’s father, Armandino, at his Seattle business, Salumi. Then just two days later, a 13-pound imported Italian mortadella sausage also disappeared. (read the whole LA Times story.) It’s funny though… now on all the bottoms of the reciepts it says…

haha

Photos by chotda

As you would imagine, because of all the food blogs, I had some pretty high expectations for this place. A friend and I caught a movie at the Arc Light (“The Fountain” … very good, go see it) and then afterwards we were hungry so he suggested this new pizza place I had been blabbing about for the past few weeks. We called and got a reservation for 10:00 at 9:45… cool. The place was packed, but a awesome crowd. The tables are packed so tightly that you feel like it’s one big communal table. You hear and see and SMELL everything and everyone around you. And loud it is… so loud it’s hard to even hold a conversation…

We got settled in and after what seemed like a while, our waiter finally came back to take our order. Going in I had a pretty good idea of the things I had to try: fried squash blossoms filled with homemade ricotta, the wine, and the butterscotch budino for desert.

Squash Blossoms

The squash blossoms were great. Perfect in fact. For dinner, I ordered the goat cheese pizza with bacon, and my friend had the fennel sausage. I adore goat cheese but I wasn’t too crazy about my pizza. It was dry with I’m not kidding maybe a tablespoon, maybe, of goat cheese. I could hardly taste or see it! The sausage pizza was great though. I don’t even eat pork usually but I made an exception this night and wow… the depths of favor in the sausage were almost as deep as the wine.

And then for desert…

Butterscotch Budino

That was good too although we were both so full we could hardly finish it.

Overall I really like it. They really do put everything into this pizza. While it may not be the typical American ‘pizza’, it’s their version and it works. It’s wood oven fired goodness. Even though I didn’t care for my pizza too much, it was still good, and I’m sure some of the other pizzas would be much better. The atmosphere is great, the crowd is good and the service is good. There were always waiters around pouring more water and topping off wine glasses. It initially took a while to be waited on but once we did it was fine.

It’s a tid bit pricey… but that’s to be expected in LA. And the ingredients justify the prices. I’ll for sure be back. I want to try everything.

Sorry I didn’t take any of my own pics of my pizza, my camera is horrid in low light. If you want to see some pictures of the pizzas, go check out the other blogs about Mozza above.

Pizzeria Mozza
641 N. Highland Ave.
(323) 297-0101
Open noon-midnight, seven days a week. GET A RESERVATION!

By the way if you want to see the offical press pack and menu in PDF form… Here ya go.

Food: Electric Lotus

Wow. So I don’t think I could start a blog today without mentioning Sundays “The Kennedy Center Honors” awards. This year’s honorees were composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, conductor Zubin Mehta, singer/songwriters Dolly Parton and William “Smokey” Robinson, and film director Steven Spielberg. The gala will be broadcast on CBS on Dec. 26.

Itzhak Perlman was there who gave the award to Mehta… Tom Hanks for Steven… I mean shit… they were all invited to the White House before for a private reception. I’ve met Perlman before, I adore that man. Okay, I’ll shut up. The link to the story is above.

Also… I’m going to start a new series: Late Night Eats

Photo by santa barbarian

Friday night a friend and I went to the John Waters show at UCLA… it was great. Jonathan Richman was crazy Jonathan Richman. I don’t think there could be a better opening act for John Waters than Jonathan.

Afterwards we grabbed a late night bite at the Electric Lotus, a Indian place. While we both weren’t really in the mood for Indian food, it was close and I couldn’t think of anywhere else in the area that I wanted to try that was open late. But it was good.

We both got a dish and shared. He got the chicken tikka masala and I got chicken vindaloo. It was good. The place was just about empty except for the bar at about midnight. We also had a few Indian beers. I’m not a big beer drinker but they were also good. The service was great… our waitress was very nice and let us stay even a little past closing as we continued to talk.

I love this area of Los Feliz. There are tons of great cafes and coffee shops all along Vermont. The Electric Lotus is at Vermont and Franklin. The front entrance is a little hard to see, but it’s on Vermont. It’s the last door on the right walking north before you get the the Seven Eleven. We walked past it once. Parking is behind it for like $4.00 or there’s always tons of street parking in the surrounding neighborhoods that are not permit parking. But double check that.

Overall good. Good atmosphere good food good prices. And on weekends there’s a DJ that plays downtempo beats. Maybe it’s a little more lively on a Saturday night.

Electric Lotus
4656 Franklin Ave.
Los Angeles, 90027
(323) 953-0040