Those with some info, help a brother out.

Gimme the best Mexican, dive bar, food spots (any price), and maybe a few other places that I should check out.

So far I have:

El Conquistor (Silverlake) - Dri recommended
Guisados
Venice Beach
Amoeba
Pinks Hot Dogs

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Jacks, which is across the street from Amoeba....
totally gross fast food, that will have you bloody addicted after your second taco....
do it.

Good lord no....for food close to Amoeba, either go to Los Balcones del Peru for great Peruvian or about a mile to the East to Jitlada and order off the Southern Thai menu.




I wouldn't recommend Pinks. It's a tourist trap with lines that can stretch a block long unless you arrive off hours. I'm not a hot dog fan but people who are don't even rate it one of the top hot dogs in LA.

Guisados is great. I'm guessing you know about it from the Food Channel's heat seekers show? Their tacos are great though.

Best mexican is a tough question as there's a ton of it.

These are fantastic and would be worth driving to if you weren't here for only two days:

Chichen Itza
Cacao
Guelaguetza
Babita (I'm assuming you are in town for Coachella, if so this is on your way about a mile off the 10 in San Gabriel)

El Conquistador is good neighborhood mexican but it's not worth driving to. If all you are looking for is a really good Burrito, it won't be hard to find in any neighborhood.

Asking generically for food recommendations is so broad that it's hard to narrow down any recommendation list. Where are you staying? What parts of town do you plan to hit other than Amoeba and Venice?

I think Pinks is a joke, unless you are hot dog obsessed. When you see that around the block line, your head will explode. When are you coming and where will you be in town?

If you're in the Venice area, I ate at this place twice when I visited California last year. Right off the ocean, and I thought the food was excellent. http://www.theterracecafe.com/

Man, I'm not down with waiting in a line to eat a hot dog. Glad you guys let me know.

Yeah, I'm heading to LA after Coachella.

Just to get an idea of how long it takes to get somewhere, how long would it take to get from Venice Beach to Amoeba? Any heavy traffic spots I should avoid, and during what times? We want to catch a few interesting spots, so want to maximize our travel times.

Billy, how far out is El Conquistador? Place looks pretty legit, and fun. I found Guisados on Yelp. Great reviews.

I'm going to look into the places you recommended and add them to my TripIt.

Zach, we'll be arriving on April 16 around 9AM, staying until the next afternoon, our flight out is 3PM. I sent you a msg on facebook.

Thanks for the help dudes. Really looking forward to finally seeing Los Angeles.

I Google Mapped a bunch of places, and it all looks like their within 30 mins of each other. That's cake, assuming there's not heavy traffic.

smk sm 4 cwey

Between 10AM and 3PM or after 7:00pm, it would probably take you about 40 minutes give or take to get from Venice to Amoeba depending on where you are in Venice. Between 3pm and 7pm, you are going to run into a lot more traffic. Generally speaking,any mapping website is going to underestimate how long it takes to get anywhere unless you are driving at 4AM. It's hard to predict the traffic though.

El Conquistador is in Silverlake which is a few miles East of Hollywood and about 4 miles northwest of downtown. It's not far out and you very well may find yourself in the area if you are planning to see any shows as most of the indie shows are in clubs in Silverlake or Echo Park. I wasn't trying to say El Conquistador is bad by any stretch. Its pretty good sit down, reasonably priced Cal Mex and people seem to really like their Margaritas. If you eat there and Chipotle is your standard for Mexican (which seems to be the case for a lot of East Coasters), you'll not only be happy with your meal but you'll probably wish you had a restaurant like it at home. I'm not bashing it by any stretch. It's not worth going out of your way to eat there. If you're a five minute drive away, chances are there is a place almost just like it closer. It's not even hands down the best Mexican in Silver Lake. If you asked 5 Silverlake/Los Feliz locals (of which I'm one) where to go in the neighborhood for Mexican you'd probably get at least 3 different answers.

Here are links for reviews by Jonathan Gold (the only food critic to win a pulitizer prize) for the places I was recommending:

Guisados

Chichen Itza

Guelaguetza

Babita

Cacao

I love how he writes that the mole at Guelaguetza is as black as Dick Cheney's heart. Some of these places are a little out of the way so it's questionable whether it's worth going on a two day trip to LA but I'd say they are at least among the top 10 mexican places in LA. With only two days though, you might be happy just hitting the best cal mex in some neighborhood you happen to be in when hungry.

I keep reading this thread title as some bad 90's Z-grade Tarantino ripoff movie:

(boomingmovietrailervoice)

Dale would never be the same after........................TWO DAYS IN LOS ANGELES

Dude, thanks! Guisados and Chichen Itza are now definite. Those reviews helped a lot.

Even if we just hit El Conquistador for a margarita, it'll be fun to see the Silverlake area, and have a drive around. Any other interesting bits around there you can recommend?

Isn't there another restaurant that also sell's Pink's hot dogs? I remember hearing that. I wasn't that impressed with their stuff.

If you want a dive bar, check out the King Eddy Saloon downtown. It's literally next to Skid Row and you can tell. A friend of mine was once chastised there by the bartender to "quit flashing your bills around". He had $7 in his hand.

also you need to be buzzed into the Men's Room.

another great one downtown is Bar 107 on 4th, which is far less terrifying and is cheap as shit.

Cotton, upon further review, Kind Eddy Saloon is a solid recommendation. Definitely on our list, at least for a few drinks. A proper dive, not some hipster hangout.

"This is a place for professional drinkers. For the down trodden. For those who are clinging on to some lost dream. Who will wake up tomorrow with nothing except the tremors. Who will roll around in their bed contemplating the horrors they committed the night before, pulling at their hair, scratching at themselves, checking for wounds. And bugs."

"Don't bring the kids here unless you're ready to explain to your young-lings the intricacies of prostitution, crack, and transsexualism."

if you like Bourdain - http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/t ... losangeles

speaking of kids, me and mini-toots are gonna be out that way in about two weeks. anybody know of any cool kid-friendly things to do the week of mar 27-30? we're gonna hit one of the major theme parks for sure (disneyland, legoland, etc)...also looking for some nature-y stuff or temp exhibits, outdoor thingies, etc...

My girls loved the Aquarium of the Pacific. If he's interested in dinosaurs he'd probably enjoy the La Brea tar pits/Page museum too.

The Getty Museum is pretty great too---probably not for younger kids though.

i went to the getty last sept at you all's suggestion. thoroughly enjoyed it.

i think that aquarium might be a good option

I've heard "BillyG's apartment cavalcade of wine, beer, liquor, CD's and Wall Street memorabilia" is on the National Historic Registry.

Only things I remember from my LA Ob meetup was margaritas at some joint just off the strip, drinks at some dark bar nearby, AC/DC air guitar, billy playing drums on the bar to the Buzzcocks, my lesbian co-worker passing out in the booth, and having to drive all the fucking way back to Long Beach afterwards.

On a Monday.

I couldn't do that now if you paid me.

What a drag it is getting old.

i've seen it. it's all true.

Did Beeg attempt to turn her around?

Ha Ha...that was a fun night from what I can remember. You could still do it if you really wanted to. You're just smart enough to not want to anymore. I can't remember what year you came out but I'm guessing that I was around the age you are now. Of course, I didn't have to drive all the way to long beach at the end of the night.



If you are just going for a margarita in the Silverlake area, you'd probably be better off going to either Malo which has a 150 or so Tequilas and also has a cheap taco night on Mondays or El Chavo which is more of a bar than El Conquistador and has cheap margs at happy hour. There's some good bars in the area (4100 Bar, El Cid, Tiki Ti (a tiki bar), Good Luck Bar, Short Stop (Greg Dulli's place), Thirsty Crow (a whiskey bar)), venues for live music (The Echo/Echoplex, the Sattelite, Silverlake Lounge, Bordello Bar, etc), a couple of wine bars (Vinoteca Farfalla, Bar Covell). There's also hiking in Griffith Park or checking out the Observatory if you're there during the day or early evenings. I'd offer to meet up with you but I'm not sure I'm going to have the time that week. I'll let you know when it gets closer.

These are probably pretty good recommendations although I've been to neither of them. There's also a Natural History Museum by USC which has a Dinosaur exhibition and often has stuff that appeals to kids. They had a big Stars Wars exhibit recently although I think that left a good while ago.

For outdoors stuff, there's plenty of good places to hike. The nearby mountains just got a couple of feet of snow so skiing/snowboarding/tubing could be an option still. Or you could go horseback riding in Griffith Park. The Gene Autry Museum has a lot of western stuff if Toots Jr is into Cowboys and Indians, and the zoo is right next to it.

Billy, all sounds right up our alley, especially Malo. I'll shoot you over my number.

Next time in LA, I'm going to Jumbo's Clown Room.