In March I turned 32! #TeamAries

I decided to spend my last weekend as a 31 year old in L.A. I’ve been to Los Angeles before but didn’t go further than Venice Beach and Santa Monica, so I was looking forward to seeing more of the city. It was originally planned as a solo trip, but my friend and co-worker Nathifa ended up joining me. I didn’t have much of an itinerary for the trip so I’m really happy Nathifa came along, because I definitely intended to have an ol’lady gang weekend consisting of a day trip to Malibu and a massage—that’s pretty much it. I’m proud to say that Nathifa is a better Instagrammer than me, so she had a long list of ‘gram-worthy destinations prepared for us.

L.A. is a vibe. You literally feel it as soon as you exit the airport. Viewing all the palm trees while driving down the highway, or rolling down Hollywood Blvd, Crenshaw, Sunset or Melrose brings about a sense of nostalgia as if you’ve been there before. And I mean, we all kinda have. From Moesha to Friday, we have experienced the prestigious L.A. streets. It was so cool to know the streets and recognize so many landmarks. And after a week of rain (yes—it does  rain occasionally in Southern California) we got there just in time for some beautiful, expected, SoCal weather. It was perfect.

We both arrived at LAX on Friday afternoon. After getting our rental car Nathifa’s Insta-stan was activated and she suggested we find The Dunes from HBO’s “Insecure”. Lucky us, the airport is near Inglewood and The Dunes was only a few miles away from the rental car place. Ok, so I guess I was expecting The Dunes to just be a made for TV building with a manufactured façade just for the show. I was not expecting for people to actually live there! As we monopolized the stairs for photos, residents just walked on around us like we weren’t even there. I guess they’re used to seeing crazy ass fans living their best Insta-lives, but I know they look down from their windows and talk junk about all of us. I would. Y’all remember the season finale where Issa is moving because they were renovating and raising rent and she couldn’t afford it after Lawrence moved out? Bruhhhh—they’re renovating in real life! Gentrification is real.

LA staple Randy’s Donuts was just a few blocks away from The Dunes so we had to stop there. The donuts were really, really good. Shipley’s in Texas has the best donuts in the world in my opinion, but I have to say, Randy’s is a close second.

After we ate our donuts and determined we were still starving, we found Front Page Jamaican Grille in Inglewood and shared some oxtails, peas, rice and plantains. Normally, I order a Kola Champagne when I visit a Jamaican spot but they were out, so Nathifa talked me into my first “Ting”. Ting ain’t really my thing. The food at Front Page Jamaican Grille was inexpensive and delicious though.

Next, we made our way to our hotel in downtown LA. We stayed at The L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown, which I booked through Expedia (where else?). It was a really nice, reasonably priced, centrally located spot with comfortable and clean rooms. They also have a huge breakfast buffet every morning. The hotel offers valet parking for $44 dollars a night, but there is a parking garage right across the street where we ended up paying no more than $7 per night—so don’t fall for the swindle.

After enjoying some drinks at the hotel bar we headed out to meet up with a family friend at Café Brass Monkey in Koreatown. It was her friend’s b-day and they were there for karaoke. It was definitely not trap karaoke, but it was pretty lively. Every black person there was definitely with our group. We mingled with her friends for a while and discovered that one of them was from Atlanta and another graduated from Morehouse a few years after I left Georgia State, then we headed out to a club called Poppy on La Cienega. Based on the attire of the people waiting in line for the club however we determined we probably weren’t going to be able to get it—we were both very casual– so we drove around in search of food and found Pink’s Hot Dogs, which is a famous L.A. establishment that serves hot dogs with every artery clogging topping you could dream of.

The next day I woke up early for a massage at Larchmont Sanctuary Spa. Boyeeee! It was one of best, most reasonably priced massages I have ever gotten! Ryan, my therapist, has some gifted hands. I didn’t even realize how many knots I had in my back. He worked them all out! And we talked the entire time. Normally, when I’m getting a massage I just want the therapist to let their hands do the talking, but Ryan was so cool and our conversation was so dope it didn’t even bother me. I left feeling completely renewed.

After my massage I took a Lyft (SN: I had some cool ass Lyft drivers on this trip) back to the hotel to meet up with Nathifa. We looked up some black owned restaurants in the area and picked My Two Cents ‘on Pico’ (in my Ty Dolla $ign voice). I highly recommend this place. It is modern soul food complete with a dessert bar full of cakes and PEACH COBBLER. Nathifa ordered catfish with braised greens and I had the oxtail tacos. Both were delicious. When I was ordering my food at the registered I asked the cashier if they had a dessert sample platter. They literally had like seven different types of cakes made from scratch, and that peach cobbler. Peach Cobbler. PEACH COBBLER! She said no, but that it would be a good idea for them to have one—uh yea!! Especially since yall got that peach cobbler! While we were eating, the owner, Chef Alisa, sat down at the table next to us with another lady to discuss a business matter. During their conversation Chef Alisa turned to us and asked how our meal was, and of course we said it was delicious, because it was. I took the opportunity to shoot my dessert sample platter shot again, and y’all, I had to be the luckiest girl in LA that day because Chef Alisa came through with the dessert platter—BOOM! When the server delivered it he made sure we understood we were blessed that day. Those cakes were so scrumptious—like they came straight from ya granny’s kitchen. We ended up buying the peach cobbler. That peach cobbler…man, y’all. The perfect crust to peach filling ratio—you know a little more crust than filling, oooh honey! I ordered mine to go but finished it before we left the building.  Before we headed out we both had to give Chef Alisa a hug and the servers a good tip! Her restaurant is definitely a gem and I highly recommend taking time out to visit if you’re in L.A.

After lunch we just drove around and enjoyed the beautiful LA scenery. We ventured to the historically black and affluent suburb of Baldwin Hills then we ended up on Crenshaw. I honestly don’t know what we were looking for but we ended up finding a wig mecca! I’ve been to a lot of wig shops in my life but this one was huge. They had a variety of both synthetic and human hair wigs. I have to say, even though they had a huge inventory, they didn’t have the best styles I’ve seen. What they did have though was an old Asian man sitting on a stole in the corner transforming the mediocre wigs into masterpieces. We named him The Wig Doctor. Sis, if you need your wig trimmed and styled you gotta visit The Wig Doctor at Eboni Hair & Wigs on Crenshaw. He cut up a wig on my head that I wasn’t even buying, k.

We left the wig doctor in search of a speakeasy near Hollywood Blvd. We passed the spot and saw a crowd that didn’t appear to be a part of our tribe so we hit Hollywood Blvd. on foot and found ourselves on the walk of fame. We passed this creepy looking Edward Scissorhands character guarding the door of a dark, sketchy looking place and discovered it was Tim Burton’s restaurant, Beetle House. The walls of the place were covered with art from his films and his characters roamed the dining room and put on a dinner show. It was really dope! Nathifa and I ended up at the bar. We ordered a fishbowl. Hunay hunay—they did NOT skimp on the liquor. Like, I just skrrtd right passed tipsy and was drunk a few sips in.

With alcohol-fused adrenaline we hopped across the street to a bar—naturally I don’t remember the name, but there was no cover and the DJ was on point. There was a private area with a smaller bar behind the main bar and dance floor that we discovered—don’t ask me how. There were some gentlemen back there celebrating birthdays and they let us join in and generously shared with us some of the best (and most dangerous) tequila I’ve ever had in my life. It went down like water.

We keked with the fellas for a while then headed out again, this time to the Ready Player One Experience a few doors down. It was probably a waste of time, but it was free and I got a cool Instagram boomerang out of it. We also made friends with the security. He told us he would be working the door of a club a few blocks down and we could come through. LIES!!! They didn’t even know that fool’s name at the door. The club was lit too, but security wouldn’t let us in because we had on tennis shoes. I tried to make the argument that men were wearing tennis shoes, so why couldn’t we, but they weren’t having it. Then I resorted to my best beggin, I was even holding the head of security’s hand at one point—and he was holding mine back! Lol, lawd. He still blocked us like Dikembe. We ended up going next door for pizza and headed back to the hotel. I fell asleep at exactly 4:03 AM. YES, I do remember that. The next day I was headed back to The Bay.

This is the first time I planned a trip without a real plan for the trip, and I actually really enjoyed going with the flow and making plans as we went.  I know now that L.A. requires much more than a weekend. You could literally spend a full 10 day vacation there. I look forward to my next visit.

 

-Khristal Talyse