We arrived early with the plan to walk around the area for awhile. Good idea - we got a free parking spot directly in front of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, where the tour would start! As we walked around we found a nice farmer’s market nearby but hesitated to buy groceries since we had hours of walking around ahead of us. Instead we found a bakery and shared a sugar-covered bread roll, which was OK because everyone knows that when you share food, it doesn’t have any calories.
About 2 blocks away from the hotel is the Jewelry District. That name inspires visions of gleaming store windows filled with luxurious gems and jewelry, but that isn’t so. The beautiful architecture is still there but it’s been downgraded and degraded by trashy cut-rate stores, not one of which I would buy jewelry at.
Or worse, just empty shells with nothing inside.
But the Millennium Biltmore Hotel is still in fine shape. It was built in 1923 and periodic upgrades have preserved it’s history while providing current luxury. For several years it was the site for the Academy Awards, and since 1923 every President has stayed there, except President Obama. It’s a popular location for movies, including Beverly Hills Cop, Independence Day, Ocean’s 11, National Treasure, Spiderman and a bunch of others.
The gorgeous ballrooms are a favored location for weddings, if your daddy has a very big bankroll.
Nearby is Angels Flight, the world’s smallest streetcar. It’s just under 300 feet long and costs 50 cents to ride. It’s counterbalanced, which means when one car goes up, the other one has to go down. Like most LA landmarks, it has an acting resume. It’s credits include movies like City of Angels and The Muppets, and on TV it has been in shows like the Biggest Loser, Southland and NCIS Los Angeles. Here's a picture of the whole thing, from top to bottom:
And here’s a true sign of the times:
Eventually we headed back to the hotel to start the tour. Our guide was Danny, a intelligent, personable young man with an interesting resume - part-time opera singer, actor, writer and tour guide. LA has a lot of young people with acting aspirations and we really enjoyed meeting Danny. He kept the tour interesting and on track. And he threw in some great extras along the way, such as taking the group to the Bradbury Building. Built in 1893 for a mining millionaire, it is unremarkable outside but amazing inside. We walked into the center court and were spellbound. Beautiful polished wood everywhere, everywhere, looking perfect with the tons of black wrought-iron grillwork lacing every balcony.
It has ironwork mail-chutes and iron cage elevators that we were dying to try but didn’t. And everything is lit with natural light from a skylight. We could have stayed longer, but food was waiting...
Our food tour started with Grand Central Market which is filled with fresh produce and food vendors.
In here Danny took us to Sarita’s Pupuseria for some Salvadorean food. Everyone in our group was given a small pupusa, which is sort of a flatbread with seasoned pork and cabbage. I normally don’t eat cabbage so I decided to eat that the combination first but leave a little of the plain pork for the end. And I discovered that although the pork is good, it’s best when combined with the cabbage. Who would have thought it?
The next stop was Rocket Pizza, which served our group two kinds of pizza. Although the couple from Chicago liked it, we were underwhelmed. The pizza didn’t have much on it but the main problem was that they did not offer enough for everyone to try a piece of both kinds.
On to the Two Bit Market, where everyone got a great sandwich of turkey, pickles, thinly-sliced onions, spring mix lettuce and tomato on a wonderful crusty baguette. EXCELLENT! And although the picture may not look like it, this was a sizable and very filling sandwich.
Next, a bit of dessert, so we went to Semi Sweet Bakery. This is a lovely bakery, pleasing to the eye and to the taste. The Owner/Baker is Sharlena Fong. Sharlena was the creative forces behind the Nickle Diner’s signature maple-bacon doughnut, which I mentioned in the September 1st blog. She left there to open her own place; her back story is that she was working as a financial consultant in New York on 9/11/01 and after that awful day she decided to quit the rat race and do what she loved. Danny said she had trained with Thomas Keller (of the French Laundry fame); Randy talked to Sharlena about that and she said almost never actually saw Thomas. But she did learn to bake; she treated our group to one of she specialties, a luscious Red Velvet Ding-A-Ling. She took a simple item and made it memorable, and although it was not as large as some of the other restaurant’s offerings, it was one of the favorites.
Because you can never have too much dessert, the group next went to Syrup. The folks at Syrup wanted to be sure we tried several of their best, so they served us Thai Tea ice cream (delicious), Brie and raspberry sandwich on a croissant (delicious), and a glazed waffle topped with Nuella and a fresh strawberry (delicious). Plus a refreshing ice tea with lots of fruit. It’s a tiny place so we sat at the tables outside and enjoyed everything.
Last stop of the day was Soi 7, a modern Thai restaurant where they seemed to think we might be starving after all that walking (about 12 blocks, total) . . . They served us Pad Thai, noodles, wings, chicken, sweet rice, sliced mango, ice cream; every time we thought we were done, they brought more dishes. And it was all good - even though I can be squeamish about trying new things, I enjoyed it all.
. . .Weight watchers?
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