I'd been quite looking forward to this trip as had intentionally swapped onto it so I could work with my friend. Originally I had the late LAX, which when I had to wake up at about 5am I heavily regretted swapping off of! Why is this L.A so early!? However, I can safely say the hideous wake up time was worth it for a great trip!
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| No face shots at this time of day! |
Originally, my friend Nicole & I, had said we would go out for a posh dinner & drinks on the first night, so could enjoy as many bevvies as we wanted. After what felt like the longest day already, having been awake since silly o'clock, this idea quickly went out the window! We ended up walking all of 5 minutes away from the hotel and had a P.F.Changs a good girly gossip & long overdue catch up. (If you're not familiar with P.F.Changs it's the tastiest American/Asian restaurant - long life noodles with chilli, garlic & prawns is my top tip... thank me later!) After grumbling at Nicole for being lame, turns out I was knackered too so ended up really happy that we hadn't gone out!
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| Interior of Hart & Hunter |
As we had gone for the sensible option of a quiet one the night before, getting up to go road tripping round Los Angeles wasn't too hard. You'll know from previous posts that we're able to use mini-vans that are available to us through works social club, so once again I was on driving duty. I personally don't have a problem driving on the 'wrong side' of the road as I half learnt in Portugal when my dad taught me & as soon as I'd passed my test the first place I was driving was in Greece, when I was a rep. The only thing that takes some getting used to is the huge multi-lane freeways, that you find a lot of in L.A and the size of the mini-van, but I feel like a pro these days! We headed down to Melrose Avenue in the West Hollywood area. I had, had a cafe in mind to go to as had seen it all over the 'Gram', but when I looked at the menu I didn't think it was going to cut it so chose to change. I did some last minute research & found
"The Hart & The Hunter" & I was so glad I did! If you were walking along Melrose you may not notice it, as it's inside the Pali Hotel, but it turned out to be a hidden gem! Lovely vintage, upmarket, but shabby chic styling inside with white & wood mismatched furniture & pastel walls & the food.... errr ma gawd! There was 3 of us who all had something different and I think we all had food-gasms (orgasm through food haha!) I had smoked trout with sourdough bread & a silky poached egg with some tangy pickled veg on the side & the girls also had poached eggs with either the creamiest avocado on toast (yes I had to sample some!) or with mushrooms and garlic. So, so good and one of the best breakfasts I've had in quite a while so big recommendation!
If you're on Instagram no doubt you've seen plenty of the pictures of all the wall art that is found in this area, like the famous Paul Smith pink wall & the wings to name a few. The best thing to do is just have a wander up & down the road as there's art round every corner & even on the floor so this is exactly what we did!
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| Famous Paul Smith pink wall |
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| Street art on Melrose Avenue |
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| Melrose street art |
After Melrose we had a cruise through Beverly Hills & Rodeo drive on our way down to Venice Beach. I've been wanting to come down to the Venice area for ages but never convinced anyone to join so ended up going elsewhere, but I really like it. For starters I've never seen a beach so big in my life... it's both long and wide, so can't go wrong if you know what I mean! But on a serious note it really is lovely, you'll never have to worry about it being too crowded, the sand was white and soft and there's plenty of people watching to be done! This was another reason I liked Venice Beach, it's mad! So many performers, stalls selling all sorts of random things and just some funny people wandering around too! We just bought some ice cream and wandered around taking it all in!
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| Ice Cream of dreams |
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| Venice Beach |
After all of this we went still had our fancy dinner and drinks to get to! So after driving back to the hotel, which the wonderful L.A. traffic caused to take double the time, we had a super quick turnaround & then headed back out. Two other crew members that my friend and I knew joined us as well and we got an Uber over to
Pump restaurant. It's owned by one of the 'Housewives' of Beverly Hills apparently, but I'd just seen lots of crew had gone there and it looked like a pretty setting. I won't lie, the setting, which had all these trees with cute little fairy lights hanging off them with fire pits dotted all over, was lovely. Giving an overall feel like you were in someones beautiful garden. The cocktails were also pretty damn good, but personally I thought the food was a let down. Barely any options on the menu & if you're vegetarian forget about it! The starter was tasty, but was jut a mezze of various cheeses and dips with bread. I had a seafood pasta with lobster and I thought it was really plain and basic which was such a shame as it was a pricey place. I'm glad I've been, as as I said the venue was lovely, but I won't be rushing back anytime soon! After wards we went round the corner to a restaurant/bar called
Catch. We just had a few drinks here, but I have heard good things about the food. The entrance is really impressive and a great photo opportunity! After all this we called it a night & headed home.
It's funny as I was never that fussed about L.A. on my first few trips, but now I've really grown to love it & there's so much more I still want to do!
Next stop.... Berlin for a mini girls holiday!
As we had gone for the sensible option of a quiet one the night before, getting up to go road tripping round Los Angeles wasn't too hard. You'll know from previous posts that we're able to use mini-vans that are available to us through works social club, so once again I was on driving duty. I personally don't have a problem driving on the 'wrong side' of the road as I half learnt in Portugal when my dad taught me & as soon as I'd passed my test the first place I was driving was in Greece, when I was a rep. The only thing that takes some getting used to is the huge multi-lane freeways, that you find a lot of in L.A and the size of the mini-van, but I feel like a pro these days! We headed down to Melrose Avenue in the West Hollywood area. I had, had a cafe in mind to go to as had seen it all over the 'Gram', but when I looked at the menu I didn't think it was going to cut it so chose to change. I did some last minute research & found "The Hart & The Hunter" & I was so glad I did! If you were walking along Melrose you may not notice it, as it's inside the Pali Hotel, but it turned out to be a hidden gem! Lovely vintage, upmarket, but shabby chic styling inside with white & wood mismatched furniture & pastel walls & the food.... errr ma gawd! There was 3 of us who all had something different and I think we all had food-gasms (orgasm through food haha!) I had smoked trout with sourdough bread & a silky poached egg with some tangy pickled veg on the side & the girls also had poached eggs with either the creamiest avocado on toast (yes I had to sample some!) or with mushrooms and garlic. So, so good and one of the best breakfasts I've had in quite a while so big recommendation!
After all of this we went still had our fancy dinner and drinks to get to! So after driving back to the hotel, which the wonderful L.A. traffic caused to take double the time, we had a super quick turnaround & then headed back out. Two other crew members that my friend and I knew joined us as well and we got an Uber over to Pump restaurant. It's owned by one of the 'Housewives' of Beverly Hills apparently, but I'd just seen lots of crew had gone there and it looked like a pretty setting. I won't lie, the setting, which had all these trees with cute little fairy lights hanging off them with fire pits dotted all over, was lovely. Giving an overall feel like you were in someones beautiful garden. The cocktails were also pretty damn good, but personally I thought the food was a let down. Barely any options on the menu & if you're vegetarian forget about it! The starter was tasty, but was jut a mezze of various cheeses and dips with bread. I had a seafood pasta with lobster and I thought it was really plain and basic which was such a shame as it was a pricey place. I'm glad I've been, as as I said the venue was lovely, but I won't be rushing back anytime soon! After wards we went round the corner to a restaurant/bar called Catch. We just had a few drinks here, but I have heard good things about the food. The entrance is really impressive and a great photo opportunity! After all this we called it a night & headed home.
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