Ah, Los Angeles 2
Every retail corner in our neighborhood, which is most of the corners, has two things: a donut shop and a thai massage parlor. the donut shops are combos e.g. donut/ice cream, donut/liquor and my favorite, donut/taxprep. I’ve noticed as you travel into the more wealthy sections of town, the donut shops are fewer and further between but they exist. Thai massage disappears completely.
Thai massage is the greatest discovery of our new life. For $40 you can have a lovely young Thai woman use her knees, elbows and fists to make you scream out kam kuon kop which means either thank you or please, for the love of God, stop. I now associate lovely young Thai women with severe pain and, of course, fried bananas. The thing is, when you leave the dungeon, er, massage table, every pain you had in your body or thought you might have sometime in the future is gone and it stays gone for a couple of weeks. It’s completely addictive. Stephanie and I must stop each other from walking to our favorite parlor every night.
This neighborhood has a couple of other things that seem unique to it: very hip coffee shops and good restaurants that have no signs or anything you might notice while driving by.
The coffee shops are filled with young musicians, actors, writers, directors what have you. You can tell the writers. They look dour and all have imacs. I aspire to have an imac one day. The dour look, I’ve got.
You have to be told by a local about the restaurants. You would assume their laundromats or abandoned store fronts driving or walking by but inside, they hold the secret to gastronomic bliss. The best Vietnamese place has about six tables which are always filled with the above mentioned types and the food is outrageous. It is pho which is pronounced every conceivable way and you eat it cafeteria style sitting with the next steven spielberg or michelle pfeiffer or michael stipe. We can walk to it; we’ve eaten there several times and have no idea what it’s called.
My favortie Thai restaurant in on Hollywood Blvd and it’s called PalmsThai. Think of a large school cafeteria in a wealthy community with the stage on one end. Think of Las Vegas and Elvis impersonators. Now combine the two. The owner is an elderly Thai Elvis impersonator. The food is fabulous and cheap. The elk and lobster curries are remarkable. the owner starts the night’s festivities out with Jail House Rock or something then as the night drifts toward the wee hours, hollywood indie groups start playing. He comes up during breaks.
Next: now what?
Love and light always,
Tags: Los Angeles