This trip to Los Angeles was a huge milestone for me. It was my first time visiting California, my first time seeing the pacific ocean and my first OFFICIAL big girl vacation that was longer than a 2 days. I have a handful of friends that moved to LA after college, and we’ve been planning my visit for months. It wasn’t until mid June that round trip flight prices were $400, and I finally bought my ticket for August! On August 23rd at 5:30am, my adventure on the west coast began in Burbank.
I flew out of Burlington and into Detroit at 5:30am via Delta. I tried to learn from my mistakes the last time I flew to Las Vegas where I was was not only hungry but sat very uncomfortably during the entire trip. My connection is Detroit was late, so I had time to run and grab a neck pillow + food for the flight. While I got lucky with my neck pillow, there was not one fast food restaurant near my gate, only sit in restaurants. So, I got a small breakfast sandwich that was pretty bad, and planned on drink coffee during my flight to keep from being hungry (I didn’t want to pay for airplane food).
My flight to LA was 4 hours long from Detroit, and it was honestly too long. But, Delta has a great entertainment system to keep me busy. So, I watched Little, Sex and the City 2, and Crazy Rich Asians (again!) After flying for about 2.5 hours, I decided to record myself doing makeup for fun! I got the inspiration from my boyfriend who mentioned that he noticed I watch Huda Kattan (CEO of Huda Beauty) do her skincare routine and makeup on first class flights all the time, but never watched anyone do it in coach. So, we instantly agreed it’d be good content. So, in coach with people beside me and behind me, I did a full face that took 40 minutes, on a plane, in economy, with my only light coming from the sun through a small window. It was fun, but I’d rather not do my makeup in a tight space ever again lol.
Around 10am (1pm on the east coast), I finally arrived in LA! The airport felt super small and crowded and the food was severely over priced. A tiny pizza for myself was $12 and a small container of Chinese food was $13. Instead, I bought a bag of Cheetos and a cinnamon roll for $7. I ordered an Uber Pool as soon as I got outside to the waiting area (it was about a 3 minute walk) and paid about $19 for the ride vs $37 to ride alone. After 15 minutes of waiting, my Uber finally came and it took about an hour for me to get from the airport to West Hollywood. But, within that time frame, my driver was really nice and the two other passengers were also nice and automatically loved me when I told them I was from Philadelphia (they were all Eagles fans, per usual). I vividly remember us driving on the highway when California Love by Tupac came on the radio, then as I looked to my right I saw the Hollywood sign. That’s when It officially kicked in that I was in California; a long way from home.
At 11:45am, I arrived in West Hollywood, hugged my beloved Jade whom I haven’t seen in over a year (we went in Shanghai together) and my adventure began! We drove to Burbank (took 45 minutes) which I learned is in “The Valley” where the term “Valley Girl” comes from. After dropping off my luggage, we walked to a shopping center up the street, and ate at Yard House where I had my FIST OFFICIAL CALIFORNIA TACO! I got 3 beef Korean BBQ tacos that my taste buds absolutely loved, but my wallet and diet hated (The restaurant charged me $5 a taco. I had 3 and an appetizer). After lunch we began to walk back to the apartment, and during the walk I smelled pastries so sweet from an Armenian bakery (I then bought 5 macaroons to eat by the pool).
The one thing I loved about Jade’s apartment was her pool area. There was a large pool, hot tub, and four grills for barbecuing. After swimming for about an hour (more like sitting in the water cause I only know how to drown) I ate my macaroons and passed out for at least an hour in the sun.
Once Jade’s famous boyfriend (Charlie) got home from work, we all went out to dinner at one of my ALL TIME favorite restaurants Din Tai Fung! When we were in Shanghai, we went to dinner at the Ritz Carlton where Din Tai Fung was located and had THE BEST PORK CHOP ON THIS EARTH! This restaurant is only in Northern California, Southern California, Oregon and Washington State within the United States. Internationally, they’re in Taiwan, Japan, China, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, the UAE and the Philippines. There was a 45 minute wait until our reservation, so we walked around The Americana at Brand (a shopping center) to pass the time (This was the same day Rihanna released her new eyebrow pencil, so Sephora was the first store I ran in to make this purchase). Then we got on a train ride through the shopping center to pass time, which was really fun because the train reminded me of a Disney animation.
Once our table was open and we were seated, we started the night off with drinks! Jade and I got this prodigious pear and Lychee martini, and Charlie got Tsingtao. Altogether, we ordered shrimp fried rice, broccoli, bok choy, 2 bamboo steamers of pork soup dumplings ( Xiao long bao), fried pork pot stickers, spicy pork rangoons, and a pork chop noodle bowl. Words cannot explain how magnificent the food at this restaurant is and I 100% recommend it to anyone who loves Asian cuisine (we spent a total of $171 altogether and it was worth every penny). After leaving the restaurant, we took a few pictures with their dumpling statue, drove back to the apartment, smoked weed and watched Crazy Rich Asians before bed (I fell asleep 15 minutes in). It was a perfect night.
The next morning, and for the rest of the weekend, we spent the day with Charlie! We started off with breakfast at their favorite bagel shop, then made our way to Hollywood to visit the LACMA (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art). I took a few pictures in front of the Urban Light Exhibit (where Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher stood in No Strings Attached) and spent about an hour or two inside the actual museum. They had a few Korean pieces on display and this giant sculpture made out of bamboo and paper. We rode inside of this big ass elevator, saw the Hollywood sign and, once we finished seeing everything, walked to The Grove Shopping Center. But, we didn’t come here to shop, we came here to eat! There’s this spot behind the Grove called “The Farmers Market” that looked secretive, and was really in the cut, until we walked through it. It was like walking through the Reading Terminal! The space was so rich in culture and cuisine that I couldn’t even decide what I wanted to eat! UNTIL I SAW A PICTURE OF DANNY TREJO! Do you remember Uncle Machete from the Spy Kids movies? WELL! Uncle Machete has a chain of doughnut and tacos shops across LA. Naturally, I jumped in line to try his tacos, and crossed ANOTHER thing off of my bucket list. EATING JACK FRUIT! I ordered a carnita and jack fruit taco, and the jack fruit was amazing! It tastes just like meat (to the point where I was questioning what jack fruit alone tastes like) and I was instantly hooked.
After leaving The Farmers Market, I relaxed for a bit at the apartment, then walked to dinner at a Seoul Korean Barbecue restaurant. This is where I, by far, had the best food in my life. No tajine in Morocco, margherita in Italy, noodle bowl in China, duck poutine in Montreal, cheese steak in Philadelphia, taco in California, lobster in Maine, king crab leg in Maryland, or plantain, or roti, or oxtail (idgaf if it’s a recipe passed down from 215 BC and Gordon Ramsay prepared it himself) COMPARES to the Korean barbecue my stomach and soul experienced. I don’t know, nor do I remember what the name of that dish was (yesterday, I learned it’s called Bulgogi) , but it was EXCELLENT! It made me want to go to Korea (southern of course) myself and re-try this dish. My utiles did not decrease after each bite because the dopamine in my brain wouldn’t allow it to! This dish was unerring (yes, I google searched this word) and THAT’S THAT!
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