The best way to U.K. in L.A.

by MacKenzie Geidt, Sunset assistant travel editor

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a proper cup of tea is hard to find outside the Commonwealth.   

But if you find yourself marooned in the colonies and desperately seeking the civilities of the Empire (clotted cream with your scones, petit fours with your tea, digestive cookies, a proper curry, Cadbury chocolate, and the latest production from Masterpiece Theatre), you must get thyself to the "British Ghetto" in Santa Monica,  where a bevy of pure-bred English establishments is a welcome respite from the orange tans and short shorts of Los Angeles.  Follow the Queen's mandate and proceed to the following:

You can get a decent pot of tea at the Tudor House Tea Room, but even better, you can pick up England's most popular tea (PG Tips is "Britain's favorite cuppa") to take home from their market full of delectable British imports (just for a little perspective, sources allege that Britons drink 35 million cups of PG Tips per day...)

Or stop in for a pint or a Pimm's at Ye Olde King's Head Pub (310 Santa Monica Blvd.)

The King's Head also has a market where you can stock up on your favorite British imports (including British newspapers and magazines--who doesn't love getting updates on the royal family from HELLO! magazine?!)   And doesn't it make you feel less guilty to eat a cookie when it's called a "digestive"??

To catch a game of Cricket (just pretend like you understand what's going on), there's the Cock 'n Bull Pub (2947 Lincoln Blvd) or the Britannia Pub (318 Santa Monica Blvd.)

If you have time to pop over to Abbott Kinney Blvd in Venice, you can even shop for all-British threads at Brick Lane (1132 Abbott Kinney Blvd.)--the red telephone booth marks the spot.

Crikey, there's simply LOADS of ways to celebrate the Brit in LA--do drop me a line if you think of any more locales I've missed.  God Save the Queen!

Coronado Island for the rest of us: How to bask in seaside wealth at the Hotel Del without busting your bank account

By Amy Wolf, Sunset travel editor

I had the great good fortune this past weekend to stay at the Hotel del Coronado, which, if you’re in the club as I am now, you refer to simply as “the Del.” If you don’t know about the Del already, you should. Let me tell you why.

Reason #1: The beach. The Del is the only beachfront hotel on Coronado Island, sprawling right down right to the beach. And what a beach it is. It’s crescent shaped, with white sand that sparkles silver-gold in the sun. It has views of Point Loma and the Coronado Islands.

Here's what you can see on the beach:

Good-looking, super-fit Navy Seals, who often do their morning runs and swims out here at 7 a.m. (I saw them, and felt a surge of patriotism.)

Dolphins, who frolic offshore from time to time (saw them too).

Panoramic sunsets what seems like every night.

Reason #2: Nostalgia. Built in 1888 (just 10 years before Sunset Magazine was founded!), the Del is a remnant of an era when seriously wealthy Victorian trust fund types—the kind who never had to work, not even the dads—used to travel out West by train to amuse themselves by the beach for months at a time. (Can you imagine wearing these get-ups to the beach?)

But why should you care about that? Here's why: Because you can still experience a lot of that grandeur, like the original cage elevator hand-operated by a uniformed attendant. (“Ever get your fingers caught in that cage?” my husband asked him on our ride up to our room. His response: “I try not to do that anymore.”)

Or like the incredibly lavish Sunday brunch (think free-flowing champagne, bloody Marys, a full-on chocolate bar... the works) in the Del’s Crown Room, the hotel’s original enormous, grand dining room.

Reasons #3 and 4. Family and fitness. Kids love the Del because it’s on the beach and because everyone’s nice to kids here. Even the yoga instructor was unruffled by my two-year-old’s antics. I was impressed by all of the Del’s fitness classes, from yoga on the beach (there are few things that feel as good as child’s pose on a sheet in the sand) to boot camp on the beach (only for the hard core).

Here’s the only hitch: the hotel is a little pricey. Non-view rooms start at $295; oceanfront rooms start at (yes, start at) $750. Which is really the norm for nice hotels these days, but still. Who has that kind of money? (And what am I doing wrong?)

But here’s the good news: if you’re willing to bypass the thrill of staying in a room with a view of the beach, and being lulled to sleep at night by the sound of the waves, and riding up and down all day in an antique elevator operated by an attendant who will answer your inane questions, you can sleep somewhere else on the island and still experience the best of what the Del has to offer. Here’s what non-guests can enjoy:

The beach. (But you’ll have to do your morning stretches on your own; yoga and other fitness classes on the beach are for Del guests only.)

The restaurants. 1500 Ocean has incredible food and service if you’re up for a splurge—think of all the money you might be saving on lodging!

The new Eno Wine Room, where you can order wine flights to pair with cheeses or chocolates. I tried a flight of Spanish whites, including a Rosado Rioja (that's a rosé), a crisp Albarino, and a flowery Verdejo. The space was sophisticated, the service  attentive, and I learned something new about Spanish wine.

The new Spa at the Del. (If you’re into deep-tissue massage ask for Brennan, a former football player with seriously powerful hands.)

The bike tours. You can go for a two-hour, 6-mile guided bike tour ($30) around the island. Rent a surrey like we did, and bring the whole damn-family! Our little guy snoozed between us while our 3-year-old sat in the front basket, directing operations as we cruised around Coronado, scoping out homes for sale and stopping midway for lunch.

So the point is, whether or not you sleep at the Del, you should definitely go play and eat and drink there. And sleep there if you can swing it—it's worth the splurge.

Tune in next week for other lodging options around Coronado.

Malibu: What's new in the 'Bu

by Matthew Jaffe, senior writer, Sunset

I don’t need much of an excuse to go to Malibu: the simple promise of the beach, the mountains, and its mystique are plenty enough for me. By way of Mulholland Highway and Malibu Canyon Road, I can drive through the Santa Monica Mountains and be at the ocean in just under 20 minutes. That means that it’s usually an inspired, spontaneous run: late in the day for a quick hike, then maybe dinner at Malibu Seafood.

Last week, however, I headed to Malibu with more purpose than usual. A few days earlier while driving PCH, I spotted a sign announcing the opening of the Malibu Pier Club, the first restaurant to return to this coastal landmark since its restoration.

For those of us who have been watching the progress (and often lack thereof) after the pier was heavily damaged in 1993 and 1995, this was like waiting for Godot, then having him actually show up and suggest, “Shall we go… and do lunch at the beach?” (Absurd perhaps but Google Gidget and Godot, and you get more than 1,000 hits.)

As piers go, this one is, well, peerless. Built originally in 1905 to service the famed Rancho Topanga Malibu Sequit, it juts 700 feet into Kellers Shelter, a small bay named for Don Mateo Keller, an owner of the ranch in the 1800s and a pioneering California winemaker to boot. Even now that it has been fixed up and reinforced, the pier with its wooden pilings and planks evokes a time when Malibu was a wild, hidden kingdom rather than the province of the Hollywood crowd and billionaire moguls.

The Pier Club doesn’t reach back that far in Malibu’s past but it’s simple and unpretentious—beachy in attitude and mood and with an expanded bar menu. There's patio seating that lets you catch a bit of warm California sun and look up the length of the pier and down toward kayakers in the cove.

Inside, the wood of the  bar practically glows, and its tile installations recall the heyday of Malibu Potteries, once one of California’s leading art tile makers.

As mathematicians and the foodgeoisie have often claimed, there’s an inverse equation between the quality of food and the quality of view. With a place as beautifully situated as the Malibu Pier, it is perhaps unfair to make any such comparisons but in any case we were quite happy with our lunch: a slightly smoky clam chowder and an ahi sandwich stacked high on a sesame roll.

After lunch, we strolled the pier past guys fishing and took in the views up coast toward Surfrider Beach.

Work was ongoing at the pier: in early July, The Beachcomber is set to open in the old Alice’s space just across from the Pier Club (it will then basically serve as the restaurant’s bar) and a Ruby’s will settle in at the far end of the pier. There’s talk about a surf museum too.

Not that you ever really need a reason to head over to Malibu…

Indiana Jones and Iron Man: location, location, location

by Matthew Jaffe, Sunset senior writer

We moved into the summer movie season this weekend and as usual the West is making cameos as every locale from Afghanistan to the Amazon. Even in an era of increasingly sophisticated computer generated effects, nothing beats location shooting, as two of the year’s biggest movies, Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are proving. (For a look at some of these and other film locations, check out Vacation On Location at fandango.com.)

Living in SoCal, I’ve grown accustomed to seeing places I know pop up on screen, even in comic book movies such as Iron Man.  Movies always require a certain suspension of disbelief, but this one a bit more so than usual thanks to its use of familiar locations.

Tony Stark’s mansion for example was computer generated then plopped down on one of my favorite coastal spots, Malibu’s Point Dume— which luckily has stayed mostly free of such architectural megalomania. There are key scenes at Walt Disney Concert Hall, a building that managed to look every bit as futuristic as Tony’s home, while the Alabama Hills and the Eastern Sierra near Lone Pine stood in (and convincingly) for Afghanistan.

Along with Kanab, Utah and Monument Valley on the Arizona-Utah border, Lone Pine is one of several remote spots around the West with a long movie tradition. Filmmaking in this High Desert Hollywood dates to the 1920s and the stark landscape has appeared in numerous westerns, as well as in epics ranging from Gunga Din to Gladiator.

Each October, the community hosts the Lone Pine Film Festival, which features screenings and tours of movie locations, including a special guided trip, Iron Man and Beyond, that will take visitors out to sites used in the film. The Lone Pine Film History Museum (which has a new Iron Man exhibit) also offers an excellent self-guided tour brochure with ten stops in the Alabama Hills along what has come to be known as Movie Road.

Indiana Jones also made extensive use of western landscapes. The movie opens in Nevada, which is actually played by New Mexico’s Ghost Ranch northwest of Santa Fe. With appearances in 3:10 To Yuma and The Missing, Ghost Ranch has emerged as a go-to filming location in recent years. Then again, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard et al have nothing on artist Georgia O’Keeffe; she moved to the area in the 1930s and eventually lived for 50 years around Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu.

The landscape became synonymous with her art, and she described it as “perfectly mad looking country—hills and cliffs and washes too crazy to imagine all thrown up into the air by God and let tumble where they would. It was certainly as spectacular as anything I’ve ever seen—and that was pretty good.”

The other major location for Indiana Jones is the Puna District on the Big Island south of Hilo. Spielberg used the dense jungles of this, the wet side of the Big Island, during a chase scene that ranks with the best in the Jones series. The swinging vines and chaotic thickets of albizzia and wild guava are the botanical opposite of the open high desert expanses of Ghost Ranch. It helps give the movie the geographic sweep that viewers have come to expect in the Indiana Jones films and is a reminder of what Hollywood has known for generations: to see the world, all you have to do is get out and explore Sunset’s West.

(Movie Stills copyright Paramount Pictures)

California State Parks: Good News and Wrestles Over Trestles

by Matthew Jaffe, Sunset senior writer

Just in time for Sunset’s June issue and its article celebrating the glories of California’s state parks, we received the news that a budget proposal that would have led to the closure of 48 parks and service cuts at 16 beaches has been rescinded.

Times are tough and good budget news is certainly hard to come by. Still when word came in January of the proposed closures, it was hard to imagine the shuttering of such classic state parks as Henry W. Coe and Montana de Oro— especially in a time when environmental awareness has never been higher and the need for places where the public can be active and reconnect nature has never been greater.

So this latest bit of park news is something to celebrate. But other pressures on state parks remain and nowhere more so than at San Onofre State Beach in Orange County, home to the world famous surf spot, Trestles. A proposed toll road would run through property currently used as parkland. After a raucous hearing attended by several thousand people in February, the California Coastal Commission voted down the plan, a decision that is expected to be appealed.

Toll road proponents say the extension would help alleviate traffic pressures in the county and tout the environmental sensitivity of its design. Opponents say that it would destroy park acreage and potentially threaten the series of breaks at Trestles.

Along with Surfrider Beach at Malibu, Trestles is perhaps the most sacred surf spot in Southern California. In his new book All For a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki Dora, author David Rensin quotes Dorian (Doc) Paskowitz (he and his family are the subject of the new documentary Surfwise) about the uniqueness of Trestles:

    “San Onofre is the greatest wave of its kind in the continental United States.”

‘Nuff said. A couple weeks ago I went out to Trestles to catch a professional surfing event at Lowers, one of its five main breaks. Coming here is certainly a departure from the experience of visiting most Southern California beaches— despite its proximity not only to Interstate 5 but a nuclear power plant.

You walk in from a remote parking lot, hiking a path through beach scrub and across train tracks before reaching a beach less notable for its dramatic scenery than the perfection of its waves. And conditions were prime for the event, as the following overheard conversation between contestants would support:

    Dude1: How was it?
    Dude2: Good.
    Dude1: How good?
    Dude2: Good good.

And it was good: For those of us who flail more than surf, seeing the pros up close under ideal conditions, especially with the running narration of a PA announcer describing the action, offers a crash course in the nuances both of world class surfing and of Trestles itself.

Not that surfing hasn’t become a big business, but you won’t have a more relaxing experience at a sporting event than hanging out on the beach at a surf competition. If you want to catch an event at Trestles, check out the upcoming National Scholastic Surfing Association’s  championships June 24-28. You’ll not only see future surfing stars, you’ll also witness some of the finest waves in the world.

More bang for one buck in Los Angeles

by MacKenzie Geidt, Sunset assistant travel editor

What can $1.00 get you in LA?  Not much, right?  I can't always find my favorite gum for under a dollar!  But here's some sound financial advice for you: if you only have ONE LOUSY DOLLAR in your pocket, the best way to use it wisely is to make a b-line for DIDDY RIESE COOKIES.  LA is nuts for this place, and for darn Diddy good reason. 

Smack in the bustle of Westwood (hence the crowds of value-conscious UCLA students that don't take their Diddy for granted), $1 at Diddy Riese will get you 3 cookies!  3!  (if you're being moderate and you only want 1, you're crazy, but you only need .35 cents!)  Behold the divinity:

We're talking made from scratch, fresh and warm, baked all day.  Where the heck else in LA can your money go quite so far?? 

If you can scrounge up another .50 cents, you can increase your indulgence exponentially. 
Here's how:

You can be the architect of your own gluttony!  Build your own ice cream sandwich, with cookies and ice cream flavor of your choice.  For $1.50!!  It's too good to be true, but it's true!  Doesn't it just seem wrong to pay so little for something so good? 

If you have other suggestions for how to spend a dollar in LA, let us know!  Let's find the best single digit buys in the city....

Tacos in L.A.: keep on truckin’

by Matthew Jaffe, Sunset senior writer

These are the slogans that have moved nations and changed the world:

Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death.”

The Spanish Civil War’s “No pasaran.” They shall not pass.

And now, the rallying cry of the huddled masses yearning to eat cheap while waiting in line at taco trucks throughout Los Angeles:

“Carne asada is not a crime.”

A law is about to go into effect in Los Angeles County that would require taco trucks, those meals truly on wheels that with their blue rooftop vents and paintings of Our Lady of Guadalupe are as much a part of the L.A. landscape as palm trees and botox, to move locations every hour or face $1,000 fines or even jail time for their owners. The rationale for the law is the idea that restaurants lose business because taco trucks can undercut their prices.

Without debating the law’s merits, it’s a reminder of the role that these trucks and tacos play in the life of L.A. And not just in East L.A., where restaurant owners have been most vocal, but throughout the city. From Whittier Boulevard to the lofty climes of Bel-Air, home to a fleet of taco trucks that sets up along Mulholland Drive just east of Beverly Glen, wherever there are people looking for good and quick eats, you’ll find these camiones de carnitas, these maquinas con machaca.

I’ll hit taco trucks on occasion but there was a time when I was eating at one almost daily. Back then our office was located in the Mid Wilshire district, where a couple blocks of buildings had been demolished for construction of the Vermont and Wilshire Red Line station. We had virtually no lunch choices, except for a taco truck operated by a guy named Steve. The Truck, as it became known simply and reverentially, emerged as our local cantina and Steve, who greeted just about everyone with an improvised song, was our angel of mercy.

The food? Pretty darn good, especially the Macho Burrito, an assemblage of ingredients that reduced afternoon productivity throughout the office due to a sleep-inducing mass and density. The burrito was a favorite of a co-worker, one Mr. Trumbull, who accomplished the greatest eating feat of those years, when he followed up a macho with Steve’s famous Texas Pattie Melt.

This gastronomic event came to be known by office historians as “The Rumble In The Trumbull.” But I digress.

I recently headed out on a day of taco tasting, hitting several trucks as well as a favorite stand, Yuca’s in Los Feliz. The taco truck experience was once largely a matter of local knowledge and personal experimentation but thanks to internet sites such as The Great Taco Hunt, the accumulated wisdom of the L.A. taco underground has gone global. A veritable Tacopedia.

By the time I reached Yuca’s, I was stuffed but I couldn’t resist a couple of their carne asada tacos. Yuca’s is a hut that despite a fixed location shares traits with its more mobile cousins. It sits on the edge of a parking lot with al fresco seating, if one can be that grandiose, featuring shaky tables and mismatched chairs and stools. Yuca’s founder, Socorro, was on hand to take the orders. She waits outside the hut next to a poster of James Dean that for some reason is propped up against the wall along the ground. Socorro writes down your order on a paper plate before handing it off to the staff. Drink choices are limited: milk, coffee, lemonade, and orange juice. For anything else you go to the liquor store across the lot.

The tacos? Close to perfect and wrapped in soft and steamy corn tortillas, with a marinade so tasty that there’s no need to embellish with hot sauce. I walked back to my car, which was parked in front of a wellness spa that touted itself as, “Your sacred place of vibrational bliss.”

I don’t know about the vibrational part.  But sacred and blissful is a pretty good description of the Yuca’s experience.

Kids at art: San Diego's New Children's Museum

By Matthew Jaffe, Sunset  senior writer

It was always one of the sweetest moments of the year: I can still remember the instant on the first day of school when I broke the seal and opened a new 64-count box of Crayola crayons. There was that unmistakable waxy aroma and a blast of colors. From burnt sienna to periwinkle, the crayons stood at attention, immaculate and pointy with possibilities.

I had a similar sensation walking into The New Children’s Museum in San Diego, a 50,000-square-foot facility devoted to visual arts that opened this past weekend.

Talk about possibilities. At time when schools have cut back on arts education, the museum puts the visual arts front and center in a dramatic building designed by San Diego architect Rob Wellington Quigley. 

This is no cutesy little playhouse but a soaring, light-filled space that also happens to be one of the greenest museums in the state: it incorporates recycled materials, uses a passive air handling system, and its elevator shaft doubles as a cooling tower.

On one gallery wall, there’s a quote from Andy Warhol, who declares, “Art is what you can get away with.” And at this museum, compared to the more staid destinations of my own field trips past, kids are going to get away with murder—and maybe create a lot of art in the process. Out front they can paint an old Volkswagen bug. Inside they can climb on a mural, get hands on (a nice word for messy), and ride around on Legways, scooter-like vehicles designed by artist Roman de Salvo. This is a museum to engage bodies as well as imaginations.

While most of the galleries and installations were designed for the museum, other pieces are works of art that were not specifically designed with kids in mind. That’s in keeping with the museum’s mission to bring sophisticated contemporary art to families without making false distinctions between what's for children and what's for their parents.

Here’s a museum that knows fun can be good for you, and what’s good for you can be fun. No matter how old you are.

Rockin' the Casbah...

by MacKenzie Geidt, Sunset assistant travel editor

Wanna go to Morocco?  Yeah, so do I.  Desperately.  Maybe it was my former stint as a belly dancer that inspired my absolute love and fascination for North African culture (I'm sparing you pictures from that unfortunate era in my past—trust me, they were YMCA classes, so it really wasn't what you might be thinking...)

But THIS is the closest that I've come to Marrakech, and it happens to be in downtown LA: welcome to the world of the Figueroa Hotel....transporting enough to make you feel like you've crossed continents...(so transporting that leaving the hotel and coming upon the Staples Center across the street makes for extreme cultural confusion....)



Doesn't this remind you of a Paul Bowles novel?  Or The English Patient?  Or a sultan's palace?    If you had a harem, wouldn't you want them to stay here? (no surprise that my influences are all fictional...)

Many of the rooms are named after Moroccan cities...the one above happens to be The Medina.  The building started as a YWCA in 1925 (do you think they offered belly dancing?) before becoming a hotel after the Great Depression.

Even if you can't spend the night, you should definitely stop in for a drink, Casablanca style (remember Rick's Cafe?), at the bar by the pool.  Celebs have been known to haunt the terrace in the early morning hours for secret trysts, and frankly, you should do the same.  It's gotta be one of the most romantic (and private!) watering holes in LA.   

                                                
OK, yes, you're still in LA after all. And you do have to use your imagination if you're expecting Bogie to show up.  But if you're craving a lush Saharan oasis, until you can go for real, this is it, folks.  All the fun without the sandstorms. Play it again, Sam.

Southern California: The hills are alive

by Matthew Jaffe, Sunset senior writer 

Southern California has heated up over the past few days but before spring ends and the hills turn gold you can still experience the best wildflower season since the big rain year of 2005.

Now that my school days are long since past I’m no believer in grade inflation, so I’ll give the 2008 bloom a solid B, just shy of a B+.

Much to my regret, I never made it out to the desert but I have hiked several nearby trails in Topanga State Park and elsewhere in Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

The current bloom is especially notable because during last year’s record low rainfall, the hills barely greened up and wildflowers never showed up at all.

Get out now and you'll see a transition taking place. The local mountains offer a mix of lingering early blooming plants (such as bush sunflower and lupine) with chaparral yucca and other harbingers of late spring.

The creamy white clusters of the chaparral shrub chamise have added texture and definition to valleys and ridgelines, and some trails practically pulsate with the orange and yellow of sticky monkey flower and the pink and rose whorls of purple sage— as well zillions (not an official population figure) of happily buzzing bees.

The bees are apparently having a big year too because a friend who discovered a swarm in his chimney was told by a bee removal expert that our area has never been so busy.

This has also proven to be an enormous year for non-native mustard. I’ve been on trails where the mustard stands almost eight feet tall and completely covers hillsides. I hate to admit it but the mustard display can be gorgeous this time of year. Still, there’s no forgetting the major impacts that it has on native plants and animal habitat.

Farther out, the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve is hanging on with one of its better blooms in recent years. And for a comprehensive look at regional hotspots, check out the Theodore Payne Foundation’s Wildflower Hotline.

Los Angeles gelato trail

What’s your favorite flavor gelato? Mine is olive oil. Creamy, olive oil heaven from Mozza in West Hollywood (photo of the scene below; sorry I ate the gelato so fast it couldn't be captured).

Just to really pack on the calories I also ordered pine nut gelato on a recent visit, but eh, the olive oil hogged all my attention. Also, the Beacon sundae at Beacon in Culver City had green tea and sour cream ice creams. Whoever thought of making sour cream ice cream, I want to marry. (Tangent alert: I also want to marry whoever makes the cheesecake in a jar at Napa’s Ubuntu and the homemade cavatelli at SF’s Blue Plate). I got recs to go to Scoops (712 N. Heliotrope Dr)—with avocado, lavender, coffee and cigarettes (seriously?) as well as foie gras and onion flavors—but didn’t make it this time around. In our July issue, one of our contributors spills a secret about a place in Phoenix that has special flavors such as beer; and Italian white truffle. Stay tuned.

So what’s your favorite flavor? You’d be lame to say vanilla, chocolate or strawberry, by the way.

-Christine Richard

LACMA, Lost and Found

by Matthew Jaffe, senior writer, Sunset

With a mish mash of buildings and architectural styles that don’t always connect, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has always lacked a center and been difficult to navigate. Some think of its challenges as a failure of design but I sometimes see it as a form of unintended genius. Because if ever a museum reflected a city, LACMA mirrors Los Angeles.

For years I lived within walking distance of the museum and despite repeated visits, never fully mastered LACMA’s  can’t-get-there-from-here layout. And so with the recent opening of LACMA’s Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) and the latest attempt to wrangle coherence out of the campus, it was time for another look.

Pritzker Award-winning architect Renzo Piano designed the transformation of the museum campus. I first became familiar with Piano back in college, not long after his design for the Pompidou Center in Paris opened. Back then, the center’s exposed air ducts and exterior escalator were positively revolutionary (and just plain fun too).  The building has lost little of its impact or appeal over the years, despite being frequently copied.

BCAM boasts its own exterior escalator, in red too, but the building remains surprisingly formal. It appears blocky and neither the use of travertine instead of marble nor a sawtooth roofline that, this being LA, suggests the tailfins of Cadillacs, sufficiently softens the monumentality. And for Piano, whose upcoming design of San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences promises some of the most innovative museum architecture in years, the Broad seems surprisingly conventional.

But the building works much better on the inside, where adjustable louvers are positioned to brush the top floor gallery (you start here and work down) and its bleached oak floors with a soft kiss of SoCal light. And the art, including works by Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Ed Ruscha, and other monsters of the modern lets you wander the three floors in a random, visual shuffle mode with few letdowns along the way.

As for the overall campus layout, which Piano tried to improve by also creating an open air pavilion, well, I still found myself disoriented on occasion and unsure exactly where to go. This is a not uncommon feeling in LA and through surrender can come serendipity. I got lost in Chris Burden’s Urban Light, a forest of 202 vintage LA streetlights, and wandered the redone atrium of the museum’s Ahmanson Building. I also went back to BCAM just to ride in its enormous elevator and to look through its floor-to-ceiling windows at the red, white, and black artwork by Barbara Kruger that fills the shaft’s walls. Free your mind and the art will follow.

Be sure to also check out:

Phantom Sightings: Art After The Chicano Movement
LACMA’s largest exhibition of Chicano art runs through September 1.

Band
Richard Serra’s sinuous, monumental work of rusted steel occupies the entire first floor of BCAM.

La Vida Lowriders: Cruising The City of Angels
Just across from LACMA, the Petersen Automotive Museum’s exhibit of lowriders is a very different take on the art of Los Angeles. Through June 8.

Diamond In The Rough

by Matthew Jaffe, Sunset, senior writer

Today is opening day but for 115,300 fans the Dodgers’ 50th anniversary season in Los Angeles began with a bit of time travel across the baseball universe. The team returned to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, its original LA home, for an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox.

The Coliseum is famous as the only stadium to have hosted two Olympics, two Super Bowls, and a World Series.  From a baseball perspective, it earned notoriety among purists for its odd configuration. Dropping a diamond into an oval is baseball’s variation of the square peg-round hole conundrum. The solution back in 1958 when the Dodgers first played here included a left field fence just 251 feet from the plate, with a huge screen to limit cheap home runs—the west coast equivalent of Fenway Park’s Green Monster.

For the exhibition game, the Dodgers recreated the old Coliseum configuration, albeit with an even shorter distance to left field (201 feet) and an even higher screen (60 feet). No matter. With Dodger legends on hand, including Duke Snyder and Wally Moon, whose home runs over the screen became known as “Moon Shots,” the night proved one of the great civic celebrations in recent LA history, an opportunity to relive the past in a city that has always been about what’s coming tomorrow.

Portable dugouts, a crackling PA system, and television cameras on the field gave the game an improvised quality that recalled a more innocent time in baseball history. The Coliseum’s famous peristyle glowed in the setting sun and later in the game, the Olympic torch was lit, adding a grandeur to a night that was as eccentric as it was nostalgic.

The crowd ended up as the largest to ever see a baseball game. The game? Almost incidental. As short as the distance was to left field, the Red Sox defeated the Dodgers by a modest 7-4. The anticipated traffic apocalypse never materialized, although for those who opted for shuttles, the waits were positively Ruthian.

Meanwhile over at Dodger Stadium, the team has made improvements to the field level and such LA mainstays as Canter’s Delicatessen are now part of the food line-up.  For an inside look at the ballpark, take a stadium tour. And for one of the best views in Southern California, get out to the game early, then work your way via escalators, elevators, and stairwells to the stadium’s Top Deck.

10 local (and cheap) things to do in Santa Barbara

(1) Get an ocean view  Views are free at Francheschi Park (1540 Mission Ridge), and technically at Brophy’s, but you’ll probably want to order a bloody Mary or a seafoody appetizer. Try to get to Broph's before the happy-hour crowd on Friday for a good seat. Also, views are nice at Elings Park; drive all the way up (for special events they sometimes close it off).   

(2) Enjoy the beach Hendry’s Beach (aka Arroyo Burro), popular with dogs and surfers. Carpinteria has nice beach walks. One is near the Ballard exit on 101S; though not officially called the hot-dog hike, it does start in the parking lot behind the hot-dog stand that is on Carpinteria Ave. SB Harbor bike/walking trail along Cabrillo is vintage California: Palm trees, ocean, sailboats and Stearns Wharf, although highly trafficked on the weekends (and hogged by bike buggies then, too). You can follow it north up to the Mesa along Shoreline, or south to Montecito. Butterfly Beach, low-key blanket-on-the-beach place in Montecito. (Tar does wash up on some beaches and may blacken shoes and feet). (Photo: Arroyo Burro, courtesy SBCVB)

(3) Hike Seven Falls (because there’s a reward--you can guess what). Can get crowded on summer weekends.You can join in on hikes with Sierra Club. Check out the list here.

(4) Eat breakfast (it's the most important meal of the day) Santa Barbarians really do a mean breakfast ritual. Try Mesa Café for the more diner-y food. Santa Barbara Roasting Company or D’Angelo’s (25 W. Gutierrez St.) for pastries and coffee. Judge for Yourself (1218 Santa Barbara St.) for great egg dishes.

(5) Snack on sweets Chocolate Maya (15 W. Gutierrez St). Picks: the caramel, sea salt and dark chocolate; mint and chocolate, $2 per chocolate. Stop after 4 chocolates, or else.

(6) Eat your greens Order my favorite salad on the West Coast: Lori’s salad at Garden Market (Santa Claus Lane exit on 101, about 10 miles south of Santa Barbara). Even better, have them add blue cheese to it. I want to meet Lori.

(7) Nibble along foodie lane on Saturday: Santa Barbara Street. Start at the Farmers Market at Cota Street. Then check out Daily Bread and C’est Cheese (both are between De la Guerra and Canon Perdido streets on Santa Barbara).

(8) Drink and walk Wine without the hassles of driving to Santa Ynez. Taste wines at wineries that are part of the urban wine trail, such as Jaffurs ($8); Santa Barbara Winery ($5); or Chris Whitcraft's pinots. Whitcraft is not your typical tasting room. No pretensions here. 

(9) Buy books at Chaucer’s Books. Although the atmosphere reminds me of my college text-bookstore, the selection is deep, especially in armchair travel. This bookstore is hidden in a strip mall. Phenomenal.

(10) Start your weekend early On the 1st Thursday of any month, from 5 till 8 p.m., participating galleries on main State Street, and side streets, open their doors. It’s a free art, wine and music smorgasbord. Different events are scheduled throughout the year.

-Christine Richard (who used to eat Lori's salad once a week and not appreciate what she had)

Behind the scenes: Vodboxed editor

By Christine Richard, Sunset senior travel editor

You can't do all the good work behind a desk, can you? Intrigued by what on Earth a Vodbox was, this senior editor assigned a junior editor, Mac (pictured above on right), to head from Sunset's homebase in northern California to Southern California to step into the Vodbox at Nic’s Beverly Hills.       

So what is the Vodbox exactly?

A walk-in vodka-tasting chamber that is kept at 28 degrees and lined with white leather.

Was the night out worth the money?, asks senior (who was stuck at her desk not drinking vodka).

Absolutely, says leopard lady (AKA Mac), who was on an expense budget. A flight of three vodkas is $30. This isn't a place where you necessarily go and pound back vodkas. You go with a vodka sommelier and use the vodka as a palate cleanser between courses. And you are issued a faux leopard pelt to keep warm.

Even men wear the fur coat?

Faux fur, yes, but it's black ... I felt all Eastern European glamorous stepping into an ice chamber in St. Petersburg. 

What were your three tastes?

We tasted the Pravda blend from Poland; the Russian Standard, rumored to be the Tsar's recipe from 1894; and a blend made from pinot noir and chardonnay grapes from Burgundy, France.

Besides the Vodbox, what else we find cool is vodka made in the West. Here are a few distilleries, some of which you can visit:

Hangar One Vodka (Oakland, California) 
Charbay Vodka (Napa Valley, California)
Bendistillery (Bend, Oregon) 
Bardenay (Boise, Idaho)
Ocean Vodka (Maui), just in case you need another excuse to travel to Hawaii

Ed. Note: This trip was financially responsible. I did not send Mac 400 miles ONLY to drink vodka. She was already going, delivering about 50 pumpkins to an L.A.-based stylist for a cover photo shoot. See below. (The pumpkins were humanely, and responsibly, delivered to their final destination before the women went into the Vodbox.)

Southern California by train

By Matthew Jaffe, Sunset senior writer

My wife Becky and I are down in San Diego on the first leg of a week-long train trip through Southern California, and I am vexed as to whether this city is a new capital of cool or the geekiest place on Earth.

The reason for this confusion is that we are here on the eve of Comic Con, a gathering of the tribes that is bringing together thousands of comics freaks, sci-fi buffs, gamers, and all manner of neo-maxi-zoom-dweebies (The Breakfast Club, John Hughes, director, 1985).

What began as a modest event 38 years ago has grown into a confab with enough clout to draw Hollywood studios and stars eager to promote upcoming releases. The result is that the Gaslamp Quarter and areas near the San Diego Convention Center look like a mass casting call for Knocked Up Part Deux as the pale and paler—clad in their "Roswell: We Believe" t-shirts—blink into the bright sun of Southern California summer. They carry enormous Smallville swag bags slung over their shoulders, and their eyes light up when they spot potential soul mates clad in fetching Donkey Kong t-shirts. This is Revenge of the Nerds on a metropolitan scale.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the hip continuum, we’re staying at The Keating, a new boutique hotel in one of the Gaslamp’s oldest buildings. While the exterior maintains its Victorian look, the interior has been remade by Pininfarina Extra, part of the Italian design group best known for its sports car designs.

This is their first hotel. But for my own latent and sometimes not-so-latent geek gene, these are the loft digs I have long envisioned for myself. There’s a wall of exposed brick, a translucent, peek-a-boo blue shower, gleaming stainless steel sinks and mirrors, and a sliding closet that retracts into a towering modern armoir.

But I am most enamored of our LavAzza Blue Espresso Maker. Pop in pre-measured capsules that come in several different flavor variations, and within seconds emerges an absolutely perfect espresso topped with a creamy froth. And there’s no cleanup: the cartridges miraculously disappear. The machine’s very novelty and simplicity of use has led me to ingest a month’s worth of caffeine in roughly 15 minutes.

Buzzworthy too is Anthology, a new jazz supper club on the edge of downtown San Diego’s Little Italy District.

Imagine a place that updates the classy atmosphere of the Trocadero or Ciro’s or some other spot from Hollywood’s golden age with state-of-the-art acoustics and video screens (not to mention the cuisine of Bradley Ogden) and you have the best of the vintage and contemporary.

Anthology is modern in look, soulful and classic in spirit. Our timing is perfect because one of my favorites, jazz pianist Mose Allison is here for two nights. Mose is easing toward 80 but his voice, ever flat, with a splash of rasp, is still the perfect instrument for delivering his wry takes on everything from  personal relationships (Your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working overtime) to politics.

 

Best Burritos

By Peter Fish Sunset editor-at-large

Like barbeque and single malt scotch, burritos are a topic made for fierce argumentation up to and including fistfights.  At least in California, nobody doesn’t have an opinion on what the best burrito joint is.

So here I am, living dangerously. The best burrito joint in the world is Johnny’s Mexican Food in Ventura, California.  (Specifically, it’s at 176 North Ventura Ave.,Ventura; 805-648-2021.)  Yeah I grew up in Ventura, and, yeah, this is hometown bias. But since Calvin Trillin got to praise his hometown rib spot, Arthur Bryant’s BBQ in Kansas City, I figure I can do the same for Johnny’s.

Johnny’s is not one of those currently fashionable burrito spots where you design your own burrito, filing past the steaming vats of options and murmuring “carne asada,” and “black beans, no I mean refried.” At Johnny’s the burritos are strictly pret-a-porter, or more accurately pret-a-manger. But the burritos are fine indeed.  They’re all good but my  fave is the Chile Relleno burrito, which consists of a complete chile relleno wrapped up in a burrito with a little bit of chile verde and cheese thrown in for good measure. Like the fabled turducken of Southern cuisine, this food-inside-another-food should not work. And yet it does.

As for ambiance, Johnny’s is your traditional Southern California burrito joint, which means that it’s a little seedy and that it draws an astonishing cross section of  patrons, from surfers to day laborers to neatly suited lawyers up from the Federal Courthouse to bikers up from the nearby Hells Angels HQ. But everybody loves a good burrito..