After a nice little 5K race in Griffith Park this last Sunday, my friend and I thought we would round out the morning with a stroll through the Hollywood Farmer's Market and a Carbo-Re-Load breakfast at the newly opened Waffle on Sunset.
It is situated in the bottom of an office building, and that is what it feels like inside.
The large tinted windows cast a dimness to the interior, as opposed to a bright, sunny, cozy feel I prefer while eating breakfast.
His name is Charlie Bartlett, and he’s a Ferris Bueler for the 21st century, filtered through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II.” There’s a good-natured, if a bit fantastical, subversion at work in the 17
-year-old achieving the popularity he desires by faking (more or less) mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety, and selling the drugs prescribed to him by psychiatrists to schoolmates. Bringing to mind a smarter, more savvy and compassionate Lucy from Peanuts, the twist is that the doctor really is in, with an office in the boys’ restroom instead of a rickety stand. Bartlett isn’t so much a drug dealer as an impromptu counselor to youths alienated from the school system and each other. Fantastical, indeed, but also a novel update – and not merely a rip-off – of the ‘80s high school comedy genre.
Aahhh…Sunday supper at Lucques.
No reservations were available, so we snagged some seats at the bar.
They always start you off with almonds, Lucques olives, house-baked bread, Plugra butter and fleur de sel.
This and a glass (or 2) of wine is really all I need.
For a mere $40, on Sunday they serve a 3- course meal. Our dinner began with a salad of miner's lettuce, beets and labneh — absolutely heavenly, then a choice of braised lamb shank or blue nose sea bass — I selected the fish.
Get a sneak preview of upcoming movies and exciting discussions with stars and filmmakers through Stephen Farber's REEL Talk. Series starts on March 10th.
Last week I had the pleasure of dining at Bloom Cafe not once, but twice.
Bloom Cafe is a charming cafe on a funky stretch of Pico Boulevard near Hauser. One side of the cafe has a take-out counter, where you may get coffee, juices and pastries for breakfast, and the other side is their main dining room.
They have a patio seating out back, and sidewalk seating out front. We had our lunch inside, which is bright, airy and a little loud with the music and chatter.
I have heard of M Cafe de Chaya for a couple years now, and finally made it there for lunch last week.
I loved it.
A part of the Chaya Venice/Brasserie group, this is their macrobiotic outpost.
Macrobiotics is a diet consisting of whole, natural, seasonal foods. No refined sugar, dairy or meat. Seafood is the only animal protein in the diet.
Hollywood releases so few science-fiction movies in comparison to other genre films that it is particular disappointing when it releases something less than stellar. For all that “Jumper” is superficially entertaining, it is also so hopelessly mediocre as to be a catalogue of missed opportunities. The salt in the wound is the realization that not only is the film an excuse to set up a sequel, but that, narratively, the film merely spins its wheels and leaves its character no further along at the end than they were at the beginning. “Jumper” is an extended chase scene without a goal post; the characters are but hamsters in a wheel.
Judging by the reaction of other film critic-types at the screening I attended, “Vantage Point” isn’t a film that will earn glowing reviews. It’s simply not a good sign when people snicker at the odd line of dialogue or plot development, and audibly groan or sigh at the film’s fundamental structure, and I suspect that the words “repetitive” and “absurd” will feature prominently in many less-than-charitable reviews. But “Vantage Point” does work very well for what it is, a escapist thriller, and while screenwriter Barry Levy took a big risk in structuring the story the way he did, it was a risk worth taking.
“The Spiderwick Chronicles” is a dish whose ingredients exist in extraordinarily well-balanced proportions. Blending a family drama rooted in parental divorce with a magical story that bridges the known world with the unknown realm of faeries and goblins, “The Spiderwick Chronicles” has the spirit of “Labyrinth” with the richness and wonder of “Harry Potter.” While it could be argued that there are familiar equations in the plot – the naughty boy who cried wolf struggling to prove himself when there really is a wolf, for example – everything is so seamlessly put together that the feeling is not one of formula, but of refreshing sincerity. It’s as if Brian Froud and Alan Lee’s seminal illustrated book, “Faeries,” had come to life under the title of “Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You.”
X'otik Kitchen is a cute little take-out cafe on newly gentrified Washington Boulevard, sharing the neighborhood with ultra-cool art galleries and architectural offices, in good ol’ Downtown Culver City.
The spelling of X'otik isn't the only exotic thing about this place.
Their menu of organic chicken, fish and meat dishes is peppered with ingredients like kafir lime, tumeric, coconut, coriander and kecap manis (whatever that is!).
