A Week in Los Angeles with My Friends
Introduction
Welcome to another of my personal posts! Today, I wanted to talk about a vacation I took toward the end of September, this year. I’m going to try to keep this short, but it was a pretty long, packed week that I had with five of my friends, so there’s a lot of ground to cover. I’ve also struggled with figure out how I’m going to break this down. I initially wanted to break this down into each of the seven days that we had in Los Angeles, but I think it’ll be easier to just break it down into the different categories of activities that we had. This is also where you can check out the photos that I took of the trip, several of which I am quite proud of!
I’ve also compiled a video of the week using footage gathered from both my camera and my phone. You can check that out here:
Food
Holy crap the food was amazing. I knew it was going to be, but I didn’t realize just how amazing it would be. I’ve been to Los Angeles before when I accepted a writing award back in 2019 and I ate some great food while I was there, but this trip was quite different--I planned every place I wanted to visit for food and there wasn’t a single one I didn’t enjoy. The vegan food in Los Angeles is the best vegan food I’ve ever had. In fact, one of the restaurants I visited had the best food I’ve ever had. As in, ever. It was unbelievable. I’ll get to that soon.
Here are all of the places I ate (and what I ate)!
Locali
This is the very first place we stopped to eat in Los Angeles after our flight and let me tell you, it was an excellent choice. The food here was BEYOND incredible. I was blown away, as this was just a quick choice I made without much consideration. After I finished my sandwich, I was tempted to walk up and grab another, it was so good. Definitely recommend this spot.
Cafe Gratitude
I have a Café Gratitude back in Kansas City, but it doesn't hold a candle to the one in the Arts District. This café was absolutely outstanding. Atmosphere, service, food, all five stars. We had a nice dinner and conversation here the night we arrived in Los Angeles. So much food was had as well! We grabbed the Margherita Pizza, the Calamari, and I got the local meal. It was all so far beyond my expectations. I kind of wanted dessert, but I knew I didn't have the room for it in me, anymore.
Doomie's Home Cooking
Doomie's has thus far been the friendliest and most fantastic experience I've had at any restaurant in Los Angeles. The staff was absolutely excellent, receptive, and friendly. I loved not just the food, but the experience of being here. The food was really excellent; I got the three-piece dinner, which was divine. I also tried the Jalapeno Puffs and some Mac & Cheese. I will note that nothing was as spicy as I had expected, but it did all taste wonderfully. One of my friends pointed out that the cheese had a distinct barbecue sauce/smoke flavor to it. I personally enjoyed it, but she didn't, so this may be something to consider if that isn't a flavor you enjoy.
Donatsu
Oh, my word. I don't even know how to praise this well enough. Every vegan donut I had was something to write home about. We're here in Los Angeles for a week and I will be going at least two more times after such an awesome experience. It's hard to pick a favorite, but I'll probably say the Strawberries and Creme is tied with the Royal Dragon for first place, in my mind.
The Hive
The Hive had excellent service; the staff was so friendly! We sat on the patio and they brought the food out to us. I enjoyed the experience, let alone the delicious food! I grabbed the Bee's Knees smoothie and a shroom wrap. Both were excellent! I did feel like the shroom wrap was a bit light on the shrooms, but it made up for it with other goods. I'll also recommend bringing your own straw; the paper straws here were fine, but a bit fragile for the cups.
Tocoya Modern Mexican
Tocoya was absolutely wonderful! I got the vegan chicken and their jalapeno queso. It was a delicious combo in the fajita burrito. Service was also excellent and polite, particularly when one of my companions had to send her order back because she hadn't understood the menu. That does bring me to the point that the line "Chef Recommends" for the meal additions is less a recommendation and more a default option. If you order something and don't specify what you want on it (even if you don't actually want anything added to it), the Chef Recommends option will be added by default. Be sure to specify that you either don't want anything added or that you want something specific included if you aren't good with what the chef recommends for the meal.
Monty's Good Burger
Finally, after years of watching vegan friend after vegan friend post photos of shakes and burgers from Monty's, I finally got to visit Los Angeles and try the food. My dreams came true at last, and for that, I am immensely grateful.
The food was incredible, the service was grand, the shake was to-die-for, and I could not have been happier with the experience. It was worth the wait. Hopefully, I won't have to wait so long for my next visit to Monty's!
Gracias Madre
This was suggested by my friend Kelsey and boy am I glad she wanted it on the list. Gracias Madre wound up being my second favorite food that I had in Los Angeles. It was amazing. I cannot stress enough just how incredible this food was. On top of the amazing food, the atmosphere of this restaurant was remarkable. One thing I do want to note is that you absolutely need a reservation for this restaurant. It was completely packed on Thursday night!
Crossroads Kitchen
Crossroads Kitchen is a restaurant I have longed to visit for many years. I've dreamed about the food here and have followed their Instagram account for as long as I can remember. So when I planned this trip to Los Angeles, the first location that I made a reservation for was Crossroads (and thank goodness I made a reservation, you definitely need one). This plant-based restaurant is absolutely incredible and is now my favorite vegan restaurant I've ever visited (and I've eaten food at many of them).
This is a dinner that I just took one friend to as opposed to all of them. She and I had an excellent time. Our waiter was absolutely wonderful and very helpful and the food was the greatest food I have ever had, even before I went vegan. We did the chef's tasting (not the for the faint of wallet--I spent $500 on dinner, that evening) and every single dish blew me away. I could not believe how incredible everything was. There was not a single thing that I did not like.
I don't get to go to Los Angeles often, but I will now plan to stop at Crossroads Kitchen every time that I return to this city. What a remarkable experience.
Hikes
My friends and I are avid hikers. You may recall my recent trip to the Badlands and the Blackhills, or my trip prior to that in which we hiked in the Great Smoky Mountains. On this trip, we planned three hikes, though I was only able to do two of those three because I spent way too much time in the ocean one day and was absolutely exhausted for several of the following days. Lesson learned. However, I was so glad that I was able to complete two of our three planned hikes: the Hollywood Sign hike (six miles) and the Warren Peak hike (six miles).
Hollywood Sign
The Hollywood Sign hike is a six-mile hike with an elevation gain of 1,100 feet. It was pretty tame compared to the hikes we did in the Black Hills but was still a challenge due to the direct sunlight without any shade throughout the hike. The views were excellent on the way up. As we wound around the mountains on this path, we were repeatedly graced with awesome views of Los Angeles. Despite the smog, we were able to see quite a bit of the city itself, that day.
My only complaint about this hike is that there’s a horse ranch nearby (boo) and that people pay to ride those horses along the trail (boo again) and the horses poop all over the trail (even more booing). Especially as we got closer to the trail, the sheer amount of excretion on the trail was just insane. That part sucked, but the rest of the trail was excellent.
Warren Peak
The Warren Peak hike that we did was more challenging than the Hollywood Sign hike for sure, but I don’t think it was anywhere near as tough as the Black Elk Peak hike was back in July of this year. Warren Peak is the top of a mountain in Joshua Tree, which was two hours from where we were staying in Los Angeles. This meant that Warren Peak was a full day’s experience; on Wednesday, we drove to Warren Peak, hiked the six-mile, 1,100 ft. gain trail, then drove back. This may sound like the exact same level of challenge that the Hollywood Sign hike was, but believe me, this was much harder.
In spite of the fact that this is also a six-mile, 1,100-foot elevation gain trail just like the Hollywood Sign trail, Warren Peak did not have the elevation gain gradually. The gain occurred all at once, toward the end of the hike. Much of the hike was perfectly flat, and it wasn’t until the last leg of the hike that we started climbing the mountain. This was made especially challenging because I had been in the ocean for eight straight hours the day before, not realizing I was getting a full-body workout the entire time. My legs were screaming all the way up that mountain, and as soon as I sat down at the peak I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get up, again. I was going to die up there.
But, it was a beautiful place to die.
The views from Warren Peak were absolutely wonderful. Because the landscape around it was so low, you could see for miles and miles and miles. The lack of clouds certainly helped with this, too. I’m not even sure how far off I could see, but I saw peaks that were impossibly distant. In addition to amazing views (and company!) on the peak, there was also a little box with a notebook and photographs, filled with mementos from other people who peaked the mountain. My friends and I made sure to leave our mark, too!
Activities
We did a lot of activities beyond hiking, this trip. Seven days is a long time to be in another city and we were sure to put as much content into the trip as we feasibly could! I don’t think that we wasted any time, especially thanks to careful planning well in advance. Every day, we had something going on, from Sunday to Sunday. From the beach to museums, our vacation was jam-packed with a variety of different activities that we were all sure to enjoy.
Santa Monica Beach
I’ve been to a beach a few times in my life, and the first time was actually Santa Monica Beach back in 2019, but I didn’t go into the ocean at the time. This time, I went into the ocean… and I stayed in there.
All. Day.
It was a blast. I was tossed around, thrown against the ocean floor, forced into unwilling somersaults, and I lost two hair ties. I broke a boogie board (somehow). I probably got a concussion from being punched in the back of the head by a wave. I still stayed in the ocean and just kept fighting it for about eight hours or so. It was rough, exhilarating, and amazing. I’d probably do it every day if I could. Toward the end of my stint in the ocean, I finally got the hang of boogie boarding (I’d purchased two).
Santa Monica Pier
After the beach (and then after dinner), we all went to the pier. The first (and most important) thing that we did was take some wonderful group photos. I adore them all, but I especially love the one in which Fiona and I are trying to flee over the guardrail. I think that’s my personal favorite. Once those photos were done, we rode the Ferris Wheel (something that’s required of any visitor, in my opinion) and then the rollercoaster (something I don’t necessarily recommend because it was rickety and uncomfortable, but otherwise not all that exciting).
La Brea Tar Pits
Thursday was a dedicated museum day. The first museum we went to was for the tar pits in Los Angeles, where numerous animal bones have been found (and are still being found). There’s even a wall of dire wolf skulls to signify just how many of those animals have been uncovered in the tar. I think the coolest part of this trip to the museum was seeing that the tar pits are still actively bubbling and many bones are still being pulled out of the tar. After all these years of searching that area, discoveries are still being made.
Also, you can really smell this museum.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
After the tar pits, we went next door to LACMA, which I personally enjoyed more than the tar pits. This museum was filled with incredible artwork, new and old. I personally didn’t take photos of the art, or at least not very many, but I did take some photos in some of the larger exhibits. A few of them wound up being my favorite photos of the trip! Since I don’t have very many photos of the wonderful artwork in this museum, I can only encourage you to go in and check it out for yourself! This museum is vast, beautiful, and filled with amazing pieces.
At the very least, you should go there so that you can ride the enormous elevator.
World of Illusions Escape Room
After dinner on our museum day, we went to an escape room in Los Angeles called the World of Illusions. The guide for the escape room was incredibly friendly, entertaining, and welcoming. He made sure we had a great time. This was a high-difficulty escape room and it really showed. We made it through much of the room without the need for clues (and some of the clues given just confirmed that we had already figured out the puzzle, but something wasn’t working), but there were a few that really stumped us. It was stressful, intense, and ultimately fun. We did manage to escape (just barely), thanks to some of the clues. We’re not going on the leaderboard, but we had a good time and that’s what matters.
Malibu Beach
On Friday, we had originally been planning to do a hike, but two-thirds of our party was extremely exhausted from activities earlier in the week. It was a shame since I’d been looking forward to doing the dawn mine hike. So, instead, we went to Malibu and relaxed on the beach for a few hours. This wound up being a great way to unwind after such an incredibly packed week. The waters were quite cold, that day, and the waves were remarkably strong--strong enough that I didn’t go in, despite how much I’d enjoyed my time in the ocean on Tuesday. Instead, I just sat on a towel in the sand with my friends for a few hours, enjoying one of our last few days in Los Angeles.
We were going to split off into pairs, that night, so we left the beach early to get ready for our planned evenings. I didn’t get to experience sunset or evening at this beach, but I can imagine that it would have been absolutely mesmerizing. I hope to go and see it again during the golden hours, someday.
The Broad
On Saturday (our next to last day in Los Angeles), my friends and I ventured to the Broad in downtown Los Angeles. This museum was an incredible building, just to start. The architecture was really interesting and very much the sort of thing that I enjoy (and hope to have in my own home, someday. The art within the museum was remarkable, as well.
What stood out most to me were the exhibits about injustice and inequality. These were remarkable, visionary, sometimes painful pieces that could jerk tears from my eyes. I found the exhibit to be deeply moving and powerful. I’m immensely grateful to the artists for their work and to the museum for displaying the pieces proudly. I hope that we continue to see works like this be created and have lights shone upon them.
On a lighter note, I was a bit disappointed that the mirror exhibit I had hoped to see was closed, as this was something I was looking forward to, but this is such a minor, meaningless complaint that it isn’t going to affect my overall rating for the museum itself.
Conclusion
I didn’t even come close to talking about all of the awesome, interesting, and memorable experiences that I had in Los Angeles during this week I spent with my friends. I am so grateful for each and every person who came on this trip and I hope that they had as great a time with me as I had with them. It’s amazing to think that I’m in a place now where I’m surrounded by people I love--something I did not think I would ever have again after leaving Texas. This vacation was amazing not because of all the awesome stuff I did, saw, and ate, but because of the incredible people with whom I shared the experiences.
Have you been to Los Angeles, or do you want to go? Is there anything I did that you think would interest you and that you’d like to do, there? Better yet, what suggestions do you have for me to consider including in any future trip to Los Angeles? I’d love to hear from you!
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I hope that you enjoyed this post and the accompanying video. Thanks again for checking it out!
Until my next post, bye!