LarsTheo

Mayflower Restaurant has changed its name to Jen Mei for some reason. I couldn't find any information doing a search for "Mayflower Chinese Seafood Restaurant" (except for one in San Francisco), but when I searched for the address, I found info about Jen Mei. Any explanations for this?

I stayed in La Jolla the last time I was in San Diego, and there are several places there that I enjoyed, but I can't remember the names. If you go to La Jolla, you can ask someone at an art gallery to recommend a place - I found it very friendly, especially during the day. Otherwise, I like Khyber Pass Afghan Restaurant in Hillcrest. The food I had was excellent, and it's a cuisine I don't often find.

Is it more important to be fun or more important to have excellent food? Also, we are still wondering about the neighborhood. One place that is always fun is The Cat & Fiddle, although the food is not memorable. Still, my dining experiences there have been memorable, even though the food was rather run of the mill. It's not bad - it's just not spectacular or anything. I met Keanu Reeves there and saw Gina Davis there on the same night. If the weather is good, the patio is very nice. Another fun place is Tommy Tangs on Melrose, and on Monday or Tuesday (I can't remember which), the waiters are in drag. For more entertainment, consider El Cid, but don't expect great food. People go there for the Flamenco floor show, and the food is passable.

You should also visit the Third Street Promenade, where there are quite a few Italian restaurants, although I prefer Monsoon Cafe Monsoon, near Arizona Street. For pizza, try Abbot's Pizza on Abbot Kinney in Venice, or Alejo Presto Trattoria on Lincoln at Washington in Marina Del Rey - very casual and no wine (but you can buy some at the 7-11 next door).

I'm going to be in Austin next week, and I have schedule this place as my first stop! Thanks for this info.

Here's a guide to vegetarian restaurants in San Diego. Unfortunately, they are not arranged by neighborhoods, but it might give you some clues.

I didn't see this earlier, or I would have recommended Musha in Torrance for Izakaya style food. I also like El Pollo Inka in Hermosa Beach.

Joe's website works fine in Opera, but I generally use Firefox, which makes it look tiny. I've lived in Venice since 1994, and the restaurant choices are getting better. One of my favorites is Wharo Korean BarBQ, which is less than a block from Venice in MDR. For that matter, Beechwood is actually in MDR because it is on the south side of Washington. A lot of places on Washington claim to be in Venice or MDR when they are really in the other place FSR. I've had good food at Akbar in MDR, although the last time I went was not as good as earlier. Abbot's Pizza has the best pizza in the neighborhood and should not be missed.

Has anyone been to Clem Mikeska's in Temple? I'm going to be in Temple the week of Christmas and wondered whether it was worth going to. Although I went to high school with Clem's son, I've never been to their restaurant. Sadly, there are not many restaurants in Temple that are very interesting. I'll be in Austin only briefly.

My brother had Red Snapper and I had Huitlacoche Pasta when we went to Ligaya, and we were both very satisfied, but maybe we just got lucky. Maybe they are not consistent. We didn't go out for dinner much, since we had home cooked meals as a rule. We wanted to go to Izote, but it didn't fit our schedule, and we met friends who live in Condeas at the bar next door to Ligaya, and so the location was a factor, even though we were staying closer to Polanco. Traffic in Polanco has gotten really bad - I used to visit friends in Polanco who lived next door to this house on E.A.Poe before they sold their house and moved to L.A. There is a seven storey condo where their house used to be.

If you are still looking for Argentine food, try Empanadas Place in Culver City the next time you head for the beach. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with Eagle Rock.

My favorite restaurant in San Diego is Kyber Pass, which is Afghan style. I've been a bit disappointed with the places in Gas Town and more impressed with the restaurants in La Jolla, where the choices are much better IMO. I recommend lunch or brunch in La Jolla in one of the cliffside restaurants overlooking the water. BTW, Chris Isaak tickets start at $218.00, if you haven't bought them yet!

My favorite place when I was there last March was Ligaya, but I also went to a nice ice cream parlor on Av. Vera Cruz in Condesa. Here is my brother's blog of the trip with lots of food pics and descriptions. It was his first trip to Mexico although I've been countless times.

It's been over 20 years since I was in Playa Del Carmen, and from the website, it looks like I would not recognize the place. I remember eating at a beach restaurant that only had thatched palapas on the beach and no building for interior seating. I had pescado a la parilla, and it was extremely good, but simple. Back then it was very rustic, but still beautiful. I first went in 1978 or 1977, and QR was still just a territory instead of a state and the roads were a bit primitive. Cancun was under construction at that time and there were no open hotels there. I guess I'm overdue to go back!

I think Amuse is in a fairly good location - actually better than Beechwood, which has a history of quite a few different owners, after the Irish pub burned down. Beechwood is trendy (for the moment), but that may not last either. Amuse does appear to be in business still, but I prefer to eat at Joe's, which is just around the corner. I also preferred Van Gogh's to Amuse, and it seemed more appropriate for the neighborhood.

I make stuffing with grits instead of cornbread because it is easier and tastes about the same to me. It's based on my mother's and her mother's recipes, but takes much less time. I'll be making it again this year, but I don't wait for holidays to make it. You can add sausage to it, which I sometimes do if I want it as a whole meal instead of a side dish.

I'm horrified by this too, but then I can't eat cream cheese (or even want to). I pretty much agree with the rest, but keep cream cheese away from me! I don't even have cream cheese on my bagel with lox.

Interesting report. I've never been to Mercado La Merced - my friend took me too Mercado San Juan instead, which is smaller, but certainly adequate. They had armadillo and rattlesnake meat, as well as all the fruit I was looking for. When I was there, mameys were not in season, but the chico zapotes were very good. Here's my brother's report of our trip. It was his first time, although I've been to DF countless times, although not as frequently lately as I used to go.

I had great pizza in Cozumel, but that was back in 1978, and I went to the pizza restaurant because I had pretty much tried all the other restaurants in town (at that time) that I wanted. Sometimes it's nice for a bit of variety, and I will also admit that the pizza was great! I think the cheese they used was Oaxacan. When I was last in Playa Del Carmen, it was a very small town, and a pizza restaurant would have been a nice option. I only went to PDC to catch the ferry to Cozumel, however, but I've been there quite a few times, although not recently. I once made a pizza in Mexico City at a friend's house and forgot that I was at high altitude! The dough rose all over the place, and I had never seen anything like that. It tasted good in the end, however, and I used Oaxacan cheese on it. Restaurants in Mexico have changed a lot in the past 30 years.

I agree about taking the Periferico, but I thought they were going to Morelia instead of Mérida, which is the other direction. There are certainly plenty of flights to Mérida, and I can't imagine driving there from DF, although I have been driven from Mérida to Campeche by a friend. A friend also drove me from DF to Guanajuato and back, and that was a pleasant trip (and not so far from Morelia). Not so pleasant when she drove me to Oaxtepec and took Insurgentes Sus instead of the Periferico - on the day of the biggest bullfight in Mexico! Pedestrian were whizzing past us as we sat stuck on Insugentes. I agree that traffic is light on holidays. I was unaware that the Hoy No Circula law was still in effect. For me, traffic was worse in DF in the 1980s and 90s than it is now. You do have to be aggressive, but if your car is rented, you will have local plates and won't be a target of the police, which are even worse in parts of Texas if you are not a local. Also, I think you are supposed to tip the gas station attendants, but I don't know how much, since my friends always did that.

Try Amir's Falafel at 11711 Ventura Blvd. I never thought of Studio City as a sushi mecca. More sushi to be had in South Bay (Torrance, especially) and WLA. Sushi seems to be everywhere these days, and there are excellent sushi bars in Venice and Marina del Rey, as well as Little Tokyo downtown. I get excellent sushi at my local grocery stores in MDR. Sorry, but I don't know that much about Studio City, but I would look for Lebanese or Armenian restaurants, but from my experience, it is certainly not a culinary wasteland.

Yesterday, I used the Shan brand Chaat Masala to make a dish that included onion, garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, celery, and garbanzos. The recipe was based on a Spanish potaje, which is why it has celery, but the end result tasted very Indian, and I did like the spice mix. This was the first time I tried the boxed spice mixes, and I was very pleased with the flavor. I've used Rani brand Garam Masala to make Chana Masala, but it would have been better if I had mixed the spices myself. I'm not sure where to get Fenugreek leaves, and when I made Chana Masala, I substituted Fenugreek seeds, but I don't think the flavor is the same.

It seems to me that what you are experiencing is culture shock, more than anything else. The lifestyle of SoCal is very different from SF Bay Area, and you either embrace it or fight it. If you can't find foods that you want here, you should have enough space to grow your own, and that is the advantage of SoCal - not being so tightly confined. I have lived in Berkeley and San Francisco before moving to L.A., and I am much happier now that I have my own mango, lime, lemon, tangerine, orange, fig, and papaya trees. I also have space to grow numerous herbs and lettuces, whereas in San Francisco, all I had was a plum tree, which made a huge mess annually. My advice is to take advantage of the increased space you must have after moving from Berkeley and start growing what you can't find in the markets. Join a gardening forum and get advice there about how to grow what you really want - the climate here is much more conducive to growing a lot more varieties of fruit and vegetables than in Berkeley - not to mention the space constraints. As for the culture shock - that I can't help you with, but if that is what is bothering you, then face it directly and don't blame it on food shortages. I've grown everything from artichokes to tomatoes to passionfruit in my yard here in Venice, with much satisfaction and less need to visit markets.

I like Tsuji No Hana in Marina Del Rey, and also Hama Sushi at the Venice Circle. The Marina Del Rey place is a better bargain, if price is your main concern.

I went to Teotihuacán week before last, and I don't remember seeing a Walmart in the town, although the buses I took may have missed it. I first went to the Indios Verdes subway stop to find a bus, and the one I took went through the streets of Teotihuacán instead of going straight to the pyramids and got into quite a traffic jam because of some construction on a narrow street, which delayed us about 20 minutes or so. On the way back, we got a direct bus that made almost no stops until we got back to Indios Verdes, and we almost missed that stop ourselves. Here's a picture I took of my brother, standing on the first platform of the Pyramid of the Moon. I don't think a Walmart would be visible from there, although it might be visible from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, but we didn't go there. I'd been to the top of that before and felt no need to repeat the experience. We didn't go to the top of the Moon either because I remembered the photo ops being better lower down, unlike the steeper Mayan pyramids. I only saw Carrefour stores from the outside in D.F., and they were not ugly, but I did see some less attractive Walmart stores on the trip from the airport. I never really liked the Commercial Mexicana or Gigante supermercados in D.F., but my friend Michelle goes to one in Condesa for certain items. Mostly she takes her servants to Mercado San Juan or sends them to local markets. As for Teotihuacán - I found the vendors trying to sell obsidian objects more annoying than anything else, and I told my brother that the avenue had evidently never stopped being a major marketplace. The less commercialism there the better, but the sellers will be there if the buyers are there, it seems. I don't believe that supply always follows demand, however, as there are many cases where demand goes unsupplied. Food, for example, would have been more welcome than obsidian, at least for me, although I did bring my own tortas.