So, next day started off with the foodie tour. This was a New York Times sanctioned tour with an outfit called Urban Adventures.
I met Summer at the bottom of the Angels Flight funicular. Conveniently a block from the hotel. And, I was the only one on the tour!
Well, of course Kenn came on the tour. The funicular costs $1.00. I didn’t ride it – I wanted the exercise.
Anyway, Summer met us and then we walked over to the Grand Central Market where we had Pupusas since I had never had one before. I don’t know why I didn’t take a photo of it. It was delish! Cheese and fish if I recall correctly.
There also was a mexican ‘grocery’ store with a lot of different dried fish!
Then we walked out the back side of Grand Central and saw some sights.
This is the Bradbury building. It was featured in the original Blade Runner movie. Here’s a link to more info about it: https://www.laconservancy.org/locations/bradbury-building
The Bradbury building actually reminded me of a building in Philadelphia called The Bourse. The two buildings were built at roughly the same time, just a few years apart. Here’s more info about the Bourse for you architecture-interested folks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Bourse
View across the street. This classic movie theatre was revamped and is now used for special events.
The man who bought the old Victor Clothing Co building wanted to have an homage to its hispanic history. What better subject for that than Anthony Quinn?
Then a stop at The Last Bookstore https://www.shopthelastbookstore.com/
What a cool place! I loved it in there. I’m going to have to go back and spend more time there. Check it out:
Then a trip on the metro to get to Union Station.
Although I didn’t take photos through the windows, the Western Restaurant is a restored restaurant that is now a brewery. Decor from the 40’s-50’s (red vinyl stools, lots of curvy counters). I want to go there when it’s open!
Some more sidewalk art. It sure looked like someone placed this items here, just so.
A short walk across the street to a nice plaza with the Chiguacle restaurant – our next stop https://www.chiguacle.com/
Here we were going to be making 4 different types of enchiladas, with 4 different sauces. And I’ll just say right now they were all very delicious!
Top row: Epazote leaves, sesame seeds, pepitas, corn tortillas
Middle row: cabbage, cotija cheese, shrimp, portabello mushrooms with onions
Bottom row: Mole verde, Salsa Morelianas, Epazote Sauce, Poblano sauce
Our host Serena
I liked this mole verde a lot. And I love pumpkin seeds! So, I am going to try to make this one this week. That’ll be another post …
I would say the poblano was my fave, perhaps tied with the mole verde. Epazote next, then Michoacanas next, although their scores were all within 0.00001 of each other 🙂
This is a corn and cactus tortilla. Very delicious. You can’t get these just anywhere.
With full bellies it was time to move on – to Chinatown! We met up with another guide, VJ.
This market was famous because somebody won the big lottery from a ticket purchased here. I didn’t get a chance to buy a ticket though …
Next a stop at this temple.
So beautiful inside!
You can shake a stick out to get your fortune. I wasn’t very good at shaking – I shook many sticks out! Ha ha!
This is the Phoenix Queen. Dragons are Male, Phoenix are Female.
This man would hit the singing bowl about once every 30 seconds. The stints are for an hour at a time.
Next stop was a tea shop, for a nice tea ceremony. We passed this kiddie ride. I thought it was funny. Later I was standing next to another one just like it, and although nobody was on it, one of the horses whinnied at me!
This is “May Flower” explaining how you make the tea. She put leaves into the pot to the left, added hot water, and then poured the tea into the pot on the right. The first 2 pots are thrown out. You then drink pots 3,4,5 …
It was a nice green oolong tea. Very nice flavor.
We walked through a chinese marketplace and saw this structure, for good luck for the marketplace. Beautiful!
Bruce Lee!
Sun Yat Sen.
Then we stopped at a bakery to have some moon cakes to celebrate the Lunar New Year. We had both red bean and lotus. I liked both, which surprised me because last time I had a moon cake I didn’t care for it too much.
We stopped at the Seven Star Cavern Wishing Well, to make some wishes. I forgot to take a photo of it, but here’s a link with a bunch more info about it:
https://ahbelab.com/2015/11/19/chinatowns-seven-star-cavern-wishing-well/
I was fascinated by this guy who was walking around Chinatown and then stopped to admire himself in a window for about 10 minutes.
A cool fountain
This restaurant was featured in ‘Rush Hour’ with Jackie Chan.
After seeing how many photos I had from the tour, I think I’m going to do one more post to cover my time at The Broad. Hope you enjoyed my tour!