Marina del Ray

The marina at Marina del Ray is a phenomenon that has a story-book quality. Everywhere one looks, there is another beautiful sight to photograph.  We arrived right before the sunset and took a little stroll along the dock.

As we were looking for a place to eat, we ran into a very pleasant surprise... my favorite restaurant from twenty years ago, Shanghai Reds, was right there on our path...

One Lovely Stop Along the Ocean - Santa Monica

Shutters on the Beach @ Santa Monica

What is a there to do in LA on a warm November Sunday after having a very satisfying brunch at the Grove?  Why take a drive down to Malibu, of course... It was my husband's first time in Los Angeles and we just had to show him the drive along the ocean. 

Even though living on the West Coast holds no appeal for me, I still admire the drive to Malibu along the ocean... It is such a scenic route that can always uplift my spirits.  Today was no exception... we just followed the signs for Santa Monica and then when we hit the ocean, continued on North, driving along looking at all the lovely homes and watching the surfers out on the ocean.  One of the greatest things about this drive is that one doesn't need directions, we decided to just drive... We drove North for about one hour then decided to turn around and go to Santa Monica.  When we got to Santa Monica, my husband as well as the baby were both sleeping so Wendy and I left them in the car with Murat and went out on the boardwalk.  We had parked the car in a lot near the Shutters on the Beach Hotel so that we could go over and check it out.  Wendy actually had made reservations at their restaurant One Pico but we still had the lingering effects of our wonderful brunch at the Farm of Beverly Hills, so all I could manage was a walk around the quaint hotel.  It is truly a lovely hotel with a dreamy lobby and two restaurants that both fit my taste perfectly.


Shutters on the Beach   
http://www.shuttersonthebeach.com/
One Pico Blvd
Santa Monica, CA, 90405
310-458-0030

The Santa Monica Pier, was right behind us and it was nice to look at from afar.  I had been there on my previous trip to LA when I had rented a bicycle and ridden along these paths on the beach with Hasan and Murat.  It was a great way to experience Santa Monica like a local.  I hope to repeat it in the future again.

From here we wanted to head to Marina del Ray because I had heard the sunset there, was something that had to be seen... we were not disappointed.

A Perfect Sunday - Breakfast

It was Sunday, a bright and beautiful day, we were in LA, our only concern where to have brunch this morning.  After not much deliberation at all, we decided to go to the Grove for breakfast, only a ten minute walk from where we were staying.
Farm of Beverly Hills is Wendy's favorite restaurant there, with good reason.  Not only does it have excellent food but it is also in the middle of the Grove, right by the fountain.

The first thing that came out, with our coffee, was a wonderful coffee cake muffin that we devoured in five minutes and asked for more.  This is so fantastic that I can go back there everyday just for that muffin... it is also the best accompaniment for coffee.

Corned Beef & Potatoes

Mehmet ordered the Corned Beef & Potatoes that we all wanted in the end.  It was a great sandwich - a perfect combination.

California Omlet

Wendy and I decided to share a California Omlet.  It was good but I am not sure if I would order it again.

Belgian Waffle

I can only assume how good Murat's Belgian Waffle was, since it was finished within an heartbeat.

Farm of Beverly Hills turned out to be the best idea for a weekend breakfast.  I would definitely recommend it for a sweet break to anyone who might be shopping, sightseeing or just hanging out at the Grove where parking is a breeze with lots of shops and attractions to spend a pleasant time relaxing.

One of the Top Ten Restaurants in the World According to the New York Times

My brother's wife, Wendy, is originally from Taiwan, and since she knows of Murat's preference for dumplings, she wanted to take us to the Dumpling House that has been lauded as 'One of the Worlds' Top Ten Restaurants' by the New York Times.  She explained to us that the original Din Tai Fung was very close to their house in Taipei and they used to go there for dumpling very frequently until the New York Times article turned it into a major attraction and the wait became unacceptable.  Honestly the wait at this branch in Arcadia, California was quite ridiculous as well but we were already there and Prometheus was sound asleep so our curiosity won over our common sense and we waited.  

We were in Arcadia because earlier we went to visit the campus of California Institute of Technology - 'Caltech' - a dream school if there ever was one. Arcadia and Pasadena are 15 minutes from each other and since we were already 40 minutes out of LA, we thought to get as much as possible in for this area.

After driving around Pasadena till the sunset. we picked up Wendy and Pro and headed to the Dumpling House.  The crowd outside the restaurant was a little disconcerting but Wendy insisted we had to try this, so we put our name on the 45 minute waiting list.  Inside the restaurant was a madhouse, there was so much activity it was impossible to follow the food leaving the kitchen and going to the tables.  With Wendy's intervention, we were seated at a table in half an hour.  On our table was a small checklist of the foods that were available.  We were lucky to have Wendy with us because basically we went with her suggestions and it turned out to be perfect.

XIAOLONGBAO (Taiwanese small steamed buns)

The specialty of the house xiaolongbao, is different than a Chinese Dumpling because the bun is much thinner and there is a great juice that accompanies the pork filling.  You are suppose to eat these by putting them in a Chinese spoon and then topping them with their special vinegar.  There is no easy way to eat these in my opinion since you have to be able to pick up the dumplings with chopsticks out of a spoon, bite into them without burning your tongue with the hot juices gushing out and dip it again into the vinegar back in the spoon.  But it is worth every bit of the struggle.  I especially liked the fact that it was so juicy and not so doughy.  

Shrimp Dumpling

These were my favorites, you got a mouthful of shrimp.  I prefer these to the pork dumplings but I am a seafood person.  

Besides the dumplings we ordered some other items from the menu/list.  One given at any Chinese Restaurant with my husband is Hot and Sour Soup.  He absolutely has to try it wherever he goes.  Although, I don't think he has met a hot and sour soup he hasn't liked, he said the soup here was really excellent.

Hot and Sour Soup

When I was staying with Wendy after she had Prometheus, she fixed me up a wonderful dish with rice cakes, chicken and vegetables.  I loved it , so when she saw that they had a dish with rice cakes on the menu she suggested we order it.  I devoured the whole thing almost by myself.  Rice cakes have a very interesting texture that goes very well in a dish such as these where they don't dominate but help to emphasize the flavors of the other ingredients.  I liked it so much, I tried to make some at home but was not successful.  I think I need to find a restaurant on the East coast that has them on their menu so that I could go there to eat them whenever I got the craving.

Shanghai Rice cake with Pork

Mostly the rice cakes can be seen in this photo, they resemble bamboo shoots in appearance when first seen in a dish.

SESAME NOODLES

Sesame noodles are my brothers favorite and I was surprised to realize I had never tried them before.  This is a cold dish with a sauce that reminded me of tahini, (not very surprising since tahini is sesame paste.)  This is a dish that should be tried in small doses because although it is very tasty, I think it is also a very strong dish.

Everything we tried was excellent and it was worth the wait.  

Din Tai Fung Dumpling House

1108 S. Baldwin Ave

Arcadia, CA 91007

Tel  626-574-7068

http://www.dintaifungusa.com/

More Good Times, GoodEats...

Today, we got a bit of a late start.  After Murat came back from taking the SAT's and Wendy came home from work, we went out for brunch at one of Wendy and Cenk's favorite haunts in LA - 'Little Next Door.'
This Place was amazing, a French bistro. with great food, authentic atmosphere and outdoor dining...
People watching is also a big plus in this wonderful LA eatery.

All three of us ordered the French Onion Soup which was just perfect...

The Nicoise Salad with fresh vegetables and real tuna steaks was delicious.

The Roast Beef French Dip Sandwich with Horse Radish Mustard Dip

(I highly recommend this, it was delightful)

Creme Brulee was to die for...

Little next door DELI-CAFE

http://www.thelittledoor.com/lndhome.html#

8142 West 3rd St.

LA, CA 90048

Tel :  323-951-1010

Fax:  323-951-0700

Deli-Cafe Hours:

Monday - Thursday                  Friday - Sunday

11AM - 11PM                          8AM -11PM

Road Trip to San Luis Obispo

I have always had this romantic notion of taking a road trip... driving seems like a very liberating venture since the  direction, duration and manner of the trip is completely up to the your whims. Schedules, departure times, destinations... completely irrelevant.  But, this is not a very ideal situation when one partner's idea of a road trip is to get from point A to point B.  Luckily, I can be very creative...

We were visiting Los Angeles... our son was interested in studying engineering... Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is reputed to have one of the best programs in mechanical and aeronautical engineering and we could drive out there in only three and a half hours... It should not come as a big surprise that today, we had an appointment at the Engineering College in Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo at two o'clock.  

We got on the road around 9.00am supplied with pastries from the cafe around the corner for breakfast.  

In about an hour and forty minutes we passed by Santa Barbara, I really wanted to stop by and show Mehmet around since I think this is one of the most beautiful places I have seen on this coast but we had an appointment to catch, besides... he was asleep in the back anyway...  A very pleasant surprise was in store for us though; the GPS took us onto CR 154 which is a two lane road through the valleys and mountains of Santa Barbara.  It was such a beautiful, winding road with incredible vistas opening up with each corner turned.  All around us campers were on the road in their jeeps with their tents latched onto their roofs.

I was so enjoying the view that at first I didn't realize we were low on gas.  But once I saw the fuel gage, I decided to turn this into an opportunity to explore.  We were going through major camp country and when I saw a sign for fuel right next to a sign for a campsite, I knew I just had to follow that path.  As we turned off the road, we came up to an entrance gate where the ranger on duty asked us what we needed.  When we inquired about gas, she just gave us a pass and pointed us in the right direction.  After that we found ourselves in the middle of a wonderful campsite right next to what I later realized was Lake Cachuma.

 We refilled and got some drinks and snacks from the General Store and were back on the road once again.

            

After driving 198 miles on the 'El Camino Real' for about 3 and a half hours, we were finally on the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus.  

Murat was advised that one of the things he should do when visiting a school was to try the food there, so we headed to the first cafeteria we could find.  It was the Market at Cal Poly, a supermarket/cafeteria with quite bad food but we were famished and just dealt with it.  

After Murat visited the engineering school and was properly impressed with their wind tunnel, we were back on the road again.  

    

We found ourselves in the middle of the weekend rush hour traffic and had to stop at Santa Barbara for a little snack break.  Oh, it was such a hardship... 

Watching the sunset over the pacific ocean was great and catching the reflections on store windows was a lot of fun.

After lingering for as long as we could, we went back on the road and were pleasantly surprised to find that traffic was finally moving. 

By the time we got back to Los Angeles, it was dark and we were hungry once again and took this opportunity to introduce Mehmet to another LA classic...Hot dogs at  Pink's...

Pink's serves the most interesting hot dogs, maybe, anywhere... But one of the most interesting parts of the experience was the long unending line we had to wait in for almost 40 minutes; it is like this even at 2 o'clock in the morning.  This was definitely the right way to end this wonderful day.

http://www.pinkshollywood.com/index.htm

Pink's Hot Dogs

709 N. La Brea Ave (Melrose Avenue)

Los Angeles, CA 90038

(323) 931 - 4223

                      

At the Museum

I am a museum freak... that's what my boys call me anyway.  It is true that I feel most contended at a museum than anywhere else.  I always wanted to share this love with my kids and took them to various shows and exhibits from the time they could walk; unfortunately my plan backfired and if anything, they seem to have an aversion to museums.  I have a new protege I can work on now - Prometheus Maximus, my five weeks old nephew.  It's never too early to start...I thought ... and... took him to see the 'MANLY PURSUITS - The sporting images of THOMAS EAKINS' exhibit at the LACMA  this past week, the first of many museum visits we can enjoy together in the future, I hope.

The Art History of Western Civilizations class I took at the New School this past spring, of course, covered  Eakins while on the subject of Realism; one of his most famous paintings 'Gross Clinic' was on the final, as a matter of fact.  It is such a powerful work that I have been meaning to go and see the real thing in Philadelphia soon, although I did get a chance to view what is considered to be Eakins's finest figure painting 'Salutat' at the LACMA.

I find special exhibitions like these about an artist to be very interesting; they are a great way of getting some inside information about the particular working techniques and influences of an artist.  This exhibit was enlightening about Eakins's perfectionist attention to details and the influence of photography in his work of the time period.

Eakins's meticulous perspective studies drafted repeatedly for his paintings with rowers were fascinating.  I am aware of the preliminary sketches or numerous studies involved in any painting but these looked like the work of an engineer or an architect rather than the sketches of artists I had seen before.  They had rooms full of photographs he took of male nudes in action and the figures were represented incredibly realistically, right down to the tan lines on the necks and hands of the sportsmen attesting to their profession as laborers during the day.  The 'Swimming Hole' was a painting of Eakins and some of his students that I had seen in one of my textbooks that was also on display.  The book stated that this work was considered to be so scandalous that it caused his dismissal from the academy as an instructor.

In all of his sporting images, Eakins chose to represent a break in the action, one moment suspended in time; the Catherine OPIE 'Figure and Landscape' photography exhibition that was on view at the next gallery was photographs of  high school football games and players, also suspended in time, interpreted as a continuation of Eakins' Sporting Images from contemporary life. What I found most powerful were a room full of her Surfers Series.  All white room with photographs of a white sea and sky and men as only little, insignificant dots on the horizon.  The calm, quiet of the sea was so palpable as to be almost eerie.

Our museum outing was a grand success, Prometheus slept through most of it... We went back to the LACMA one more time to walk through some other parts of their collection; the rest will have to be for another visit...

  

End of Another Journey...

My trip to visit my brother's family is almost over... I go back to New Jersey, my real life, tomorrow.  I have been here for nine days and I don't know where the time has gone.  Basically I spent most of my time sitting at home and watching my nephew while he slept, fed and p...ed.  This whole week has had a very calming effect on me; previously, I never would've believed that I could've sat still without any major activity for this long.  This has been the antidote to my hectic, boisterous summer in Bodrum but the predominant essence underlying both trips have been the element of family, connecting and creating memories.  I will probably treasure this week among the most precious in my life, the week I spent bonding with my newborn nephew.

Another great coincidence was Cenk's absence due to business in New York; Wendy and I had a wonderful time at home taking care of the baby, outside taking the baby on our daily outings to the Grove or the museum.  As it turns out, Cenk and Wendy's apartment is five minutes from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, otherwise known as LACMA.  This was an opportunity I couldn't pass up even in my most serene state of mind.  Most people who know me wouldn't be surprised that I found my way either to the museum itself or to the park surrounding it at least four to five times this past week.  It was inevitable...

We did get the opportunity to spend one Saturday with Cenk before he left and it ended up being a lovely day that began with breakfast at home and then later on a trip to the Grove, an outdoor shopping center located next to the Farmer's Market, which is almost across the street from their apartment complex.

The Grove was delightful; we sat outside by the fountain at 'the Farm of Beverly Hills'.  The coffee was great and the light fare we enjoyed was delicious.  Cenk opted for a cheese plate, I had Huevos Rancheros, basted eggs on a crisp corn tortilla with a ranchero sauce topped with cheese and avocado and Wendy had chicken fingers - her classic choice for this particular restaurant, I am told. 

I concluded my meal with a piece of cheese and some candied pecans and caramelized pears from Cenk's Cheese Plate.

This was my colorful 'Huevos Rancheros' which was innovative and surprising.

The Farm of Bevelry Hills at the Grove

http://www.thefarmofbeverlyhills.com/the_grove.shtml

189 the Grove Drive

Los Angeles, CA 90036

(323) 525-1699

For Cenk's last dinner before he left, I prepared some of his favorites including 'Torn Borek with Cheese' which is  sort of a Turkish version of a cheese soufflé.  This was very impressive when it came out of the oven and they told me it tasted as good as it looked; I had to be satisfied with their declaration since I couldn't judge for myself (it is definitely not gluten-free.)

 'Torn Borek with Cheese'

6 Flour Tortillas Shredded into small pieces

5 beaten eggs 

1 cup milk

2 cups shredded cheese (Mozarella or Mixed Mexican Cheese)

1/4 cup melted margarine

Mix all ingredients together and pour in a greased oven proof dish.  Leave in the refrigerator overnight.  Bake in 350 degree oven for about one hour. Serve immediately.

For this past week, I played the part of the elderly aunt come to help out... I don't know when my life changed so much or when I changed so much that I am happy and content in this role.  I am still surprised at myself and haven't quite figured out the reason for this transformation... or maybe I have... That sweet smell, those trusting, smiling eyes, those heart melting cooing sounds... there is almost nothing I won't do, no role I am not willing to play to be able to hold him as he sleeps peacefully in my arms.

LACMA