There are definitely trendier and more expensive steakhouses than Lawry’s in Los Angeles. However, I keep on taking out of towners here because it’s like a time oasis in the middle of Beverly Hills. Silver serving carts, middle aged ladies mixing Molly salads at the tables, and their aged red leather seats all evoke a different era during LA’s golden age. That and my buddy gets me 30% off the bill. Pure LA, baby.

Dating back to the 1920’s, the Golden Gopher is one of LA’s oldest surviving bars. The speakeasy decor, wide mix of patrons and their in-house liquor store all add to the ambiance of the place.

The Edison is an upscale lounge in downtown that’s jumped on the trend of converting old, dilapidated buildings into hip money-making service venues. To the owners credit, they have taken great care to maintain much of the old power plant’s architecture. What I do have an issue with is their extremely strict dress code. The bouncer wouldn’t let me in with my $220 white Lacoste loafers because they were considered “athletic sneakers” but casually waved through my friend sporting $17.95 black Payless shit kickers that he wears to his construction job. The guy’s either a true adherent to Marx’s idolization of the proletariat class, or he’s hopelessly ignorant when it comes to the world of fashionable footwear. Peasant!

Newly remodeled a few years ago, the Griffith Observatory offers guests a glimpse into the far reaches of the universe as well as providing a comfortable atmosphere for teenagers to fornicate in their cars. If I’d only known the Observatory’s aphrodisiacal powers when I was in high school I would’ve been a lot less lonely… and angry.

I don’t know how Americans do it, but as soon as Koreans step off the plane on to foreign soil, what would you assume is the the first thing they want to eat? If you guessed Korean food, you would you be correct about my people’s culinary ethnocentrism. This makes absolutely no sense to me, but I have learned my lesson from previous experience. Previously taking them to eat at Cuban or Persian restaurants, my native relatives would exclaim unsolicited comments such as, “WHAT IS THIS?”, “THIS SMELLS FUNNY!” and “KOREAN FOOD IS SO MUCH BETTER!”. Hence, Chung Ki Wa in Koreatown. Authentic Korean food at decent prices with less bitching from the kinsmen. Everybody wins…

Maybe it’s not the hot restaurant that it once used to be, but I’ve found that this restaurant consistently offers the best and most frequent celebrity sightings. As an Angeleno, of course I’m haugtily blase about these sorts of things, but you know how these out of town bumpkins are. “Jean Claude Van Damme? Here??” squeal

The original location, Mecca of the Fro-Yo craze.

I’m well aware of what the Watts Tower tries to symbolize, and know the effort and heartache the original designer Sabato Rodia endured to make it. But to me, it still looks like various pieces of trash welded together to make higher and more phallic pieces of trash. Admittedly, the only reason I bring my guests to the Watts Tower is to further cement their unshakable beliefs that LA is rife with gangsters and violent criminals and this outing not only scares them senseless, but also further increases my street cred.