Global Los Angeles

[CITYofDREAMS]

After returning from China and trying just any Chinese food restaurant in LA can be very disappointing especially those in Chinatown.Good to know that we are so close to some of the best Chinese restaurant in the nation. I really need to check some of the ones listed in this report.

[losangelino]

Originally Posted by CITYofDREAMS

After returning from China and trying just any Chinese food restaurant in LA can be very disappointing especially those in Chinatown.Good to know that we are so close to some of the best Chinese restaurant in the nation. I really need to check some of the ones listed in this report.

I actually was disappointed in the food in Hong Kong (not the taste, just that it was different than LA). I love the city but I guess when living in LA you are truly global so don't expect anything "different" in these places. LOTS of good electronics shopping through.

[pesto]

Not to sound obvious, but it's a matter of taste. This guy's opinions are as good as anyone else's but no better.

Chinese growing up in the US and going back to China tell me they find the food low-grade and not fresh. But with 100M restaurants what kind of generalization can you possibly make?

NY not being included is not surprising; the Chinese food there is generally very bad. As noted, working class slop.

Yank Sing? Please be serious. Try to sort out the difference between big and good. A nice fun place but hardly quality food.

I won't comment specifically on LA, but these are generally good choices. But I'm not sure I would list all of them among the superstars.

Vancouver, Toronto: too stupid to comment on. Why ruin a fun article with absurd comments that are impossible to verify and gratuitously annoying? Childish.

[milquetoast]

I guess I know who I'm going to dinner with!

[112597Jorge]

Los Angeles will host the 2015 special olympics

http://www.sosc.org/page.aspx?pid=1368

[VZN]

Originally Posted by 112597Jorge

Los Angeles will host the 2015 special olympics

http://www.sosc.org/page.aspx?pid=1368

This is definitely some great news.

[Thundergod]

[saiholmes]

KOREATOWN: K-Town on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/LOuD

[saiholmes]

The largest Asian night market experience in the United States
http://www.626nightmarket.com/
http://www.facebook.com/626NightMarket



The 626 Night Market moves to its new home: Santa Anita Park.

Come visit us for two straight nights of the largest Asian night market experience in the United States. Only in the 626.

October 20 & 21, 2012
Saturday: 3pm - 12am​
Sunday: 3pm - 10pm

Free admission!
Arrive early from 3 - 4pm for $4 parking and "free horse racing"
Parking after 4pm is $7

[pesto]

Originally Posted by saiholmes

The largest Asian night market experience in the United States
http://www.626nightmarket.com/
http://www.facebook.com/626NightMarket



The 626 Night Market moves to its new home: Santa Anita Park.

Come visit us for two straight nights of the largest Asian night market experience in the United States. Only in the 626.

October 20 & 21, 2012
Saturday: 3pm - 12am​
Sunday: 3pm - 10pm

Free admission!
Arrive early from 3 - 4pm for $4 parking and "free horse racing"
Parking after 4pm is $7

The 626 hs really undergone an amazing transformation: first a nice quiet generation of mostly Chinese small businessmen, then their kids, with a mix of Asian, traditional American, hiphop and Latino culture. Interesting what diversity can result in.

[saiholmes]

LA's Little Tokyo

[VZN]

Antonio Villaraigosa: South America Trade Trip Was A Success

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Friday said his recent trip to South America resulted in agreements to study ways to increase trade and tourism to Los Angeles.

The mayor had a 10-day trip to Brazil, Chile and Colombia with local business leaders and city officials from the Port of Los Angeles, Los Angeles World Airports and the Tourism and Convention Bureau.

"Now is the time to ensure Los Angeles remains a competitive player in South America's emerging markets," Villaraigosa said. "Los Angeles is the gateway to the United States and the rest of the world, and we need to leverage our assets."

The mayor said the goal of the trip was to create new partnerships to help create local jobs.

Villaraigosa said he received commitments from government and business leaders to study establishing nonstop flights from LAX, which also should result in increased cargo operations.

He said an agreement was reached with Start-Up Chile to increase access to Chile for Los Angeles businesses. Also, an agreement was reached with the LA-Brazil Alliance to work with Hollywood as well as to help other businesses open and expand in Brazil.

The mayor said South America has one of the world's fastest-growing middle classes and presents opportunity for growth by Los Angeles firms.

[saiholmes]

Originally Posted by Los Angeles Times

Basking in a uniquely Korean 24-hour spa experience
Not just saunas, but video games, TVs, food, multiple generations and oddly, a place to sleep around the clock can be found at Wi Spa.
By Gale Holland, Los Angeles Times
4:56 PM PST, December 13, 2012

Robert Kim took his family to Wi Spa last Friday night so his wife could revisit the public bath culture she grew up with in Korea. Besides, his two sons, the older one anyway, love the children's playroom, equipped with video games, foosball and a slide.

The Kims (the last name, he joked, of half the families in the cavernous jimjilbang) ran into another father he knew from the Korean-English dual language school their kids attend in Porter Ranch. (More on the jimjilbang later.) The children ran back and forth from the playroom to the floor mats where the men lounged, leaning against backrests.

"It's a nice little family outing," said Kim, a contractor. "We usually don't let them play video games except for weekends," Kim shrugged. "But my wife wanted to relax."

Wi is a 24-hour spa on the edge of K-town, modeled on a national culture that arose when most Koreans didn't have their own bathrooms. Several floors resemble a Western spa: marble counters, room dividers covered in tiny glass tile and a gym.

But the jimjilbang is uniquely Korean, a ballroom-size chamber with wide pillars where mother, father, grandparents and kids are sprawled out on vinyl mats, fooling with their laptops, watching television, reading and sleeping. Everyone dresses in yellow T-shirts and baggy khaki shorts, handed out at check-in as a hygiene measure. The scene looks like a reunion picnic, or summer camp, without the bunk inspections.

Some families even spend the night. Rest assured, no matter what time you arrive at Wi Spa, someone will be sleeping. On the mats in front of flat-screen TVs at 4 p.m.; on the wooden bench beside the baths at 6 p.m., and on white leather couches near midnight.

And no matter when you leave, someone will be applying makeup at the vanities, taking baths and using the hair dryers. As I packed up at 5:30 a.m. last week, a mother was smoothing lotion on her daughter in a scene out of a Renoir painting.

There are no rules but one: You must get naked. But only on the floors where the men and women part company to take the baths and undergo various scrubbing, massaging and skin-polishing regimens. In the women's section, the services are provided by no-nonsense Korean women dressed in matching black lace bras and briefs — I know how that sounds, but the uniform is serviceable, not alluring.

Radiant heat wafts up from the floors, creating a womb-like atmosphere. During my visit, a few young women hung onto their towels until the last second. But you really can't cling to your modesty when grandmothers, mothers and daughters of all sizes and descriptions have abandoned theirs.

No one cares what anyone else does, or who sees them do it. A 24-hour restaurant serves snacks, Korean food and, in a sop to vegans, avocado tacos. But one mother passed out persimmon slices from a plastic container she brought from home.

The jimjilbang is ringed by saunas of varying temperatures and (unproven) health benefits, the clay ball room, Himalayan salt room, jade room and ice room. The bulgama, encased in a clay oven that looks like a lopped-off beehive, was 226 degrees, hot enough to boil an egg. Manager Jonathan Seo said it was too hot for him, but typical of the Korean spas he used to visit with his family.

"Back in my country of origin, the public baths would be a bonding time for my dad and myself," Seo said.

Unlike in Western spas, no one cares about the kids experiencing extreme temperatures. A 10-year-old told me she braved the bulgama, and when I peeked in the ice room, one little boy was sitting on top of another.

I got caught up in the indulgent mood and watched several Korean soap operas. In one, two couples sought fake divorces so they could inherit money. The stock villain seemed to be the daughter-in-law.

Friday night was family night, and most of the spa guests were Korean Americans, but there was a sprinkling of Chinese and white locals, and some tourists from Atlanta. A downtown office employee stopped by on her way to a party in Santa Monica. "That way I'll arrive relaxed" and beat the traffic, she said. A few Hollywood filmmakers were also there, including one who asked me not to name her lest the place be deluged with industry types. She sometimes takes meetings in the jimjilbang.

Her son and other twenty-somethings bar-hop in K-town, get a late-night bite at the restaurant and lie down for a few hours before heading home, she told me. And indeed, about 1 a.m., the hipsters, including one in blond dreadlocks, arrived on schedule, although not noticeably inebriated.

Two young couples half-sat and half-lay on the little stage where Wi Spa from time to time has put on karaoke contests. Sean Fohle, a graduate student in economics at UCLA, had been there after a bachelor party brunch, arriving "fairly inebriated," he said. One of the guys cannonballed into the men's pool.

"There were some bad looks, but nobody said anything or kicked us out," said Fohle, a Palms resident.

For the bachelor party, Fohle had gone on the Internet and learned to make the traditional Korean "lamb's head" towel hat, which many of the Koreans in the jimjilbang were sporting.

At 1 a.m., bedtime was nowhere in sight for the Kim family. The dads and I had the kind of long, lazy conversation you can only have at 1 in the morning when you're so relaxed you're not embarrassed to sit on a mat in kids' clothing and talk to perfect strangers.

I retreated to the darkened room on the women's floor, passing three robed bodies in translucent face masks lying end to end, and a mother with her limbs entangled with her daughter's, all sound asleep.

Read More: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,7212323.story

[klamedia]

Good! They didn't blow up my spa! The one that I go to is very very diverse with a healthy mix of people. They would never be able to say "but there was a sprinkling of Chinese and white locals". Just "a sprinkling of locals" would have been a more appropriate thing to say.

[saiholmes]

Originally Posted by klamedia

Good! They didn't blow up my spa! The one that I go to is very very diverse with a healthy mix of people. They would never be able to say "but there was a sprinkling of Chinese and white locals". Just "a sprinkling of locals" would have been a more appropriate thing to say.

lots of places. Just click the link.
http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc...y=review_count

[saiholmes]

[losangelino]

50 most Stylish neighborhoods in the world? Hmm, we only get two. And some suspiciously missing.

http://www.complex.com/style/2012/10...-in-the-world/

[saiholmes]

Originally Posted by losangelino

50 most Stylish neighborhoods in the world? Hmm, we only get two. And some suspiciously missing.

http://www.complex.com/style/2012/10...-in-the-world/

45. Atwater Village
Location: Los Angeles
15. Silver Lake
Location: Los Angeles

[klamedia]

That list just became irrelevant with the mention of Atwater Village.

[losangelino]

Originally Posted by klamedia

That list just became irrelevant with the mention of Atwater Village.

LOL, I thought the same thing. But then I haven't been over there in a while so might be worth a look see.