Los Angeles: Mar 24: To L.A.

After eating breakfast at work, we started our drive to L.A. in intense rain. After an hour the rain lessened, allowing us to enjoy the views of green hills near 101 and especially along 152. The wind took longer to let up; it jerked the car around a bit. Incidentally, despite the dampness, Gilroy smelled strongly of roasted garlic.

On the drive on 101, we spotted (and thankfully avoided) a tire tread in the fast lane. Then, 30 miles later, we spotted another one in the shoulder. Then, by a pull-off on 152 an hour later, we found lots of shredded tires. How odd.

The sights off 152 were so pretty that we stopped four times, three times in view of the San Luis Reservoir. This is when I started taking photos. Our last stop was at the San Luis Reservoir State Recreation Area's Romero Overlook Visitors Center.

Incidentally, Di Yin took more pictures than me this day. The link goes to her first picture from her album for this trip. When you see a picture of me taking a picture of a parking garage machine (picture #46) or of Santa Monica's pier (picture #47), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

Because of the clouds and lighting, we enjoyed the sights not only on highway 152 but along the whole drive. Indeed, as Di Yin said, "It's a good day to drive to L.A. The landscape is fully dramatized."

Once in L.A., we checked into our hotel, Hollywood Hotel, which was perfectly decent.

We headed out again to meet our friends B and E for dinner. The rain returned, dangerously so.

B and E selected Palmeri, an Italian restaurant near them. It was good. I appreciated that the chef was light-handed (i.e., not heavy-handed) in making the dishes. Sorry I didn't take pictures at dinner.

We had good seared scallops and a roasted potato and sausage dish as appetizers. I also tried the fried zucchini flower special; it was zucchini flowers stuffed with lots of creamy cheese, deep-fried, and served in a bowl made from fried parmesan. The parmesan complemented the flowers well, but I was nevertheless disappointed with the dish--I'd hoped for a lightly fried dish of zucchini flowers, not a rich, cheesy deep-fried thing. (I should've tried the other special which also sounded intriguing: a salad of finely sliced raw artichoke.) Di Yin tried the beet salad, which was presented in an unusual form: beets were chopped and pressed in a mass a la pate or cake.

For mains, I had the tortelli, a delicious, light pasta stuffed with pork (technically amatriciana) and tossed with a bit of spinach and asparagus. Di Yin's lasagna special was similarly light. B's pillowy gnocchi special was dressed with truffle oil.

Our waiter was humorous, and gently ribbed us.

Di Yin observed the restaurant was filled with "pretty L.A. people" and wondered if the whole city was like this. We also spotted a group that looked like mobsters.

After dinner we walked to Yogurtland, one of L.A.'s many joints that sell frozen yogurt by the ounce. I tried and liked the vanilla. The pistachio was fairly good too. The devil's food cupcake batter flavor was really chocolatey.