Mural on Main

Mural on Main
Originally uploaded by meekorouse

THURSDAY: As seen from 5th & Main Streets: A mural was in progress, painted on the side of the Old Bank District garage. @RawMaterials tweeted out that it was the work of Claudio Ethos.

Schnitzly Schnitzel Now Open!

An email from Patti B. in our New Downtown yahoo group Thursday last week let us know that Schnitzly Schnitzel was now open. Sean had driven by a couple weeks ago when they had yet to open so it was on our radar.

Our schedule opened up where we could finally go there for lunch today. As far as we know this location on 7th near Los Angeles is associated with the location on Pico near Beverly Hills.


exterior of Schnitzly on 7th near Los Angeles.. not the best shot but there's a lot of characters hovering about.. (the fellow talking loudly on his phone excluded.. he was a fellow customer looking for a business associate late for lunch.. no I didn't ask, he just was really loud).

Nevermind that and go inside. It's really nice (and there's lots of seating though I didn't get a shot):


A long counter where your salad is made to order (lettuce, tomato, pickles, red onions or grilled onions.. and several scrumptious sauces are available for your fixings) Scnitzels come in a variety of flavors..





Sean went with the Garlic Schnitzel & had the garlic mayo with it..

Various salads are available: Schnitzel, steak, and a healthy salad.. I went with the Schnitzel Salad (Indian flavored):

Like the sandwiches, the salad is huge. While the salad itself isn't anything exciting, the schnitzel is good!! I had sweet chili sauce and garlic mayo on mine (but was advised the chimichurri is good too!)

They have canned soda (like coke zero!) Snapple etc.. in a cooler at the end of the long counter.. Since they just opened it's still cash only. Lunch for the two items came to about $24.

HOURS: Monday through Thursday 930-6pm and Friday 930-3pm
213.488.9511

No website yet.

I guess I should post more?

Wow no update since January. I'd tell you what I was up to for the last two months but it has nothing to do with downtown.. which means this blog is pretty limited.

On the other hand I've been updating my "diet blog" a couple times a week. I've lost 20lbs on Weight Watchers (we're doing the online version b/c I hate the idea of having to show up somewhere every week & confess my sins of not drinking enough liquids or explaining to a stranger why I opted for some Fresh & Easy chocolate..) I have about another 50 lbs to go. Yeah. Sitting on your butt really does harm your health.

The last story I did for Blogdowntown was last month on Sharlena's new place that will be opening in the summer. "Semi Sweet" I think it'll be a neat place and she'll be offering a really wide range of savory items.. not just the sweet stuff she's known for.

I've been to Michigan to visit my brother the week of St Patrick's Day. He's been very ill so I was grateful I got to spend time with him when I had the chance. I'll be headed back sometime this summer for a family gathering to celebrate his life.. He passed on not a week after I saw him. No I don't want to talk about it.

Honestly after that, blogging just doesn't seem so crucial at the moment. I haven't gotten out much in the past couple weeks either, so I really am not up on what's going on.

So what am I doing with my time?

I'm working on another of my new year's resolutions to do the family tree. My dad gave me a nice wedge of info to kick-start me again. I was up to 4am this morning working on it and got a little further along than what my dad had info for, so that's good. I'm working on my biological family tree as well. That's a totally different story not downtown related that I'm aware. There are some half-siblings I'm looking for but I don't think they live in DTLA; assuming they're living I'm leaning toward the IE and the bay area.. that's where I"m at with those clues.

Honestly the only thing I can scrape together that's even downtown related is the amount of dust that filters through our not-so-sealed 100year old windows. My allergies have been kicking up with the dust.. Sneezing by both me & the cats is pretty rampant here.

I'm trying to organize our stuff.. Going through stuff, boxing up the clutter and putting it all in one place to be gone through with Sean later: the stuff, not all of it mine, so it's not for me to just get rid of it. But yeah, looking at our place you'd never know I was into Simplicity.. not to mention I have a collecting gene myself I fight against. =)

I'm contemplating "Book Crossing" some of my older fiction books to clear some shelf space. Maybe donating to the library is quicker and less tedious, but Book Crossing might be fun too. I haven't Book Crossed anything since Berkeley maybe.. (my memory is going) and the couple books I sent 'into the wild' never really went anywhere, except an Ruth Rendell galley book.. which I guess horrified the reader who found it. Yeah, it was a creepy book. I didn't write it, so not sure why the person felt obliged to complain while doing their online review. Free is Free. If the book stinks, just pass it on.

If you've heard of "Book Crossing" do you know of any "Official" Book Crossing Zones in downtown LA?? Do you know of any friendly places to abandon a book to the wild? Please don't say the library or Disneyland.. it doesn't work there. Seriously.

DineLA Week 2 @ Starry Kitchen

Today starts 'week 2' of DineLA; and one of our favorite restaurants is once again participating. Lunch was $16 a person and includes an appetizer, entree and dessert. A LOT OF FOOD!! I ended up using most of my daily 'weight watchers' allotment on this one meal.. As I write I am still stuffed!

I thought I'd share some pix from our lunch today!! =)

Sean's meal was the Crispy Kimchi Rice Cakes appetizer, Spicy Black Korean Pork Belly Banh Mi w/ Spicy Vietnamese Salad as a side..


I went for the Pandan Chicken, the Spicy Black Korean Pork Belly wrap w/ Spicy Vietnamese Salad as a side..

I ended up not being keen on the Pandan Chicken.. That's a first for me! I did have one of Sean's Kimchi Rice Cakes.. I liked that!

and dessert..

Pandan Flan and Durian Cheesecake (foreground) We ended up halving them so we could try both.. yum! The Pandan Flan is still my favorite though. =)

DineLA continues til Thursday February 4th all over Metro LA.. with varying price points.. lunch and dinner. If you're in the LA area I would suggest going to the LA Restaurant Week website and see if there's someplace new (or a favorite place) in your area you'd like to try..



**Disclaimer** Yes, I'm still on Weight Watchers.. I have a blog for that now! Check it out: Do or Doughnut **

sidewalk scene

sidewalk scene
Originally uploaded by meekorouse

This was the scene on the corner of Main & Winston early Saturday morning. I posted this to Facebook then, and got several interesting comments regarding the hinky-ness of this filming. They did have a permit.. they weren't necessarily the part of the filming that was legitimately going on this past weekend. (we still haven't figured this out) and they weren't selling shoes.

What amused me about it (because getting woke up on Saturday from some guy with a bullhorn wasn't it!) was their attempt to film a cafe scene on the sidewalk in front of the parking lot next door.. Good Luck with whatever that is. Maybe next time they can save up and rent a real cafe??

Beer at the Nickel

As most folks who know me, know one of my favorite places to eat is the Nickel Diner. I have several posts about the place and have joked in the past often this should be my Nickel Diner blog.. "so what you eat this week??" Actually, it's been a while.. in part because I've been out of town a lot the last couple months. Then there's the diet. Going on Weight Watchers new program had me anxious to see if I could even go out to eat, let alone enjoy my favorite places.

Having a mad craving for meat, we headed to the Nickel so I would be sated. The surprise waiting for us was Kristen Trattner, noticing the Sean's NOFD tshirt mentioned she had a bottle of Dixie for him to try. "What?!"


Sean taking a sip of his Dixie..

Turns out their beer & wine license went through the beginning of the year. Kristen says they should have it on the menu officially next week and will carry about five or six different beers at a time. Like the soda they offer, she says they plan to mix it up and 'keep it fun'.. So at least for now, they plan to have different brands available.

This was Sean's first Dixie (I got him hooked on Abita) and agreed with Kristen it's definitely an 'everyman's beer' and similar to a PBR. So there you go. =)

Big Thanks to Kristen for sharing the news with us. It's a long time coming for that beer and wine license.

As for me, I did alright!



I ordered the lowrider burger (Ano chilis, pepperjack cheese, red onions, lettuce, tomatoes) w/ a salad instead of fries. I asked for the dressing on the side. I did good earlier in the day so I actually had just enough to be able to eat the burger (leaving the bun). It was just the thing!

Next time I'll get that steak salad.. sometimes a cheeseburger is all you really want.

Just Another Saturday on Main

An average weekend (or weekday) will find traffic stopped on Main so that filming of some kind can occur. I get so many FilmLA notices (one must subscribe to email updates as the posting of FilmLA notices are erratic or non-existent), I'm not sure if this was an 'action' shot or just a messed up car commercial.

If you see the video the car is being driven South-bound on a normally North-bound ONLY Main Street. Basically all day long traffic is stopped, shouting occurs to silence the neighborhood and then a 'take' is shot, then repeated several times over several hours. Most people who live downtown are familiar with this as it seems Downtown LA is the location for any number of programs, (like CSI: NY or Castle) commercials and movies (too many to name).

This one was fairly innocuous, as far as noise and light (night shots can often be bad as giant spotlights are shone into buildings as they light the block up and shooting on sidewalks can be annoying if you have some jerk PA trying to tell you you can't walk on your own sidewalk out of your building). I can't speak for anyone dealing with the traffic stoppage though.

2011 Resolution Re-do..

One of my more successful resolutions.. to read more is getting renewed for another year.

I know New Year Resolutions are a joke. Most of the time they aren't kept or, attempted halfheartedly. I have a new crop of ideas that I hope some will shake themselves out to a positive effort. Some are just things I want to change about myself.. thought processes and bad habits. What it comes down to I think, is de-cluttering. So far I'm not doing so good & I'd like to think it's because I've spent the first part of the new year w/ the never-ending sinus cold. Never-mind that, here's my list I came up w/ on the flight home from Florida late last month:

2011 GOALS

read at least 2 books a month (since 1book a month seemed so easy)

start writing letters (you know, 'snail mail')

take a creative writing class!

go back 'on program' (this I've started on Jan 3rd! enrolling in Weight Watchers revamped program:"points plus" so if I talk about #ww that's what that is).

go 'home' more.. and by 'home' I mean the Bay Area.. When we moved so many years ago, I really did think we'd get back at least once a month like we seemed to do when we would head to Disneyland from Berkeley.. OK, or every other month realistically..I'd be happy if we could get up there maybe 2x a year?? to start?)

get a passport. I finally am curious enough to go on a cruise or if I ever hope to go to Tokyo or anywhere else in the world ever again).

bike, walk, or wii a day! (gotten to a rocky start with the cold but.. so far so good)

register for & DO a "minnie 5K" or whatever you call those things they do at the parks.. walking first then running.

'walk' the cornfield. I know this sounds lame but getting my butt over there to walk the track just hasn't happened yet.

organize the loft: We aren't hoarders I swear! but one of the bummer things about lofts is the lack of storage. Yesterday I actually priced a storage place to put all the stuff we want to keep but not have you know, 'out'..

re-write my manuscripts: I liked doing NaNoWriMo last year despite not getting to the 50k word minimum, but it did force me to sit down and write a few hours a day. More of that would be good.

Find lost siblings. One of the oddball things of the last year or so is that my biological older sister 'found' me on Facebook. So I found out I have half-siblings from my biological father's previous marriage. I joined Ancestry (which is fun!) and so I'm working on that some. It's not good for finding living people so much, but for doing my family trees, it's interesting. I want to find these half-siblings mostly for my biological sister.. If I can find at least one person this year that'd be good. Right? =)

convert our old videos: both VHS and those mini VCR and Hi-8 tapes of home movies we made at Disney World on our various vacations... Besides the convenience of stream-lining it all, the older they get, the more they degrade.

That last one is harder than it sounds.. I think at some point it's going to take a hardware upgrade (plus I don't know if I have what I need yet to do the conversions).

I think I would add to the list of 'goals' for this year:

visit my dear friend Joe in Eureka. I haven't seen him since he moved up there & I miss him bunches. It'll just be very difficult to get out there w/ out a car.

Find another place to have my afternoon tea and hang out..since Banquette closed New Year's Day..

See more movies! I have about 8 movies I want to go see right now.. and no, they're not all Disney!)

get my macbook looked at The tracking pad has been sticking & it's frustrating.

We'll see how I do. Go ahead and laugh. I already am.

HAPPY 2011!!

how I'm spending my new year's morning.. watching the Rose Parade w/ a bit of a cold.

Spent a quiet NYE celebrating at home after dinner at Pete's. I think a lot of our downtown neighbors and friends celebrated too in their own way, (whether it was staying at home or going to a local club like La Cita or Villains Tavern). However you spent it, hoping you're all having a wonderful & hangover free New Year's Day!

Whatever 2011 brings, may it work out for everyone eventually.. and that you have health, happiness, and as ever, friendship.

Christmas on Main

wreath on the Old Bank at 4th and Main..

Merry Christmas Downtown Neighbors!

Haven't been home the last couple weeks.. Missed Art Walk and any number of things going on in the neighborhood.. and plan to spend Christmas with a dear old friend from out of town... but otherwise enjoying the holidays downtown..

When it seems like the city has closed down for the holiday take a minute to enjoy the silence.. or at least a hot toddy at Pete's I guess. I would be surprised if they were closed.

OtoH today is your last chance to enjoy holiday shopping downtown as many businesses will be closed for the next couple days..

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Downtown! =)

I haven't posted much as I haven't spent a lot of time out & about this month. Instead I spent a couple days in Florida to celebrate my mom's birthday at our DVC home resort, Kidani Village..

The rest of this month I've been attempting NaNoWriMo; 50,000 words in 30 days.. or in my case 25 days.. I'm several thousand words behind at this point.. but I have a few more days. =)

I'm very out of practice for writing fiction. I was thinking contributing to a news blog would give me practice, but it's a different sort of writing altogether. It makes me wonder how Carl Hiassen does it.. (as I guess he still writes for the Miami Herald).

I'm definitely considering taking a writing or extension course early next year. My writing needs help!

Last weekend, the 20th I took another day off from writing to attempt the 2010 "Great Los Angeles Walk" This year they were back to Wilshire Blvd. and since we were unable to really attend it (for long) the first time around 4 years ago, I made sure to make it rain or shine..

Meeting up at Pershing Square (Sean tells me it's 7/10 mi from 4th & Main to One Wilshire) about 100 of us set out from One Wilshire and walked to the Ocean.. Well, I made it to 20th & Wilshire in Santa Monica.. that's when a kind-hearted soul named Michael offered me a lift to Border Grill =)

So Sean tells me that's 14.35 miles of the 16 miles to the beach (or 15mi total from our building.. LOL!). I guess that's not bad for not walking near at all this last year. I am a bit disappointed in myself but I knew if I let the big group get ahead of me by much near the end I would just keep getting behind..


one of my group shots..

my Great LA Walk 2010 flickr set

Today we're taking it easy, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, calling family and later we'll head to Pete's Cafe for T-day dinner and I've got what's left of our Cajun Kringle to eat for dessert later.. Ordered from New Orleans it's really yummy!



Eventually we'll be braving those "so early it's late" Black Friday specials.. but for now, wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.. however you spend it.