A few months ago our friends Sam and Jane came for a short trip from Seattle, but we only had one day with them. In LA, you could always do the super touristy stuff like Hollywood, Beverly Hills, or Rodeo Drive, but they already did some of that, so with us, they just wanted to take it easy, enjoy good food, and take nice pictures.
On a crisp fall day, it makes you want to spend time outdoors. So Joe and I decided to take them to the Getty and the Grove. Before that, we needed to fuel up on hot noodles. Jane is an avid blog reader, so she found a couple suggestions on another blog for some good hole in the wall places to eat. Joe and I are always up for trying new or different places so we sat back and let our out of town guests lead the way!
This led us to this small humble looking Asian plaza.
And we headed over to the Japanese Udon Noodle restaurant at the end called Oumi Sasaya located on 2383 Lomita Blvd, Unit 101 Lomita, CA 90717.
It’s a small little place, but every seat gets filled, so you might have to wait for a table like we did. Luckily they post the menu outside so with a quick look on yelp, we had a good idea what to get.
Joe and Sam are long time buds. Sam stood in our wedding as a groomsman. They have a bromance thing going so it was no surprise that they ordered the same thing. They both got the shrimp tempura curry udon noodles, since it seemed to be the most popular on yelp. It was a mix between a traditional curry and a soup. I’ve never had udon noodles this way, so it was a nice tasty surprise.
By the way, I love when noodle houses give you those big ladle-like spoons for your soup.
I wanted to be different so I ordered the shrimp tempura udon noodles that come with a side of warm sauce rather than a broth.
My dish was eh… ok. It comes with pureed radish on top, which to me, ended up making the whole dish taste like one big radish. It was still interesting because it came with fried tempura shrimp and chewy mochi pieces. The sauce tasted like hot soba sauce.
Ironically, Jane was the one who wanted hot noodles in the first place, since she chose the restaurant, but when she got there, she ordered cold noodles!
Her dish was really flavorful, and I’d probably order that next time. It came with lettuce, chicken, shredded nori, chilled noodles, and a sauce that tasted like peanut sauce. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I really liked her dish. I think mine needed some “stuff” in it like crunchy vegetables and maybe a thicker sauce for stronger flavor and texture.
Full of noodles, we piled into the car and made a pit stop at the Coffee Bean to get our favorite iced vanilla lattes before hitting the Getty.
The Getty Center, located on 1200 Getty Center Dr Los Angeles, CA 90049, is a great place to go for photo ops and if you want to spend time walking around outside. The museum entrance is free, but parking is $15.00 per vehicle. Once you park, you take the free tram to get to the museum.
All four of us appreciate photography, so we had a good time just walking around everywhere and looking at the architecture and landscaping.
We all whipped out our camera phones.
They even offer you free head sets with guided tours as you walk. Of course Sam had to take advantage of this and try to guide us.
The bromance continued as Joe and Sam made sure to take some time to force Jane and I to take pictures of them jumping…
And lounging on the grass together…
Jane even went all the way back up to the top just to capture this moment.
But I must admit, it’s actually pretty relaxing, and a perfect place to have a picnic lunch.
It was a gorgeous day.
I was just happy to see the leaves changing color. I’m usually surrounded by palm trees and I miss the foliage I used to see on the East Coast. My late grandmother used to say that looking at the colors of nature outside makes your eyes healthy.
Then we headed over to the Grove, located at 189 The Grove Dr. Los Angeles, CA 90036, to walk through the Farmer’s Market and do some window shopping at the stores.
I’m a sucker for pretty packaging.
It makes wine and chocolate look that much more appetizing… mmm… wine and chocolate. Love the individual cup idea. No need to pop open an entire bottle of wine for just one glass.
Jane’s last suggestion was to check out a place where they have good Korean fried chicken. We made our way to a Korean bar called OB Bear located on 3002 W 7th St Los Angeles, CA 90005. Be sure to ask for the English menu if you don’t read Korean. We ordered a few things like spicy rice cakes, and seafood pancake, but we were mostly there for the chicken.
Jane liked the plain fried whole chicken,
and I liked the spicy sticky wings.
The boys liked both. Overall, Jane’s picks were good, and we got to eat at places I’d probably not even know of if it weren’t for her. I guess it pays sometimes to read blogs, huh? Ahem.
I’m not too sure what Sam and Jane did with the rest of their time here, but I hope they got to go to the Beach, eat Mexican food, and get some Korean BBQ. That to me is LA in a nut shell. What about you? Where would you go if you could spend a day in LA?
