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Notes on Living in Los Angeles

sashachapin.substack.com

71–76 of 76 posts

Re: Notes on Living in Los Angeles

#71

Some surprising realizations I had living in LA for 7 years, that were not mentioned in the article: - Great cycling weather. LA has come a long way in bike lanes and buses that can carry your bike. It's not all about cars. - It's basically working class due to the garment and aerospace industry. These are filipino and hispanic workers that have families and live generally outside of the trendy neighborhoods (or they…

>the standard tech bro who lifts weights.

I feel personally attacked

Re: Notes on Living in Los Angeles

#72
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak about Bangkok, or Chicago. On Tokyo, Barcelona, and to a lesser extend LA, SF, I feel more confident to say something. It is greatly a question what you are looking for, and the author quite apparently appreciates the variety. And I have to give it to them, I do not think that Tokyo or Barcelona are in the same league there. That is not to disparage the quality of the food. I hold Tokyo in high regard,…

I m not sure what level of pricee you expect, also. But LA is really far and hispano-american to be truly neutral culinarily. I'm french and therefore a bit food snob. I live in Hong Kong, a place where the local food is 3 USD a meal, and the meat dicey while most nationalities, French especially, are represented at all price levels. It's still going to be skewed toward Asian taste (where are the Camembert sushi, a s…

What I've noticed about the French/Italian food snobs is that they seem to view American food culture as it was in 1990s suburbia. Back then, good olive oil or artisanal cheese was pretty hard to find outside of small "gourmet" food stores. It's very different today.

Re: Notes on Living in Los Angeles

#73
post #59

LA never felt like a city to me because of the sprawl. I remember driving into downtown from the airport, and thinking to myself, “This is a suburb with tall buildings in the distance”. I chalk this up to me being from the East Coast and going to NYC a lot as a kid, and therefore seeing a “city” as something that’s dense and walkable.

As a fellow northeast-corridor-megalopolis-denizen this got me too (plus the straight-up enormous size of the blocks [0]), but then I realized you can see actual mountains from the actual city and my mind got blown in the other direction.

[0] It's like they're designed for drag racing so you can get up to 60 mph and still brake in time for the next light.

Re: Notes on Living in Los Angeles

#74
post #27

I lost trust in the whole article when it came to the paragraph on food. LA has a great food scene, but I would put Tokyo, Bangkok, Barcelona, Chicago, and probably another 5-10 cities ahead of it. Saying "Los Angeles is the world’s best food city, and it’s not close" is myopic.

I can't speak about Bangkok, or Chicago. On Tokyo, Barcelona, and to a lesser extend LA, SF, I feel more confident to say something. It is greatly a question what you are looking for, and the author quite apparently appreciates the variety. And I have to give it to them, I do not think that Tokyo or Barcelona are in the same league there. That is not to disparage the quality of the food. I hold Tokyo in high regard,…

When I lived in LA I always felt like the variety argument was kind of nonsensical. It's not like the typical LA neighborhood has great reprsentation of a lot of different ethnic foods. The best korean is in korea twon, the best chinese in the SGV, etc... but day to day it doesn't matter that "LA" has it because theres nowhere you can live where you are even an hour drive to most of it.

Most peoples actual LA experience is that they stay mostly confined to one little part of LA because they have a two hour commute during the week. They never get to really dig into that food scene because it's just to big a hassle to be a part of it.

Hot take: I don't think the best food in southern california is even in Los Angeles it's in Baja Mexico to the south.

Re: Notes on Living in Los Angeles

#75
post #68
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish people would specify how many restaurants they visited in each city they judge. I think 50 is the minimum before we can judge any city as a whole. NYC > Chicago > SF > LA > Miami.

I think LA is still deeper and more interesting foodwise than SF. NYC is above all by a good margin though

LA and SF were close for me but in very different ways. Agree about NYC, easy #1.

Re: Notes on Living in Los Angeles

#76
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense, but your comment sounds like you only know LA from what you read in your social media bubble online. The "Hollywood" you are referencing is not geographic. Yes the film studios are in Los Angeles but hollywood celebrity culture is not a property of nor exclusive to Los Angeles the city. And what about the homless population? Yes it is a problem that there are so many unhoused people. But is it really surp…

I had a great trip with friends to western USA some years back, including LA where I loved a lot of things. Food wasn’t one of those but it was 100% due to our bad choices. However, Hollywood Bd truly was an horrible disappointment. It’s probably the place during this trip where I felt truly unsafe. But that fortunately was not enough to spoil my good memories.

There are no worthwhile tourist attractions on Hollywood Boulevard, it's more known for selling apparel to "exotic dancers". There are also no movie studio activities there, outside of that one theater that does red carpets. The stars in the sidewalk are not worth visiting. Anyone living in LA knows this, but it still traps tourists all the time. Please don't generalize Hollywood Boulevard to say much about the greater LA area.
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