Los Angeles

Located on Broadway and Hill between 2nd and 3rd, The Grand Central Market reflects the changes sweeping over Downtown Los Angeles. Long before farmers markets appeared all over LA, the Grand Central Market provided the Downtown community with fresh food at affordable prices.

The shoppers who filled the aisles, bought fresh produce, fruit, fish, meat and poultry. Freshly made tortillas traveled down a conveyer belt where they were stacked in plastic bags and sold still warm in the open-air tortilla factory that once stretched along the southern wall close to Broadway.

The Market specialized in health products, fresh fruit juices, herbal teas and homeopathic remedies from around the world. And where there are shoppers, they will be places to eat. Dozens of stalls sold Mexican tacos, enchiladas, ceviche, whole lobsters, plates of fried fish and shrimp in the shell. Anyone who needed an old-school Chinese-American food fix could eat at China Cafe and Broadway Express.

Kai Lobach's “baby” is Currywurst, the hole in the wall sausage restaurant on Fairfax Avenue that he opened a few years ago and is fighting to keep alive and well. Small, compact, and beautiful as it is, it has not had the proper attention it deserves! Maybe it’s because in Southern California we don’t appreciate sausage stands. They are a common site, though, in Germany and are as popular and ubiquitous as Mickey D's here in America. We don’t think in terms of sausages for lunch…or dinner…and not too much for breakfast anymore, truth be told.

No, when making a lunch plan, sausages, (pork, chicken, or veal), served on a delicious homemade brioche bun, with a choice of different sauces on the side, (including my favorite aoili mayonnaise) doesn’t come readily to mind. But it should, the way Curry Wurst makes it! Served with excellent French fries on the side. My Heaven. The French fries are so good; in fact, they could be the main act.

Kai Lobach goes way beyond interesting and catapults risk-taking to new heights. He also seems to be quite fearless, but I suppose one has to be to lead a life guided by passion. Make that plural…passions.

Kai is a chef who has his own event planning business one could call celebrity driven or sustained. Born, raised and schooled in Germany, and having attended European culinary institutes, it would be natural to assume that food and cooking are his main passions. But haven’t we all been taught, assume nothing. Or, as my growly teen puts it, assuming makes an ass out of you and me. Collecting art and what he lovingly refers to as his “baby”, take first position.

It's sort of hidden.  You can't see it from the street and it's beneath a hotel that doesn't seem nearly as nice, the Hotel Carmel, that is.  It's called Chloe, the Westside complement to Laurie Mulstay and Ron Marino's stable of hot spots which include The Bar and Magnolia.  And it's not quite full.  But it's elegant, and hip, and calming in a way that makes you think you could go there to meet a business associate or a bed mate, and either would be a success. 

The Pimm's cup is the refreshing favorite. And the Lavender Gimlet is like a perfumed elixir that I swear makes you more beautiful with every sip.

Merrick and I had the honor of attending a costume jewelry auction at Decades hosted by the original Zoebot herself—Rachel Zoe. I die! Events don’t get much better than that. The people watching was on another level. Dresses from every decade, necklaces bigger than my head; heels for which the word “high” doesn’t even begin to describe it; and Hermes bracelets on every wrist in the house.

As amaazing as the outfits were, the hors d’oeuvres were offensively wafer sized and even at that scale, the pin thin socialites were turning their noses up at them. The server looked shocked that I even took one and, god forbid, ate it! It was tuna tartar with wasabi caviar by the way and it was delicious (despite its miniscule size). Merrick had a vision of throwing a Sprinkles cupcake into the crowd and watching the emaciated socialites knock each other out with their Chanel handbags as they fought for the red velvet treat.

Don’t get us wrong. Merrick and I love skinny as much as the next Angelenos. Merrick practically coined the term manorexia and I may or may not be responsible for the offensively amoral www.thisiswhyyoureskinny.com blog. But even we had to pig out after that event.