My brother and I were recently in L.A. for meetings concerning his comedic web series, Concierge. Actually, he was there for meetings; I was just his unpaid, lowly chauffeur.

Before heading out to the west coast together, we knew how important it was to plan a food route, and not surprisingly, food became the main focus of the trips. We ate, ate some more, hiked, ate, went to meetings, and ate. Makes sense, right?

L.A. gets a pretty bad rap. Sure, there’s tons of smog, there are traffic jams, it takes forever to get anywhere, and people can’t seem to talk about much besides movies and tv. And everyone is from New York, anyhow. But outside of those complaints and the omnipresent plastic surgery, there’s a wonderful place. Most people who visit see the tourist spots, and frankly, if I only visited Times Square and Little Italy, I’d hate New York, too. But we did something simple: We avoided all the tourist spots. In fact, we didn’t see a single tourist our entire visit! Instead, we did what I always do on trips: Introduced locals to food and places they didn’t even know existed. We have quite a few friends there, but only a handful of the people we met up with had ever been to the nosheries we found. Together and/or with friends, we went to Sapp Coffee Shop, sketchy 24-hour burrito joints that were delicious (including Los Tacos), Surati Farsan Mart for Petish and more (it’s food, not a porn store…geez!), The Griddle Cafe, the Guppy Teahouse, Scarpetta, and much, much more. I loved hiking in the canyons, getting our backstage tour at the aquarium, fixing our flat tire in Beverly Hills, and more. Plus, the fact that there are vast national parks, waterfalls, climbing opportunities, beaches, and so much more for the outdoorsy person makes this metropolis a real pleasure to explore. In New York, one feels much more “stuck.” Honestly, I wouldn’t mind living in L.A. at some point. People are just too hard on a place that few have actually explored! Everyone was just so nice, which was perhaps most shocking of all. I surprised myself, because I was completely prepared to hate L.A. I ended up quite pleased indeed.

These are just a few of the photos from L.A., and they were taken on my brother’s Canon SD1400 IS–a nice, nifty little gadget. See my Flickr account for a more in-depth look at our rapid weight gain trip.

I can’t wait to visit again!