if you have to fly, fly into and out of Burbank. It’s worth whatever extra $ even with fewer flights, simply to NOT go through LAX
don’t plan a to criss-cross LA too much. It’s just so vast. Every time I go I do part of my trip on the west side, and the other part on the east. That way it makes it easy to get to places I want to go
Monterey Park has a huge density of many types of Chinese food! Tacos in East LA!
My favorite LA story is how my next door neighbor in SF, an old lady who left Saigon decades ago, begged me to help her locate her favorite Saigon Chinese sausage shop. It was somewhere in LA. With no clues other than where it had been in Saigon and ONE word, I found it! (With the help of many Vietnamese Chinese people in LA)
It was in Rosemead, and her eyes lit up when I brought some back to her. ‘Nothing else like it,’ she said.
I haven’t loved the vegan sushi in the Bay Area, but I’ve learned that’s not because it’s vegan but because it’s not fancy enough :) (I’m very spoiled and I only like fancy sushi)
Some of you know I’m a big fan of LA food. I think that dollar for dollar you get a tremendous amount of cuisines, varieties of foods, in this melting pot which feels to me like it has far more immigrant and working class food than the Bay Area. Even the density and quality of ‘fancy food’ is high!