Woke up around 10 am Monday morning. We had plans to head to Los Angeles for Ramen and to meet up with two of my friends that live there, Alvin and Kim.
Tsujita La my favorite spot for Ramen and I always try to stop by here whenever I'm in the area. They only serve Ramen from 11 am- 2 pm. So make sure you get there on time. It was a Monday and it was still about a 30 minute wait.
Hai doesn't care for Ramen at all. So he just orders whatever. This is not Tsukemen
Tsukemen Ramen. I highly recommend ordering this. If you don't care for Ramen then maybe it won't make a difference. It's amazing how much a little bit a lime can make a huge difference in taste.
Sliced barbecued pork in all it's glory.
Their soup and soft boiled egg is perfectly done.
After Ramen we headed to Venice Beach for some cocktails.
Alvin on the left and Kim on the right.
It was a gorgeous day at Venice. Couldn't have asked for a better week to visit my friends. I was glad I packed my shorts.
We walked most of Venice beach and ended up at
Venice Ale House
This is a beer and wine joint. We didn't eat any of the food, but they had a great selection of beers. They had some cocktails, but the alcohol was Sake or Soju.
I personally don't drink beer, but the guys said the beer wasn't as cold as it should be.
I think Kim had the Mojito and I had the Mule. They both tasted exactly the same. We couldn't tell the difference and it was quite sweet. We couldn't even finish our one drink.
We weren't to happy with our drinks there so we headed out. Alvin had to head out for an appointment, but he did tell us about a room top hotel bar near muscle beach. So we headed to that venue hoping for a better drink selection.
The place was called
High Rooftop Lounge. It was a really nice venue. Gave you a nice unobstructed view of Venice Beach.
The place only holds a little under 100 people. They had nice patio lounge furniture set around the roof and a heater at each table.
Given that it is a Monday. I didn't see a DJ, but I doubt they would have one because their is no dance floor. It really is a just a place to lounge with friends.
This is a great place to watch the sunset.
The food was ok. It was pretty much tapas.
These lamb sliders were amazing though.
After a few drinks and some snacks it was time to look for some real food. Our local guide Kim... was of no help. LOL. Even though she lived here for a few years, she had no recommendations. We decided to head to Santa Monica to walk around until we found something we liked.
We ended up at
Ma'Kai Lounge
Classic Ceviche
Truffle & Parmesan Fries
Baja California:
Crab meat, stuffed jalapeno tempura-style, topped with chipotle aioli and eel sauce served with a seaweed salad
The food was good and the price wasn't that bad. By the time we finished dinner it was only 7:30 pm. It was our first time in Santa Monica so we wanted to check out the Santa Monica Pier.
Hai really wanted to play some Carnival Games.
At one point in the night we were talking about sports and Kim was mentioning that she used to play basketball. So Hai, Son and Kim decided to shoot hoops.
Why does Kim seem so nervous? She actually lives by one Credo. No Ragrets.. except maybe her second shot... You can hear her ragretting that. LOL...
Kim wanted to redeem herself. So she played another game.
Onward steed.
After the Carnival games we headed out to look for a bar. Our server at Ma'Kai recommended that we check out
Zanzibar. Since it was a Monday there probably wasn't much going on in Santa Monica.
Walking through the Santa Monica Promenade. It was really nice. Lots of shopping to be had around this area.
We got to Zanzibar and it was Salsa night. We thought they were going to play salsa music, but it was actually Salsa classes. Yeah not our scene. So we left to look for another spot and we ended up at
Harvelle's Blues Club it was a nice little chill spot with a live band.
The band was great and they were playing really chill songs. We ended up staying here for the rest of the night.
Here we are on our way back to the parking garage.
Son being really as Kim departed.
Vee happy to get his jacket from Kim's car.
That's it for our last night in Southern California. We had a late flight home tomorrow, so plenty of time to sleep. It was a really chill night and the weather was great. I wore shorts the entire night without a problem. Got to love this Cali weather in January.
