A long Weekend in LA

December 8-12, 2011 This posting is a little late, but here it is! We'd never been to LA before in December, so since Betty and Gary's latest home project was complete, off we went. We flew American Airlines through Chicago to LA on Thursday December 8 and landed around dinner time. We had some great catch up time that evening with a pasta dinner Betty prepared. On Friday, we did some shopping for some of those excellent California Chardonnays and then went up view the new house at 1244 BelAir Terrace. When we were here last March, the main structure was up and the house showed promise, but in it's finished state, it is simply stunning. It didn't hurt that on this day, the LA skies were brilliant blue.

The house had just gone on the real estate market at a cool $6 million and so far TV personality Cat Deeley was the most promising client.

Before returning to their Brentwood apartment, we did some grocery shopping at both Trader Joes and Gelsons for the makings for a surf and turf dinner this evening. Gelsons actually cooked the two lobsters we selected from the tank and cracked them ready for consumption. On Saturday, we went back to the BelAir house to prep it for an open house tomorrow. Since we did In'n Out yesterday for lunch we tried the Five Guys burger joint today.

In the afternoon Dawn and Betty visited the Beverly Hills Hilton for a charity organized shopping excursion. Meanwhile, Gary and I went first to his office which happens to be adjacent Spago where he collected his mail. As I waited in the car for him, I watched Ted Danson leave Spago and get into his new Rolls convertible. The two of us then proceeded to the bar at the Beverly Wilshire - movie location for Pretty Woman - to be later joined by Dawn and Betty.

After a quick rest back at the apartment, we headed back to Beverly Hills for dinner and Bouchons, the French restaurant in the Montage hotel. Dinner began with an Alsace cremant while I had sweetbreads and the rest had salads. Main course for Betty and Gary was chicken, while Dawn had monkfish, mussels and shrimp and I had a seared duck breast all accompanied by a Cairanne red from Catherine de Goeuil. I was on my own for dessert with a dark chocolate mousse. Consensus was that dinner was fabulous and we rounded off the day with a rousing game of Bite Me. Sunday, Dawn and I were on our own, since Betty and Gary were busy with their open house. We headed up the valley to a large shopping outlet called Camarillo Premium Outlets, where we wandered and shopped until lunch at Johnny Rocket's. Then we headed back for some more shopping until we were pooched - at least I was - by mid-afternoon and headed back to LA. This night we were eating in again, so picked up some salmon and salads at Whole Foods before returning to the apartment. There is no question that this is the best - aka healthiest - place to gather some prepared foods for a meal and we walked away with a Miso salmon and a variety of lentil/bean/orzo salads. Betty and Gary returned from a successful open house which did not involve a visit from Cat Deeley. Dinner was easy and delicious and we continued our "Research!" of California Chardonnays. Monday was to be a day off for Betty & Gary and since it ended up being a soggy one, we opted first for a late morning showing of the movie The Descendants with George Clooney. We had all agreed that we didn't want to see War Horse due to its inevitable sadness, but this movie wasn't much happier. At this point Gary left us for a meeting with his boss at Caldwell Banker, Betty & Dawn set out on some shopping and headed out for home via the Wine House - clearly our research was not yet complete. When I got to the Wine House my phone rang and it was Gary wanting Betty to head up to BelAir to meet Cat at the house. Since Betty had temporarily misplaced her phone and Dawn's was turned off, Gary was on his own. I continued my walk back to the apartment and was joined late afternoon by the shoppers. Gary apparently managed fine on his own prepping the house and his hottest prospect got a third viewing. Dinner tonight was back in Beverly Hills at Crustacean, a very cool Asian-styled restaurant with a glass covered stream filled with giant koi flowing through it.

We all shared a tapas selection of crab puff, cocoanut shrimp, beef satay and a chicken dumpling. For main course Betty had salmon, Gary had scampi, Dawn had a lobster/shrimp/mussels combo while I had a whole dungeness crab. Their garlic noodles were enjoyed by all. Wine tonight was a 2008 Auxey Durress white which was very fine and a nice comparison to the Californian chardonnays we'd been sampling. It actually came across as having a great deal more finesse than new world chardonnays and although oaked, that wasn't the only thing you tasted. Tuesday came pretty quickly and we were off to the airport to come home. Our plane had a malfunction in one wing sensor so we ended up leaving 2 hours late and thus arrived home late. It was good to be home, but our supercharged weekend was certainly a blast!