LA Story – October 2007 – Sunset / Silver Lake

the streets of silverlake More reminiscences of LA from last October

One day (17/Oct if you must know) I decided to take a stroll around the locale and see what kind of place Silver Lake is. I walked down Descanso, then along to Millies cafe, a friendly and quite famous diner with nice food, and outside tables perfect for dogs. One Devil’s Mess later, I wandered over to the row of hyperexpensive/exclusive/empty boutiques to check out the fashions and furnishings. It’s slightly embarassing walking into these places with no intention of buying anything – because you’re the only customer, you get all the attention. Some amazing stuff for sale – a concrete coffee table with tiki-kebab-style inlays – $4000. Actually, with the exchange rate, that’s pretty reasonable…

After some heavy-duty browsing and fobbing-off, I went to Good for an Alaskan Honey Beer. Good is not as good as it would like – slightly sticky tables and a distinct whiff of beer snobbery. It used to be a classic diner-style place, with counter service and red leather booths, but now it’s open plan, and the service isn’t as good as it was (so I’m told). But because of this, it seems you can always get a table on Saturday morning, unlike everywhere else. After that I popped over to the Mexican-goods/headshop for some incense for C. Then further up Sunset to more gift shops and the Army Surplus place. There are some great little shops, full of interesting stuff, but it’s the same stuff I could buy in London. I don’t buy it here, why buy it there? The shop full of cocktail paraphernalia (classy stuff too, not the “musical bottle opener” crap) was particularly good, and tempting. The Surplus shop was just like the UK equivalent – survivalist owner by the door, displaying his collection of badges, hats, knives and knick-knacks, and then the Dickies workwear, green rucksacks and orange boiler suits at the back.

I finally sat at Intelligentsia (wear your attitude on your sleeve, why don’t you?) and drank a cup of good coffee. I counted at least 3 people with MacBooks, and I had my Moleskine, so I felt cool and at home. I could do this. I could do this.