PURDY

DeLongpre Ave between Seward & Wilcox

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Fresh & Easy (& Skippy)

So you live in Hollywood and your cupboard is bare. What do you do?

You go to Rock n' Roll Ralphs on Sunset, 'cause you gotta have your Captain Crunch. But it's not what you'd call a bargain, and you've still got those doubts about the fish...

So you go to the Trader Joe's on Santa Monica, because you feel secure about the quality, and you love all those odd little TJ goodies. (Green chili & cheese tamale, will you be my best friend?) But don't think you're getting any Skippy Peanut Butter.

You get so excited every time you hear the words 'Hollywood Whole Foods'...then you slap yourself and remember it's Not Built Yet and you're Not A Millionaire.

And then you get frustrated, because back in New York they have a name for a place you could get high-quality meat, fine bakery products and sugary processed cereal in One Damn Place...











But before you give up groceries and anesthetize yourself with a Double Double Animal Style, take a look at the new Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market on Hollywood Boulevard.

Brought to you by Tesco (a British grocery and retail chain upon which the sun never sets), Fresh & Easy sits in the lower half of the LA Fitness/ Longs Drugs mini-mall.

The Fresh & Easy aisles are a wonder. The dry goods are stacked with geographic precision, and I'm a little worried Martin Burney might be in charge of the fruits & vegetables.


(If you're too young to know what I'm talking about, I hate you on principle.)

The prices are super low, almost to the point where you wonder if it's just a 'limited time grand opening' thing.

Clearly, the Tesco grocery spies spent a great deal of time browsing Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, because they have remarkably similar items, especially in the 'Ready-to-Eat' section.

But bless their British bottoms, they noticed the same problem. So next to the super cheap Fresh & Easy brand option, there's your Skippy. Your Captain Crunch. Hamburger Helper. Coca-Cola...and they have a pretty solid drug store aisles with the major brand name OTC drugs, razors and shampoo.

Judging by the accents of my fellow customers, the British expat community is already enjoying their little slice of home, and I have to say I did as well. If you're super health conscious, you may be put off by the disclaimer on the dairy products: "No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST treated and non rBST treated cows".... It's almost as if the Manchego cheese is thinking, "silly Americans and their little worries..."

F&E is all self-checkout, (find the bar code, scan it, put it on the belt). There's a eager young Russian guy who makes sure you're validated (1 hour free), hands out $5 off coupons and gives you his whole life history in the time it takes him to bag your groceries.

As one of the 'LA Lightly Employed Brigade' I tend to shop F&E at 11am, so I can't vouch for the parking situation in prime time.

One Bad Thing: I couldn't find a single shopping cart corral in the P2 section of the garage, so a collection of gigantic carts inevitably wind up in the handicap parking spots by the elevator.

But overall, Fresh & Easy is a successful combination of your highest food-snob aspirations and your lowest brand-name cravings. It's a good alternative when you need to get it all in one place without paying a fortune.

But newcomer beware: Fairway plans to "Expand and Take Over The World!!" in 2010.

NY Expats: I'll meet you in the Cold Room...

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Where the hell is Hollywood?

This is a map of 'Hollywood'.

The red border is defined, in painstaking detail, by California law, but unlike the Civic Paradise to our West, Hollywood isn't actually a city.

It doesn't have a mayor. It no longer even has an honorary mayor. It can't collect your trash, or give you a parking ticket.

In fact, Hollywood is, from a civic perspective, just another part of the City of Los Angeles.

Now The City of Los Angeles has a mayor. It has has trash collectors. And it loves to collect parking tickets. It also has has a 15-member city council. Each of those council members represents a district. But none of them represent the 'district of Hollywood.'

Because that would be too easy.

Instead, large chunks of three different city council districts fall within that red line. There's also a system of neighborhood councils, the nitty-gritty, grass roots level of participatory democracy.

Your cranky old neighbor? He's at all the meetings. He's also hangin' out at the Police Advisory Board meetings and, quite possibly, digging in your trash.

In addition to your city council member, the neighborhood council, and your cranky neighbor, the citizens of Hollywood are also represented by:

• a county supervisor
  
• a state assembly member


• a state senator


• a member of the U.S. House of Representatives


• two lovely U.S. Senators


• and of course, Mr. POTUS.

The City of Los Angeles has a nifty (if slow-loading) map that tells you exactly who represents you in all these capacities. Just click on the NBH icon above the map and enter your address. iMapLA provides even more slow-loading detail.

But none of these people actually govern 'Hollywood'. So why does this map even exist?

Because in August 2006, Assembly Bill 588 became California law. The law requires certain state and city agencies to provide statistical and demographic data about Hollywood as if it were actually a city.

Why?

In a word: Bid-ness.

Hollywood has a Chamber of Commerce, which has been promoting business development since its inception in 1921. (We'll save the business improvement districts for the advanced class).

But any developer who's considering dropping major millions on a new condo wants to know what's going down in the neighborhood. And, not so surprisingly, according to AB 588:

"This critical data is either inaccessible or not collected at all. It is also often scattered among multiple city agencies and departments or not reported on a regular basis."

You don't say.

So they passed a law, requiring data to be collected about the 'community of Hollywood.' And economic development spread through the area like a ravaging, incurable disease.

(All Hail The Waffle! All Curse The Waffle!)

Still, this ephemeral 'community of Hollywood' can't pick up my trash; it exists only on a map, and is best expressed by a collection of head-numbing statistics which may or may not have even been collected yet.

But I kinda like it. It defines my place in this world. And when someone in Fresno, CA asks me where I'm from, I can say "I'm from Hollywood," and know exactly what I'm talking about.

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HULK HATE PDA!

Gotta love Hulk. He has a very particular sense of propriety.

Gotta love the Arclight Hollywood, too.

After years of living in New York with one good movie theater 30 blocks from my apartment, which in the year 15 B.F (Before Fandango) was always sold out when you got there, and if it wasn't sold out you had to fight aggressive New Yorkers who claimed that 'Yes, they were saving the whole ROW' and you had to fight the urge to throw popcorn on them, that is if you actually got through the line to get the popcorn and...

Flashbacks are a bitch.


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Hollywood Bookstores: Chapter One

Borders, Books & Music:

1501 Vine St.Hollywood, CA 90028

(323) 463-8519

Oh lordy, do I love the Hollywood Borders. Yes, it's a chain.

Chains BAD!

OK. But this particular Borders has a great staff, great coffee and a pretty solid sci-fi/fantasy section. I'll never forget how well they handled the madness of the final midnight Harry Potter party. That's my fiance reading the last chapter of Book 6 aloud to our friend Trinity.

Larry Edmunds Bookshop

6644 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028

(323) 463-3273

A marvelous bookstore devoted to the movies. With more than 500,000 movie photographs, 6,000 original movie posters,and 20,000 motion picture and theater books it's the perfect place for any book lover to flee someone trying to force them into a 'Hollywood Tour van.' I bought Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon.

Xanderific!

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The Waffle

6255 W Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028
(between Vine & Argyle)
(323) 465-6901

Serving: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Late Night
Hours: 6am-2am Sun-Th / 6am-4am Fri-Sat

As my fiance and I eagerly approached this shiny new/faux old 'breakfast to booze-fest' diner, we were startled by the angry shout of another passer-by.

"Go to Roscoe's!"

We didn't even flinch.

OK, I'm a former NY'er, I flinched a little.

But the lure of Chocolate Waffles and Sticky Bun Waffles proved too strong, and I kept walking, just another 'Eggs Benedict Arnold' in the battle for the soul (and stomach) of Hollywood.

And just as Roscoe's House of Chicken & Waffles represents the best of Grungy Old Hollywood's heart-attack inducing, 'worth a mugging' culinary past, The Waffle is a tasty addition to New Hollywood's Shiny Happy Foodie Now.


Let me say right off that everything on the menu is at least $3 dollars too expensive. (A $5 dollar breakfast side? C'mon). And the restaurant is still smoothing out some operational wrinkles, so I would avoid the Sunday brunch stampede for a little while yet.

But oh, the waffles.

They're small-ish, slightly crispy, and airer than you would expect. They certainly couldn't survive under the weight of a Roscoe's fried chicken breast. But they're damn tasty.

The pancakes were great as well. Thin, pliable griddle cakes without that flour-y rigidity that ruins most pancakes these days.

On the whole, the menu seems to strike the right balance between simplicity and hedonism.(Ever tried to order 'plain french toast at Doughboys?')

As for those over-priced sides? The New Jersey IHOP gal in me won't quite admit that they're worth five dollars, but the sausage patties were flavorful, the eggs were fresh, and the hashbrowns had just the right ratio of crispy cover to soft underbelly.

I don't know what The Waffle looks like at 2am on a Saturday night, and barring a radical reversal of my 90 year old woman sleeping patterns, I may never. But as a neighborhood breakfast joint, it shows real promise. I hope it sticks around long enough to be as old school as it so strenuously wants to appear.

And for the Great Waffle War between Old Hollywood & New? I honestly believe the neighborhood has room in their hearts and bellies for two waffle-centric restaurants. It's not a zero-sum game.

And since neither joint is exactly a zero-sum 'gain', one last tip:

Wear comfy pants.
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Pop Quiz: Hollywood is...

A) Flash!
B) Sizzle!
C) elebrities!
D) A nice place to live.

There's a whole universe of television shows, paparazzi, blogs, etc. devoted to telling you every last detail about A, B & C.

I'm going to humbly attempt to chronicle D) Hollywood...The Neighborhood. Or more accurately, The Neighborhoods.

Beachwood Canyon
Cahuenga Pass
East Hollywood
Central Hollywood
Franklin Hills
Hollywood Hills
Laurel Canyon
The Media District
Little Armenia
Melrose District
Mount Olympus
Sierra Vista
Spaulding Square
Thai Town
Yucca Corridor

And of course, how do we charactize the civic paradise that is West Hollywood?

(I know, I know. We're not related).

Anyway, I've lived in Hollywood for five years, so I figure it's time to get to know the neighborhood.

Hope you enjoy the trip.

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