This is the place you want to go to have a awesome brunch. Be prepared for a waiting line outside on the weekends. The place is packed then. My personal favorites is the Polenta with Maple syrup, bacon, spinach and chicken apple sausage. If you had a rough night before I would suggest the "Hangover Helper", with the bottomless fresh mint-lemonade. Always does the trick.

Salton Sea is not technically LA, but is a by-product of its history and my first-choice escape from the city: one of the world's largest inland seas and lowest spots on earth, a man-made lake in the midst of the Colorado desert, a resort area in the twenties turned in one of the worst ecological disaster of the past century.

By day, it's a barber shop. By night, it's a speakeasy with tasty grilled cheese sandwiches, a nice interior, and great music. Weekends are wild, so you'll find me hanging out every first Monday of the month spinning records.

If you make it to the top, you can get an incredible 360 degree view of practically all of Los Angeles. Below you to the South is Hollywood, and beyond that, on a clear day, you can see over a hundred miles of mini malls all the way to Mexico. To the West on your right go the hills until they turn into mountains and meet the Pacific Ocean. Behind you to the North stretches the entire San Fernando Valley, above which stand the gorgeous San Gabriel mountains. To the East the mountains eventually disappear above hundreds of miles of urban sprawl, and beyond that is the dessert.

Buche and cabeza the best.