Part restaurant, part market, part publication, Botanica is a lively space in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood. We converted the former drop ceiling liquor store by peeling the space back to its original shell and opening up the back wall and patio creating a space that reflects their personality and cooking – bright, lively and communal.

This restaurant has been a Hollywood landmark for over 60 years. The interior looks like time has stood still. Go to the reastaurant area to have a nice piece of prime rib, and after dinner move to the lounge area where Elaine and Marty sing their oldies but goodies. Some believe that their version of "Staying alive" is better then the original.

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.

The Smell is a non-profit, all-ages music venue who's run the gamut of completely rad and completely shitty acts, but is doubtlessly an interesting and worthy place to use up a pair of earplugs. After all, it's not everyday you see a dude shred his fucking face apart playing an amplified shard of glass! The Smell is a little difficult to find, but when you hit the dark alley in which it resides -- and which every fiber of your being tells you will be host to your mugging -- just clutch your purse, keep your chin up and head straight down until you run into a grip of hipsters in a haze of smoke, donning asymmetrical haircuts, and one-too-many animal prints, and you're there! It's alcohol-free, so make sure you either drink before you arrive, or head out between acts to one of a couple local bars to sauce up!

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.