Monday, September 28, 2009

KOBE BRYANT, GRAUMAN’S CHINESE THEATER, OZZIE OSBORNE & A PICKLED TONGUE SANDWICH ON RYE

Only in L.A. are all the things in this blog title possible to see in one afternoon. Well, sort of. My daughter wanted to see some star’s homes, so yesterday we made a day of it. If you enjoy watching humanity on parade, Grauman’s Chinese Theater is absolutely the place to be.

We started out there by looking at the stars on The Walk of Fame. While a sidewalk marker of Julia Roberts may be eye catching, the real show revolves around the people at eye level. There were wanna’ be’s, might be’s, and those that just want to be seen. You can go a block west, to the Hollywood Wax Museum and see very large candles that look frighteningly like Kobe Bryant, Snoop Dog or a host of other stars.

If shopping is more your thing, The Hollywood & Highland Center is just on the east side of Grauman’s. Personally, I’ll keep an eye on the parade of humanity while my wife and daughter shop.
From there, it was off to the Hollywood Hills to the star’s homes. Through Google, we found a semi-reliable list of stars. If you want to drive by Ozzie Osborne’s front gate, you can. Ditto for Madonna. But really, it looked a lot more like a big, giant hedge row to me.
Whether most of these people still live in the homes is anyone’s guess. However, if you want to find yourself lost in some beautiful areas of Los Angeles, it’s the way to go.
After working up a serious hunger, we drove east to the Fairfax District, and home to Canter’s Deli. Canter’s is a very historic part of L.A. It’s famous for it’s patrons, food and, well, being Canter’s. Always wanting to try ethnic foods, I opted for the pickled tongue sandwich on rye. If you’re not Jewish, this might sound bad. I’m not, and it wasn’t. In fact, it was very good. My wife had pastrami, and my daughter had a lox sandwich.



All were tasty and the bread was bakery fresh. The one negative I would say was the price. Three sandwich lunches with waters and ice tea ran over $50. Given the number of other Jewish delis in L.A., I would probably opt for a different one next time.