Category Archives: L.A. Life

L.A. Life

Metro to the Beach!

By Zsuzsa Londe

Here is a suggestion for your Labor Day Weekend: try the new Metro Line to go to the Santa Monica Pier or the beach!  The Expo Line has a stop at the South Campus gate of USC, the Expo Park/USC station. Just walk past Tommy Trojan, continue on Trousdale Parkway to Exposition Blvd, and there take the Metro towards Santa Monica. You could be watching a beautiful sunset off the pier or from the beach within 40 minutes.

Once there, don’t miss a stroll on 3rd Street Promenade, a fun and store-filled walking street just a few blocks from the pier.

HAPPY LABOR DAY WEEKEND!

Here are useful resources:

The metro map/stations: http://media.metro.net/riding_metro/bus_overview/images/806_2016-0522.pdf

How to get the tickets: https://www.metro.net/riding/fares/  ($1.75 one way)

Buying graduate student tickets at USC: https://gsg.usc.edu/resources/tap-program

The Santa Monica Pier: http://santamonicapier.org/

Live webcam of the Pier: http://www.pacpark.com/the-park/live-cam/the-park/

Featured image by Christina House for the Los Angeles Times

L.A. Life, Outlook

The Moon, Some Tacos, and a Night of Reflection

By Kevin Jiang

I am a connoisseur of all foods of all cultures. I will pretty much eat anything, as long as it is edible and doesn’t taste like dirt. I’ve eaten turtle, raw steak, pork knuckles, chicken feet—you name it and I’ve either had it or am willing to try it. But you can’t find or accurately pinpoint a culture’s essence in a (subjectively) weird meat or ingredient. In my opinion, it’s the spices and the flavors that really capture a culture’s essence.

Personally, I still prefer Chinese, as well as other Asian cuisine, over all other types of food, perhaps that has something to do with the way I grew up. Whether it is Korean, Thai, Indian, or any of the other many countries that constitute Asia, the flavors all hold their own unique taste profiles and embody the culture. However, second to my love for Asian cuisine is fusion, specifically Asian fusion.
The night before the last Autumn Moon Festival (AKA Harvest Moon or the Super Moon), I was in Chinatown where I had an amazing food experience. There were dozens of food trucks lined in an alleyway, but they weren’t just any food trucks. They were—you guessed it—Asian fusion food trucks. Of course I couldn’t manage to try all of them, but I did manage to try three: Jogasaki, Kogi BBQ, and Tokyo Doggie Style.
Jogasaki sold sushi burritos. Crazy right?! It was really just a large sushi roll minus the seaweed, wrapped in soy paper. The flavors were on point, capturing everything I loved about sushi: the delicate texture of fresh salmon, the refreshing crunch of cucumber, and the slight acidic sweetness of sushi rice. Kogi BBQ brought all the savory-sweet and charred flavors of kbbq into a corn tortilla, easy to hold and perfect to snack on while I waited for the takoyaki (octopus balls) from my last stop of the night.

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L.A. Life

Home of the French Dip Sandwich

By Kurt Ibaraki

While spending some time looking for something to watch, I stumbled across an episode of Man vs. Food; this one happened to take place in Los Angeles. As I watched Adam Richman enter his first location, he reminded me of a restaurant from my childhood. Back when I used to live in Montebello, California, I played for a youth basketball team. Our games would be played in various parts of Los Angeles so my family and I would go eat at various restaurants afterwards. While I fondly remember those days, one memory stands out more than the others. That memory was when we visited a place called Philippe the Original on the corner of Alameda Street and Ord Street.

Known as one of the oldest restaurants in Southern California, Philippe the Original’s specialty item is the French Dip sandwich. The French dip consists of meats such as pork, chicken, beef, or even lamb, served on a French roll that has been dipped in au jus sauce, or drippings of the cooked meat. The restaurant is named after its owner Philippe Mathieu, who is said to have created the French dip. Legend has it that Philippe was serving a policeman when he accidently dropped the roll into a pan of beef drippings. The police officer took the roll anyways and it became a hit. In addition to the French dip, Philippe the Original has an assortment of other delicious food, such as breakfast items, potato salad, chili, soups, pies, and cakes.

Over the weekend, I decided to revisit Philippe the Original. With my roommate and his visiting cousins, we went down to Alameda Street around 5 p.m. to get our hands on these sandwiches. When we walked in, the first thing we saw was the unorthodox way of ordering. There were about ten lines throughout the entire restaurant, separated by dining tables. The lines were long, as the customers waited for their food at the register. We waited for about 50 minutes just to get to the front. When we got to the front, we ordered pork and beef French dips, with a side of chili and potato salad. Philippe the Original has three levels of au jus servings, single dip, double dip, and wet, so everyone can get their perfect sandwich. We all got the double dip.

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