LA. CA. ALL DAY.

Eating out America sounds weird. America Exotica. Whatevs. For the next month I'm eating my way around LA, SF and NYC and catching up with a ton of amazing friends that I haven't seen in a long time. And see a really good mate get married to his girl. Dev1!!! Congrats!!! And drink and smoke and sun and chill and have me time. This, no melodrama, is the blog blog. With short shorts.


So I'm writing out of my friend Erin's (Bad Beat / Brother Reade) place in Echo Park. Just woke up after the first night of LA vay-cay. I just said no to jetlag, cured, no doubt by the most amazing homemade breakfast burrito (beans, eggs, onions, garlic, tomato, salsa, hot sauce) and coffee.


So last night was the way to do it. Erin picked me up from LAX and we drove straight to the beach (tourist steez on Venice Beach) with a beer. Basically 2 hours (going back in time) after leaving London I was on the beach in the early 90s with Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes. Ain't no thang. People were still slanging mixtapes. It was amazing. We then headed to Fairfax to Little Ethiopia (amazing, right?) for some proper food (however good Virgin are - 11hr flight but i felt like a million dollars - their food game is rubbish). We had whole cooked trout with lime and a potent Ethiopian hot sauce, Ethiopian collard greens (!) and an awesome lentil curry.



We kicked it back home for a shower and a coffee before Erin's girl picked us up and we headed to a party in The Hills. I was in a total daze, but it was fun meeting people that i've interviewed but never met, like Day19 and Cali Dewitt. We made plans to go see Moonrats and Warpaint at Manimal Festival at the weekend in Joshua Tree then headed out for TACOS!


First night. First taco truck. It was Taco Zone, supp. the spot to get late night eats. But impostors were lurking - but I had nothing to compare to - added to the fact that I'd been fantasising about this moment longer than forever. So my carnitas and suadero tacos blew my mind. With the chipotle salsa and corriander relish? What! Ole El Paso can suck it.

Loaded up on pork and beef and little golden medallions of corn we drove over to the Cha Cha Lounge in Silverlake to see another good friend who I haven't seen in time - Jimmy / Jamz (Brother Reade / Bad Beat). This dude is one of my favourite rapper's rapper and an epic New York trip we had a couple of years ago led him to his wife, Eleanor. Who is amazing. Congrats guys! So Cha Cha Lounge was doing for me. But then. Boom. A dude comes in and starts selling late night tamales straight out. It's game over. My first tamale washed down with a Tecate. Checklist is done. LA is looking good so far.