Old Spanish Kitchen photo used with permission by eyetwist via Flickr Some ghosts (though it's a little late in the season for it) aren't what you think. They aren't wailing waifs or glowing skulls. They're a restaurant called the Spanish Kitchen. I'm not talking about the Spanish Kitchen on La Cienega -- decorated like there's a South America Land in Disneyland and it's in it, though they have a sign that is an authentic......

Mayor Villaraigosa serves the city / Photo by Elise Thompson dineLA Restaurant Week kicked off in style yesterday at Neal Fraser's Grace on Beverly Boulevard. Neal Fraser is the only Angeleno ever to have won Iron Chef, against none other than Cat Cora. The Two Hot Tamales, Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken, were the belles of the ball. I just had a moment to chat with them regarding a funny story they had......

An opinion piece in today's LA Times raises the issue of what seems to be the rampant Pinkberry-fication of many of our local neighborhoods, using recent food and retail closings and openings in the popular Larchmont Village as an example of how major-chain development affects the unique vibe of a given area. Larchmont Village, which is the bustling strip of shops located on Larchmont Boulevard between Beverly Boulevard and 1st Street, is starting to......

In December, we gave you a top ten list of LA Painters. Maybe you checked them out, and maybe you didn’t. If your answer is the latter, boy, do we have good news for you! Mark Ryden, Southern California artist extraordinaire, currently has an exhibit, “The Tree Show” on display at the Michael Kohn Gallery through April 28th. If juxtapositions of the sweet with the sick, or the cute with the carnal, make your......

Thank God for the New York Times and its latest scintillating trend piece, which bravely goes out on a limb to inform readers that as crazy as it may sound, Koi and Republic aren’t the only two restaurants in Los Angeles. What? A New York publication writing arrogantly and stupidly about some aspect of Los Angeles culture? Stop the presses! In her New York Times regional trend essay Los Angeles: Where Stars Are in the......

Headlines still focus on the temperature and how Posh Spice has arrived to shop for the maybe next Scientology castle for David Beckham and family. Investigations over the plane crash in Van Nuys continue while the book is closed on the latest E.coli cases -- California is once again to blame for Midwest and beyond sicknesses. Tonight Hollywood (not the neighborhood) comes back big for 2007 with 24, Rome and Extras. Choices, choices. It's......

If you see the LA City Council around any of these intersections, may we suggest that you honk if you're horny. According to CBS2, they've got the green light to put digital cams in 22 intersections and these 22 are on their radar. -- Griffin Avenue and North Main Street -- Beverly Boulevard and Western Avenue -- Broadway and Vernon Avenue -- Arlington Avenue and Venice Boulevard -- Balboa Boulevard and Vanowen Street --......

Heidi K. Hendrickson (Laura Carson) and her 150 cats. Writer Aaron Henne and director Edgar Landa of LA's Son of Semele Ensemble have reenvisioned your neighborhood crazy cat lady in a whirlwind eighty-minute play, full of movement, rhyme, sock puppets, and cartoon nudity. The result is KING CAT CALICO FINALLY FLIES FREE, playing now through Sunday at SOSE's Beverly Boulevard black-box. (They've got all of us going with the alliteration.) Notable moments include dead......

Uma Nithipalan, Lee Kissman, Maria O’Brien, and Tom Fitzpatrick (photo: Mike Jansen) Laist really hates to write these words, but this Sunday night is the final performance of the last show by the Evidence Room company in their Beverly Boulevard home. Bart DeLorenzo draws the curtain with a simultaneously riotous and poignant staging of THE CHERRY ORCHARD. His ensemble, sharpened into pain by their years of collaboration and their imminent departure from their home,......

It's a given that weekend nights were made for going out, which includes dining. Even though LA is pretty close to a 24/7/365 town (close in some respects, far far from it in others, but that's another issue entirely), some restaurants find themselves with empty tables every now and then. One thing that many hot eateries have come up with to draw folks in are specialty nights, where things are shaken and stirred or......

We saw Sideways not too long ago, and realized that we were among the uncultured masses who thought wine was just alcoholic grape juice. Apparently there's a lot more going on, with the grapes, the aging, the acidity, the complexity of flavors, and so forth. In fact, knowing this stuff can help you pick a great wine, but without knowing what foods go best with it, well, you're just a hungry drunk. Fortunately, LA......

LAist has noticed lately that all types of publications bend over backwards to tell you about the Best of this and the best of that, and personally, we're getting a little tired of hearing about it. The reality is this -- if you live in Los Angeles there are more "great places" to go (i.e. restaurants, clubs, bars, malls, et al) that you'll probably never have to waste your time in the bad places.......

Aaah, lucky number thirteen. Well, here on LAist, there's no such thing as an unlucky number, although there is such a thing as a coffee shop that's famous. You know, in sort of a trendy, wannabe, Paris Hilton kind of way. Coffe Bean & Tea Leaf #13 8793 Beverly Boulevard West Hollywood, CA 90048 Hours: Monday - Friday 6:00 AM - 12:00 AM Saturday - Sunday 7:00 AM - 12:00 AM If you watched......

Sometimes Los Angeles may be Los Angeles but doesn't feel like Los Angeles, which is totally the case for the wonderful town they call Pasadena. Nice and far away from the hustle and bustle of downtown, the self-entitlement of the Westside and the Hip-Factor of Hollywood, Pasadena and the coffee shops that reside there feel normal, comfortable and relaxing. And yes, that's even the case when there's a bomb scare. Coffee Bean & Tea......

September's Los Angeles Magazine highlights their own choices for the 25 Best Mexican Restaurants in all of LA. Among some of their favorites, Tacos Baja Ensenada (5385 Whittier Boulevard, East LA / 323-887-1980) for the "holy grail of fish tacos", Teresita's (3826 E. 1st Street, East LA / 323-266-6045) for its family-run atmosphere and "costillas de puerco en chile negro", and Mario's Tacos and Burritos (3764 S. Overland Avenue, West LA / 323-314-2298) for......

Keeping up with cultural goings on is one of the joys and burdens of living in a big city. As July draws to a close, LAist recommends catching the following exhibitions before the opportunity vanishes. Inventing Race: Casta Painting and Eighteenth-Century Mexico (La invenci�n del mestizaje. La pintura de castas y el siglo XVIII en M�xico) is at LACMA through August 8. As described by the museum, this extensive exhibition "explores the complex process......