All stories about "Omri Ceren"

When we wrote about downtown's Trifecta we were like "sure they're douchebags but at least they're douchebags running a sports bar in downtown LA." And then when we wrote about the Grand Sports Bar we were like "they kind of suck but at least they're running a sports bars in downtown LA." And then both of them went out of business. And then the Flower Sports Bar went out of business. And now downtown is more or less bereft of watering holes servicing both man's need for alcoholic nourishment and his need to drunkenly declare that he's about to fight that out-of-town sports fan over there. Luckily downtown still has a few bars and restaurants where you can catch the occasional game. If you show up at just the right time. If they happen to be open that day. If they haven't closed early. If you're lucky. Fuck. (photo)

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There are at least two ways to locate a strip club in downtown Los Angeles. First option: read this post. The downside here is that some of the entries are less than generous regarding your probable belief that the stripper you'll be masturbating to "really liked you." Second option: wander randomly around downtown until you encounter a neon sign promising a basement filled with naked, slightly overweight women. The downside of this option is that -- at some point during your nomadic wanderings in this crack-infested den of homelessness and desperation -- you may very well find yourself stabbed to death with a rusty straight-edge. These things happen. (photo)

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All things being equal, it's probably not unfair to describe many of our posts as falling somewhat short of the opulent. But there comes a time in the life of even the most destitute urban dwelling travel junkie when another human being offers to pick up the dinner tab. At times like this, the proper course is to steer him or her towards shameless extravagance -- and luckily there are several restaurants in downtown LA that seem designed mostly to help you exploit the generosity of others. Any residual pangs of guilt that you may feel will almost certainly be soothed by the fine cuisine and, failing that, several glasses of expensive wine or cocktails. [Photo]

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Downtown Los Angeles has been undergoing its much-vaunted Renaissance for what seems like forever. For at least three decades, the area - bounded on the north and south by the 101 and the 10 and on the west and east by the 110 and the river - has been ever so close to the ultimate goal of every postindustrial urban city: high-end gentrification. The last few years have seen an influx of new shops, lounges, event sites, and lofts. And now it looks like that gentrification might actually happen. So join us for a tour of downtown's various districts, subdistricts, and sub-subdistricts. Think of this as a consolidated Wikipedia entry on downtown Los Angeles. Except with hookers. And blow.
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True story: Once upon a time Hallmark created Valentine's Day so they could sell more cards. Then people started hating Valentine's Day, so card companies turned around and started selling millions of Anti-Valentine's Day cards. This worked because corporations are very smart and people are very stupid. In response to a whole day created to remind them of their personal failures, they purchase moronic cards and t-shirts with cartoon rabbits who brag about bitch-slapping Cupid. Pathetic. You want to know how handle Valentine's Day if you're single? Here's how. You mope your way into a bar and get blisteringly drunk. Then you squint through the haze, stumble into someone suitably desperate, and go home for an evening of debauchery followed by a morning of self-loathing. That's how you do Valentine's Day if you're single. Here's a list of LA bars and clubs that throw Anti-Valentine's Day Parties -- places brimming with exactly the kind of despair you'll be looking for. And needing.

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Nestled just north of LA's financial district and a mere three blocks from start to finish, Grand Avenue's row of theatres and museums constitute the epicenter of downtown's artistic world. The LA Phil and Opera are both housed here, as are a decent number of theater and dance groups. If you prefer your art a little more abstract -- or you prefer your company a little more hipsterrific -- there are a couple galleries unlikely to disappoint. And if all else fails, more than one of these places has more than one bar. Because while art is meant to be taken in through sober contemplation, it doesn't really lose all that much ethos after a drink or four.

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No sooner had we posted our list of reasons why New York Restaurant Week sucks than I discovered a group called dineLA had posted a list of restaurants participating in LA's 2008 Restaurant Week. And in what we can only assume was a very touching attempt to prove us right, they went ahead and filled their list with restaurants lacking big-ticket items, offering little choice, and filled with hostile waitstaffs. There are also at least a couple places that quite simply have no place on this kind of list. While we support their efforts to trick pretentious wannabe yuppies into overpaying for supermarket-quality stuffed chicken, their noble project nonetheless falls short of justifying the existence of Restaurant Week. And so, in sum, never question us in front of the children again.

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Without taking anything away from the unpretentious acts and the quality people who frequent Echo Park and Silver Lake venues, it turns out that there are also bars and clubs outside that cultural Athens where music is sometimes played. And while it's true that these venues remain unblessed by the staggering relevance of the average eastside bar, they still have a few things going for them. Affordable drinks and decent food are often cited as reasons why people leave the cauldron of profundity that is the 90026, although obviously those hardly make up for not getting to discuss Silver Lake gentrification with a trust fund art school dropout. Perhaps more important are the totally spectacular acts that grace many of these westside-ish venues, from legitimate musical geniuses to genuine music students to acts that are so bad they're good. It's somewhat ironic that Hollywood would be the place for people who want to focus on talent rather than on being totally fucking awesome, but we hear that irony is what the kids are doing these days anyway.

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There are some people searching for NYE parties -- let's call them "employed" -- who want an affordable alternative to paying $100 for a 2,000 person rave or hanging out in a dilapidated dive bar. Those people are pretty much screwed. But there's a closely related group of people -- let's call them "doctors and producers" - who want all of that but don't care about affordability. For them, there's an array of LA-area parties involving opera singers, cruise liners, and hotels that aren't even close to affordable, even under normal circumstances. Tickets for these events are usually way north of $100, but they come with lavish dinners, take place in sublime venues, and provide the smug satisfaction of knowing that you're far away from the hoi polloi.

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Seemingly unbeknownst to many LA residents, time still moves on December 31st even if you're not at a lavish $500 dinner or a rave-esque $100 dance party. In fact, many of the better dives and bars in LA - to say nothing of a few others that could use some remodeling - actually host events specifically for people who don't want NYE extravagance but do want more than a house party. There's music and dancing without the disadvantage of thousands upon thousands of people skeeving you or your friends out. Other advantages to these in-between options: they're more affordable, you can guiltlessly bar hop when the mood strikes you, and your ears hurt less in the morning. Your nose, alas, ends up hurting about the same. [Photo]

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Los Angeles' reputation as an alienating posturban landscape isn't entirely undeserved. Venues are small, distances are far, and our public transportation system could stand slight improvement. But once a year thousands and thousands of 20-somethings douse themselves in Axe and glitter makeup and gather under gigantic outdoor pavilions for a collective night of blurry grinding and eventual blacking out. With a little luck and a high credit limit, you'll be able to usher in the New Year with anywhere from two to ten thousand of your new closest friends. And your new friends' water bottles. A word of caution: don't be the guy or girl who pays $100 to get through the door only to find out that they didn't bring enough drugs. I'm pretty sure at least a couple of these venues have a minimum two-tab policy at the door. And if for some strange reason you want something a little more upscale and dignified - where people keep most of their clothes on most of the time - wait for more of Gridskipper's other LA NYE guides.

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Los Angeles' indie scene has become like the Star Wars bar, except instead of aliens it's filled with a menagerie of hiptards too stupid or stoned to find their way back to Williamsburg and Austin. They've become a plague, going from one LA venue to another and ruining them all. You'll be in a bar trying to get drunk and enjoy some music, and suddenly there'll be some guy in a fedora, an ironic t-shirt, and a corduroy jacket who just won't stop existing. And then you have to stop listening to the music, because you need all your energy to hate this douchebag. At this point, the only way to save LA's music scene is to burn the whole thing down and start from scratch.

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You guys seemed to dig our previous LA deli list, so here's more grist for the pretentious-sandwich mill. Most of the entries are based on the parts of LA Magazine's Top 10 list that we didn't get to last time, and then there are a few more that were unaccountably left out of the list. And then there's one place included purely as a hateful provocation. Be the better person. Don't rise to the bait.

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If the usual complaint about Los Angeles is that it shuts down at 11:30 p.m., then the complaint about downtown is that it shuts down at least two hours before that. And though we've been making some progress getting bars to stay open, food options remain distressingly limited. Since the LA Auto Show is downtown, this is obviously a problem. But there are a few places that recognize boozers' need for a place to eat, if only to make themselves hate themselves a little less the next morning. If you can think of any downtown 24/7 places other than these six, sound off in the comments or tipline. Otherwise, as you digest Jalopnik's coverage, gear yourself for cheap greasy food or restaurants that you'll be going to only if you're at the auto show on a corporate account.

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Normally we wouldn't blog about Pasadena except to list swanky hotels filled with traveling businessmen and the frustrated suburban housewives they pick up in bars. Much of Pasadena is an anxiety-inducing suburban utopia: elite colleges, manicured lawns, and oceans and oceans of happy homes. This includes most of Old Town, which has its Pottery Barn, its Cheesecake Factory, and its two dozen Starbucks. But in between there are a few bars, lounges, and clubs that are maybe worth going to if you've run out of gas on your way back to the Westside. Besides, you people have been hitting the tables pretty hard for more east side locations, and Pasadena is as far as I'm going to venture as anything but a joke.

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Some time ago, bar owners in downtown Los Angeles had brilliant realization: there are 450,000 employees who work in downtown Los Angeles and every afternoon 400,000 of them have to choose between drinking alcohol or sitting on the 110 for a few hours. Businesses therefore did the smart thing and started after-work happy hours, and today there are specials between 3 and 7 p.m. on every block. But that left the other 50,000 of us pretty much fucked with few nighttime happy hours, few weekend happy hours, and certainly no weekend nighttime happy hours. In the last few years, though, a select handful of bars have chosen to acknowledge that people actually live here by instituting late night and weekend happy hours. These fine establishments, dedicated to providing libations to those of us who call downtown home, ought to be saluted with all the unironic honor that we can muster.

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We were getting tired of having to remember which restaurants are cool based on wines, meats, cheeses, yogurts, customers, and location. Now there's also totally chic (and totally not) restaurant architecture. The American Institute Of Architects has put out their list of the 14 2007 Los Angeles Restaurant Design Award finalists. Two of those are inexplicably located in San Francisco, and we've obviously kept them off the list because who gives a fuck. The rest are six restaurants, four bars, and two lounges. There's also a People's Choice Award component, so you can browse the shiny pictures and vote for your favorite. Don't let your lack of experience or knowledge about architecture stop you from providing an emphatic opinion laced with faux sophistication. This is the Internet.

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