Kashan, a symphony in gold and turquoise

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Michele

Kashan…A jewel of a city in the semi-arid center of Iran. I went back to Iran after 20 years. I visited several historical houses in Kashan and enjoyed my first visit to this region. This is one of them, built around 1880 with exquisite mirror and stained-glass work:

A much smaller example is the hotel we stayed in; this amazing boutique hotel (below), the “Manouchehri House“, revived from its ruin by the good taste of its owner, Saba Manouchehri, her super talented designer, Shanhnaz Nader Esphanahi, and Akbar Helli the traditional architect and master repairer of historic houses. Going from this (picture not mine):

to this:

and this:

This is the view from my room:

A first floor room with three beds for my parents and myself. Even the bed covers (designed by Shahnaz Nader Esfahani) are custom made for the hotel and purely Iranian:

Still jet-lagged, I could’t sleep well the first night and I saw the sun rise after having stared in delight for a couple of hours at the moonlit garden:

We had to take advantage of our short trip and a knowledgeable guide so we hurried to the breakfast area,

and tried to remember to take a look at these cute garden sculptures upon our return to the hotel!

We had our Persian tea and out the door:

Our first stop was at the Tabatabaei House. This splendid house was built in the 1840s for the affluent Tabatabaei family. It was designed by Master Ali Maryam. It has 40 rooms and more than 200 doors:

It is the same house that you see at the beginning of the blog post. I was amazed at this majestic balcony and its ceiling that looks like a traditional Persian rug (below).

Kashan is world famous for its beautiful rug weaving tradition,

and I can very well imagine Mr. Tabatabaei asking his architect to create a rug on his ceiling like the rug he must have had at his feet:

It doesn’t happen often for me to be overwhelmed by what I see and hesitate about what to shoot but I was taking pictures left and right and no time to take notes… 😉

But I remembered to take a picture of myself!

The colors on these pictures have not been processed — the golden glow that you see everywhere is real:

The intricate stucco work on the walls is even more beautiful in the midday golden light:

The persians are historically known in the art of plastering:

The stained glass is omnipresent in all of these old houses,

Some are exquisite!

We decided to go to the bazaar for lunch. Iran, the pistachio capital of the world is a heaven for nut lovers:

I found this guy’s expression in front of the sheep’s heads hilarious! The local Chelo-Kabab, the only thing that Shahs and Mullahs equally love and agree upon, didn’t disappoint us. Chelo-Kabab is the national dish of Iran consisting of steamed basmati rice and lamb kabab.

After lunch we headed to the Fin Garden. A Unesco world heritage site, it is a historical Persian Garden that symbolizes the earthly paradise. Designed for Shah Abbas I and completed in 1590, it is the oldest garden in Iran still in existence.

Water runs through it (it houses Kashan’s Fin Bath) and beautiful trees and flowers and water sources everywhere have a heavenly effect on people.

Flowers are everywhere on the ceilings and walls (above) and outside like the omnipresent pomegranate and roses:

Kashan is like Grasse in France, the capital of rose essence, Gol-Aab:

and some more ceilings:

and more gorgeous frescos:

I loved this image of this tired chador clad lady:

The next day took us to a famous bath or hammam: Sultan Amir Ahmad Bathhouse. I want to take you first to the roof—very typical of the ones in this region, it lets the sunlight in. You will see these roof domes again from inside.

Thes multiple domes contain convex glasses to provide sufficient lighting to the bathhouse while concealing it from the outside:

The bathhouse is a traditional Iranian bathhouse from the 16th century. It has two main parts: Sarbineh (the dressing hall) and Garmkhaneh (the hot bathing hall). The following image is of Sarbineh with its octagonal pool and its 8 columns.

The interior of the bathhouse is decorated with turquoise and gold tile work, brickwork and amazing plasterwork:

A symphony in gold and turquoise…

Me being a Roohani (religious in Persian and a common last name like Smith) and the new president being a Roohani, you would think this dude could be my dad or an uncle:

My dad—Morteza Rouhani— a retired pediatrician and not a mollah (here with our kind guide, Abbas Ghamkhar), was tired of following my mother and me around . Everybody asks me but my father has no connection to the Iranian President!

Another great tea (I call it paradise in a glass) and we were ready to head to another historical house.

The same person who built the Tabatabaei’s House later built this one, the Boroujerdis House for Mr. Tabatabaei’s newly married daughter. It is considered a true masterpiece of Persian traditional residential architecture. It has a funny story:

The groom not being from Kashan, was not accepted first as a good suitor (he was in the tea making business) and to show his wealth in spite of not being one of the Kashan nobility, he asks the same architect to build his home with samovars and teapots in the exterior wall carvings! I was laughing taking these pictures:

There are great plaster and stucco works of fruits and flowers and wall paintings by the royal painter Kamal-ol-molk, and three 40 meter tall windcatchers which help cool the house to unusually cool temperatures.

A windcatcher (below) is a traditional Persian architectural element to create natural ventilation in buildings:

and this is what’s happening inside the dome, magnificent ceiling,

after magnificent ceiling…

I wished I could have made a better travel log about this mystical place:

One last image from the other side of Tabatabaei House—after all we started the blog with it:

Ok one more:

We went back to Tehran, tired but happy. Guess what we drank the minute we got home?

I will keep a great memory of this beautiful city—home to my favorite poet, Sohrab Sepehri. This swallow kept us company at our hotel, the Manouchehri House:

A poem of Sepehri in English:

“I am a native of Kashan
Time is not so bad to me
I own a loaf of bread, a bit of intelligence, a tiny amount of taste!
I possess a mother better than the leaf
Friends, better than the running brook

I am a Muslim
The rose is my Mecca
The spring my prayer-carpet
The light, my prayer stone
The field my prostrate place
I take ablution with the heartbeat of windows…”

in French:

“Je viens de la contrée de Kashan.
Ma vie somme toute n’est pas trop difficile.
J’ai de quoi vivre, un brin d’intelligence, un minuscule talent.
J’ai une mère plus douce que les feuilles de l’arbre.
Des amis plus limpides que l’eau courante.

Et un Dieu présent quelque part, tout proche:
Parmi les feuilles de giroflées,
Au pied de ce pin élevé,
Sur la face consciente des eaux,
Dans les lois du monde végétal.
Je suis musulman.
J’ai comme direction de la Mecque une rose.
Comme napperon de prière une source.
Comme sceau de prière la lumière.
La plaine est le tapis de ma prière.
Je fais mes ablutions aux vibrantes fenêtres de la lumière.”

and in Persian:

اهل كاشانم
روزگارم بد نيست.
تكه ناني دارم ، خرده هوشي، سر سوزن ذوقي.
مادري دارم ، بهتر از برگ درخت.
دوستاني ، بهتر از آب روان.

من مسلمانم.
قبله ام يك گل سرخ.
جانمازم چشمه، مهرم نور.
دشت سجاده من.
من وضو با تپش پنجره ها مي گيرم.

Paris under snow, what a magical sight…

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Michele

It’s been snowing in Paris and amazingly the snow is staying so the whole city is white white white!

I had to meet a friend for lunch in Montparnasse; no bus was running in Paris yesterday so I had to take the metro which was deserted:

it was me and the live statue of a king…

The famous cafés of Montparnasse, like Le Select (once the haunt of Hemingway, Picasso and Henry Miller) were kind of empty,

La Coupole was not much better,

so we settled on some mean steak and frites and Entrecôte:

Who can say no to that?

I said goodbye to my friend and decided to go and take some pictures of the city under snow.

It snowed on bikes,

and on flowers,

and the café tables:

The bouquinistes (booksellers of used and antiquarian books) had stayed home but the Notre Dame cathedral was open to me and others.

Still majestic after 800 winters!

It was glorious inside; I particularly love its three large rosettes. These examples of technical and artistic genius were constructed in the 13^th century. The largest two measure 13 metres in diameter:

I was giddy by the time I left – snow makes most people like that. It reminds me of my childhood in Tehran and cancelled school days! I took a picture of myself with the Saint Michel bridge behind me.

I would have been happier if it wasn’t for the stupid love padlocks! They have invaded the Pont des Arts (Art Bridge) and now it’s all the other bridges’ turn…

The Conciergerie (where the notorious Marie Antoinette was held before being decapitated in 1793) looked beautiful in spite of the recent Disneyesque cleaning of its façade. I liked it better when it had some of its original grime…

I took the metro again to go to Trocadero:

You see many things when taking the Parisian metro – some are very nice like this poster advertising an exhibition about Shahrzad and her ” Thousand and One Nights” at the World Arabe Institute:

and some more realistic ones like these homeless men sleeping…

By the time I got out it had stopped snowing,

and the beautiful Eiffel tower was on time for her rendez-vous with me:

These gilded statues each had a live bird on them:

but the only one close enough for me to take a picture of was this little sparrow:

And of course everybody could take their own tower home:

I didn’t buy any but I started writing this blog to share it with you looking out from time to time to the melting snow.

Villandry, green and violet poetry in the garden

Posted on August 18, 2012 by Michele

I’ve been to the Loire Valley in France a few times but never seen anything like the Château de Villandry’s magnificent gardens!

I would like to share this with my friends so let’s start: the Loire region is a few hours from Paris and the roads are bordered by poppies in May/June:

I love poppies and I got spoiled!

I had a reservation to stay at this “château/hotel”, Château de Ternay, that much to my delight turned out to be a gem:

Affordable château living for a couple of days and catered by a genuine Count and Countess! The hallway leading to my room reminded me of my childhood school, Jeanne d’Arc:

My room was right out of a fairy tale,

I was so inpired, I kept taking pictures like this one which is my favorite:

The next morning, a copious breakfast was prepared for my friends and I:

What a great way to start the day:

I can tell you that with all the good coffee that I drank that morning, I had a long night ahead of me!

So let’s go to our enchanting gardens now in Château de Villandry which is the last of the great chateaux of the Loire built during the Renaissance. The charm of its outstanding gardens make this one of the jewels of the region.

A sea of Lavender greeted me and it kept going, wave after wave,

after wave,

after wave…

After this first Ornamental Garden, it was time to delight in the Kitchen Garden:

herbs and vegetables and of course fruits:

This is actually how it looks like:

This is the village of Villandry and its 12th century church from the vantage point of an antique petunia vase:

And now the second of ornamental gardens, Love Garden:

These gorgeous parterres were forming hearts, masks which were worn at balls, blades of daggers and swords used in duels caused by amorous rivalry. In summer, the flowers are red to symbolise the blood shed in these combats! Breathtaking…

If I was riding a balloon, I would have taken this picture (from their site) – the Château is quite elegant but the gardens are otherworldly:

It was impossible to overdose on this much beauty but my legs were complaining so one more look to the Water Garden,

and one last stop at wisterias:

and one coffee for the road:

and I went back to the hotel; this is the view outside,

that became little by little like this:

and of course Snoopy is waiting for me in the room,

Tomorrow will be another full day visiting Loire!

Visit Villandry here

My hotel, Château Ternay, here

Nicolas Bouvier, the Master Traveler

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Michele

This is my blog’s fourth Anniversary issue and what better subject than the amazing Nicolas Bouvier! He traveled from Geneva to the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan in 1953-1954 with his painter friend, Thierry Vernet.

I read his great book, The way of the world, last year; it started a bit slow but once that he got to Iran, I was hooked. This map traces their journey from Europe to Asia where Bouvier starts in Geneva and ends in Afghanistan:

His friend, Vernet, has kept a visual jounal by drawing what they see together and what Bouvier writes:

These images are my interpretation of their work and an homage to this delightful journal. “Ten years in the writing, The Way of the World is a masterpiece which elevates the mundane to the memorable and captures the thrill of two passionate and curious young men discovering both the world and themselves.”

They traveled with a small Fiat Topolino (above and below) that took them through hell and paradise!

What was striking about this little book was the fact that I didn’t have to lower my expectation of excellence: Bouvier writes with the ease of the poet that he is and the attention of an enthusiastic humanist…

He talks about “women buried in their floret tchador”: femmes ensevelies dans leur tchador à fleurettes.

He talks about how “Iran, the old aristocrat, who has experienced everything in life … and forgotten a lot, is allergic to ordinary remedies and needs special treatment. The gifts are not always easy to give when children are five thousand years older than Santa Claus.”

After finishing the book, I got curious about the writer and started the “research”! I compiled many images about this master Iconographer, I watched many of his interviews—from his youth until the last years of his life— and he sounds as fresh at the end as he did in the beginning.

The Swiss television has a great archive on the subject.

I have to admit that the year they spent in Iran was the most interesting to me— even though Serbia, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan had their own exhilarating charm. He even talks about my old school, Jeanne D’Arc of Tehran, in the years before my birth. The next couple of pictures of Bouvier are from their time in Tehran; this one from a modest hotel’s balcony:

He’s typing in the nude in the heat of the Iranian summer:

Most of all I loved the winter they spend in North west of Iran, in Tabriz:

The way he describes the long quiet winter in that city transports the reader to the depth of our common humanity; I laughed when he talks about the smell of hot Persian breads, Sangak and Lavaash in the snow or when he describes the frozen mustaches and beards of men in the freezing cold, the boiling water of samovars and the fact that everybody thinks only about three words: tea, coal and vodka!

Speaking of Persian breads, Bouvier suggests that only a very old country can make luxuries out of most banal routines; this bread has been thirty generations and a few dynasties in the making…

I was overwhelmed with nostalgia reading his beautiful poem about the onset of winter (Zemestan in Persian) in Tabriz:

I couldn’t find it in English so I translated it myself; first the original in French:

Novembre
Les grenades ouvertes qui saignent
sous une mince et pure couche de neige
le bleu des mosquées sous la neige
les camions rouillés sous la neige
les pintades blanches plus blanches encore
les longs murs roux les voix perdues
qui cheminent sous la neige
et toute la ville jusqu’à l’énorme citadelle
s’envole dans le ciel moucheté
C’est Zemestan, l’hiver
Tabriz, 1953

November
Bleeding open pomegranates
under a thin layer of pure snow
the blue of the mosques in the snow
rusty trucks in the snow
white guinea fowl whiter still
long red walls lost voices
who walk in the snow
and the whole town to the huge citadel
flies in the mottled sky
It’s Zemestan, winter
Tabriz, 1953

These images are based on the following books:

Bleu Immortel and The way of the world.

I read the “The way of the world” in french (L’Usage du Monde) but it has been lovingly translated by Robyn Marsack; I recommend it to all of you.

Que votre ombre grandisse or May your shadow grow!

Hellooooooo Paris!

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Michele

I am finally in Paris—to stay. Looking for a job and an apartment and so happy that even the gray rainy days don’t make me homesick for my sunny California (yet)!

Everything looks kind of rosy in the Luxembourg Garden:

I am going to take you on a short promenade in Paris: in the morning you have a quick coffee in your hotel room,

If you are lucky you can see the Etoile with almost no traffic:

but if you are really lucky you will catch some new version of the Beatles crossing the streets:

and then you buy your metro ticket (and maybe cigarettes if you are one of my girlfriends),

from here:

and head down to your favorite café in Saint Germain,

or any other nondescript one like this one,

and watch people (something I am not very good at—coming from the U.S. where staring at others is considered a major faux pas):

and more people,

or watch them watch you!

Of course in Paris, everyone is a philosopher and you better get used to it:

and most waiters are annoying!

I personally prefer watching the iconic Parisian rooftops than people:

and temporary exhibitions like the one below:

Next, I will drag you to see the eternal Bonaparte (or Malaparte according to the rest of Europe!)

After lunch, you feed the little sparrows in Place des Vosges,

or see Quasimodo feed them in front of the majestic Notre Dame cathedral:

You may want to see the stage makers in the old Paris Opera house:

and hear me curse Chagall for the nth time for having defaced the original ceiling!

we can go see Dali and ask him why his Venus has open drawers…

From the Montparnasse tower you can see most of the landmarks:

I love this view with the Luxembourg garden as a blob of green in the middle of my photo:

And when you are dead tired you go back home but not before admiring the beautiful bridges of the city of light:

you buy some bread (low carb dieters beware) because that’s all you can afford if you buy anything else in Paris!

A glass of wine and a piece of cheese will be all you need,

you may admire the blue hour from your window:

you may read a little bit,

then you go to sleep and dream about great stuff…

and wake up to an early deserted Trocadéro:

and watch the rainy morning start in front of a bitter espresso in a very small cup:

and wonder about what the hell you are doing away from the sunny California and your friends and Cyrus,

and the good old Santa Monica…

but then you remember that you wanted to do that all your life and you better do your best to be happy in the land of Molière!

Two Queens, one King and the holy Trinity College by the river Cam

Posted on October 6, 2010 by Michele

University of Cambridge, England, is one of the oldest universities in the world (800 years old) and is made up of 31 colleges. A college is where students live, eat and socialize. It is also the place where students receive small group teaching sessions, known as supervisions. This post will be about the grandest and most magnificent of these colleges: Trinity College.

I had the best guide to take me around several of these colleges but for this post, Trinity it is. It was founded by Henry VIII in 1546 as part of the University of Cambridge, combining two older colleges that existed since 1317 and 1324:

This is the clock gate with a statue of one of the older colleges founders, Edward III (and yes it did take me 20 minutes to walk 20 feet!)

“Pugne pro patria” or fight for your country he’s preaching with a beer belly and three crowns in his hand. Edward III quartered the Royal Arms of England (the three lions) with the ancient arms of France, the fleurs-de-lis on a blue field, to signal his claim to the French throne.

The iron-work of the gates in the Nevile’s court leading to the “backs” is very impressive (I found a funny criticism of the gates in an old book—they were built for a total sum of 4 pounds in 1691):

I love this little feather stuck on these ornaments:

Trinity has many notable alumni but for me its most distinguished is Isaac Newton; this is where he measured the speed of sound (you can still clap your hands and hear the echo):

He is now standing in the college’s chapel:

For the ones who don’t want to decipher the words above, here is William Wordsworth’ poem (1850):

“Near me hung Trinity’s loquacious clock,
Who never let the quarters, night or day,
Slip by him unproclaimed, and told the hours
Twice over with a male and female voice.
Her pealing organ was my neighbour too;
And from my pillow, looking forth by light
Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold
The antechapel where the statue stood
Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.”

Newton is surrounded by bright minds in the chapel and even A Man for all Seasons. I am almost sure that the second gentleman from the left is Sir Thomas More:

Of course you should first get in the chapel to see all of that!

The most beautiful sight is the Wren library—off limit to cameras—which has exquisite classical proportions and maximizes space and light having bookcases below window level. It has Newton’s own copy of the first edition of Principia Mathematica, with hand written notes for the second edition.

Trinity College undergraduate gowns are dark blue, as opposed to the black favored by most other Cambridge colleges:

Unlike any other Cambridge college the porters—aka grass police—always wear black bowler hats; they make sure that as with many other Cambridge colleges, the grassed courtyards are generally out of bounds for everyone except the Fellows or me who was accompanied by a Fellow.

And this is their headquarter:

If you get lucky to be invited to a High Table in the Great Hall, you will have a formal dinner with very interesting Fellows but if you are very lucky, like me, you will sit between the most senior Fellows, Anil Seal and Béla Bollobás!

This is what you are going to eat and drink (we were lucky enough to inherit a great Sauternes left over from the previous night’s big dinner); I was warned not to pass the serving platters to the person sitting by me and always wait for the waiter to do it!

And of course row after row of tea cups…

The great court is even more breathtaking at night where the college bathes in soft lights and the sound of the central fountain:

Just imagine going to sleep (like the other students of the college) with the sound of this old spring:

If you are a visiting scholar, you may stay in the college,

right beside the Master’s Lodge—in this case Sir Martin Rees:

I so wanted to peek through Sir Rees’ house but the best I could do was to take a furtive picture and be happy with his TED talks...

One place I could visit was the neighboring guest house in this blue hour,

and delight at the “green teas” you could have in the morning by the window…

Last but not least on my list is the river Cam and its romantic bridges made even more beautiful by the Punts (flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow):

It couldn’t get greener, wetter, fresher than this hazy beautiful morning spent visiting the Cambridge colleges:

And this punter, oblivious to the fine rain, enjoys the shallow and gravelly river, from one Cam bridge to the next:

After the first couple of colleges you either need a coffee at Caffé Nero accompanied by great fudge from fudge kitchen,

or something stronger: a carajillo just like Mitra D. likes it!

To be continued…

Marbella, the beautiful woman by the sea

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Michele

I just got back from Marbella, Spain, where the weather is hot, the sun’s always shining and the colors are intense (at least in July).

For me, the South of Spain—Andalusia—conjures up my beloved Velasquez, García Lorca and of course the native son of Malaga, Picasso. It was my first time in this part of the country so I did the usual tourist things. The great hotels of Marbella looked empty under the sizzling sun; I loved all the local decors like Plaza Romano in Hotel Puente Romao:

Andalusia is the land of Flamenco (not to be confused with the pink bird flamingo) and these paintings by Fabian Perez, translate the passion of this dance into beautiful images:

But the real ladies of Spain were painted by my beloved Velasquez: the Infantas (daughters of a king of Spain, in this case Philip IV)— infanta Margarita who stared at me for years from a poster in my kitchen and infanta Maria Theresa who became the wife of Louis XIV and lived way longer than her poor sister, Margarita.

I will make a post about Velasquez and one about Goya, once I visit the Prado in Madrid, but for now this post should do. These ladies with these extremely wide panniers inspired me to do a little Velasquez of my own:

I even drew one on the walls of the majestic Villa Padierna…

Las Meninas are everywhere in Spain even on a couple of Spanish fans I bought!

I wrote this post listening for the nth time to the superb Miles Davies’ Sketches of Spain, one of his best works.

Now let me take you to old town Marbella. It is a maze of narrow streets with white houses, restaurants and Bougainvillea galore! For good food check out Da Bruno.

Lots of small shops offering completely unnecessary but fun stuff:

The blue hour (the sun sets at 10 pm in summer) is accompanied by a dizzying fragrance of flowers.

I especially liked the 300-year-old statue of the Virgin—Virgen de los dolores— surrounded by dazzling plants:

A fun thing to do was to go to the open air market, bustling with life and colors; my mother (below in the middle) and my cousins were busy making good deals:

Southern Spain is a polka dotted country and they start dancing flamenco early:

Seeing all the beautiful vegetables, the Southern Californian (read Mexican) in me couldn’t resist treating everybody to a homemade quesadilla:

I went south of the border in every detail even the beer:

The trick is lots of green onions!

A good meal with family and friends is one of the blessings we usually take for granted.

Now back in Spain again, I shouldn’t be impressed with flowers but these hibiscuses were a red that only Goya would have understood…

The Villa had a swimming pool, a shallow spanish tile pool, a lion head fountain and Sepideh, my cousin, did her best to model for me by all three!

She looks so authentically Spanish that she’s had gotten into fights with some people in Malaga who accused her of lying when she claims to be Persian; the fact that she speaks Spanish well has not helped!

Can’t resist a poem of Garcia Lorca (english first and then spanish):

Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.
With the shade around her waist
she dreams on her balcony,
green flesh, her hair green,
with eyes of cold silver.
Green, how I want you green.
Under the gypsy moon,
all things are watching her
and she cannot see them.

Verde que te quiero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
y el caballo en la montaña.
Con la sombra en la cintura
ella sueña en su baranda,
verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fría plata.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Bajo la luna gitana,
las cosas la están mirando
y ella no puede mirarlas.

Spain is a beautiful woman…

Check out this clip for a passionate and seductive flamenco dance by Belen Maya and its vocal version, Cante Jondo or deep song.

Watch the legendary Antonio Gades dancing it to perfection here.

Listen to Miles’ Sketches of Spain here.

Watch Carlos Saura’s Iberia trailer here.

For the beautiful poem (in Spanish and English) I used in my infanta image, read Dave Bonta’s post here.

Ms. Foodie goes to Hollywood

Posted on April 11, 2010 by Michele

After living for a few months in Switzerland, I couldn’t wait to get to my favorite Cuban restaurant in Los Angeles, Versailles; everything tastes more delicious and was way cheaper in the good old U.S. of A.

The most famous item in the menu is the garlic chicken and even for somebody who is not a “beer person”, this Corona was just too good to miss:

I tried to go back and rediscover all the inexpensive great restaurant of my hometown like the King and I where they still serve the best Thai food since the first glass noodles I had there 25 years ago.

To have the best restaurant cheeseburger in Los Angeles (Tommy’s is still great), I went back to the Westside Tavern—they have a gorgeous bar,

and they serve a rare cheeseburger to die for:

I love old diners (my first impression of America remains diners with bad coffee in New Jersey and New York) and I miss Bob’s Big Boy in Santa Monica; Coogie’s who replaced it has a super fresh simple chopped salad:

Nothing says more southern California than a killer burrito like this world famous border burrito from Eduardo’s Border Grill in Westwood (surviving the attack of Persian restaurants in the area):

The dudes are preparing them with tender loving care,

worth every cent of its 8 dollar price!

So I am not very beer, or burrito or hamburger but Switzerland does this to the poor Californian foodie who comes back: I wanted to eat everything in every menu of every restaurant!