Little Bohemia - Coffee Shops, Boutiques, and Restaurants
As I am now gainfully unemployed and have embarked on sharing with you all my insider's knowledge of Los Angeles, I thought I would take this debut post to share with you one of my favorite tucked-away parts of Los Angeles.
Living in the heart of Hollywood, I've recently decided to explore what my own neighborhood has to offer besides B-rated Thai restaurants and the Scientology Celebrity Centre (5930 Franklin, for all of you brave souls). In my quest, I discovered a spit of hipster vendors right at the base of Beachwood Canyon, on Franklin between Tamarind and Bronson--a tiny little block just big enough for a coffeeshop, a news stand, a couple of restaurants, and some shops. Honestly, I don't know how they squeeze it all in--there's even a theatre, the Tamarind Theatre, whose line often winds around the block.
The Bourgeois Pig is a Moroccan-inspired, Bohemian-soaked coffee shop where you'll find both aspiring screenwriters sipping their Bourgeois coffees (a sinful specialty with hazlenut and mocha) or Moroccan mint teas (yum), casual shaggy-haired males playing pool in the back, or couples canoodling on the plush couches in the dimly-lit back room. They also offer lots of good desserts and a wide variety of coffees and teas.
Next door to the Bourgeois Pig is The Daily Planet, a well-stocked news stand that's more like a papeterie than a bodega. A charming boutique provides all the essentials for the hipster uniform, with a wide range of prices to suit any starving artist's or trust fund Bohemian's budget.
No strip of Bohemia would be complete without a record store. Offering thousands of old vinyls, tapes, and a rather random collection of books, I've spent hours in here perusing the collection and getting lost in a haze of dust and nostalgia.
Finally, there are three restaurants whose smells intoxicate me every time I walk past. Prizzi's Piazza provides great pizza and antipasta dishes in a casual and relaxed atmosphere and La Poubelle is a French restaurant with a shabby chic atmosphere and a good ambience for a date or casual catch-up meal with an old friend. Tayo, a Japanese restaurant, is always crowded. The restaurants offer valet parking, which is nice since street parking in Hollywood is notoriously evil. The restaurants are all inexpensive--good food without killing your wallet.
Come discover Little Bohemia...an oft-ignored enclave amidst the Armenians and Thai in Hollywood.
