Cirrus-ly Speaking

Nothing more to say other than the simple beauty of the purplish cirrus clouds following the setting sun on a Friday evening.

Ode To Joy - Fishing Tackle

I stumbled upon this shop along Santa Monica the other week while walking to church: Joy Fishing Tackle (4914 Santa Monica Blvd). A fishing tackle shop, 15 miles from the nearest shore? LOL WUT? So during my deli quest today, I discovered it was open and decided to check it out.

The store sells fishing poles, tackle, nets, reel, bait (both frozen and live), other fishing-related gear, and even fishing licenses.

In chatting with the owners, I learned that this shop recently relocated from their old location near 1st and Western in Koreatown, where they had been operating for a few years. The folks behind the counter, a woman and a man, in their 50s or 60s, run the place. The guy, whose name is Shin, is the owner and I did some outreach and gave him my EHNC card. I also talked to the customer at the counter and asked him where he does his fishing. He told me he goes deep-sea fishing off of San Pedro and has been a loyal customer of Joy Fishing Tackle since they were at their old location.

Well that sort of clears it up, at first I thought opening a fishing tackle shop 15 miles from the sea was rather crazy, but if they were able to run for years in Koreatown (14 miles from the sea), then I guess that's not that too far-fetched. Anyway, when I was a kid and went fishing with my dad, he'd get his fishing gear from the local Thrifty's (now Rite-Aid), at Vermont and Santa Monica. He even got his fishing licenses there. Of course, Thrifty's didn't sell bait, we'd often get it closer to where we fished (in the local Southern Cali lakes or by the sea).

The last time I went fishing was sometime in the fall of 2003, on a boat off the coast of San Diego. And before that was when I was a kid. I guess if I wanted to take up fishing again, I know exactly where to go!

Guatemalteca Opens!

Guatemalteca Bakery and Restaurant, on 4770 Santa Monica Blvd, is now open. The eatery serves Guatemalan fast food and is the newest store in the local chain; another store has been operating not too far away, just a little over a mile south on Beverly Blvd. It also sports its own bakery that produces tons of pan francés (french-style rolls, which come with nearly every combo plate) as well as a huge selection of pan dulce and European-style pastries. The place is also a mini-market with shelves selling dry and canned good products, beverages, imported frozen fruits and vegetables and even a refrigerated case that sells milk, cheese and eggs for the convenience of people in the neighborhood.

The establishment, which opened on September 15, is spotless, has an inerior painted in pleasant colors and well-designed -- the parking lot is in the rear (no mini-mall format here!), there's even a bicycle rack, and the front of the building is landscaped, with room for possible sidewalk dining. The restaurant has unique hours: 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Yes, there's a desayunos menu for the early crowd - the real early crowd, catering to a working clientele that starts work before dawn.

I got to try a combo plate with chile relleno, beans and rice. It wasn't anything mind-blowing (this is fast-food, after all) but the sauce was real good. It also came with a pan francés roll, which probably would have tasted even better if it were warm. They also have an extensive antojitos menu (tamales, etc), as well as tortas. The prices are way affordable so, I'll be dropping by once in a while.

DEFISAL- El Salvadoran Independence Day Parade

The streets of East Hollywood will play host this morning to the annual DEFISAL (Desfile de Independencia Salvadoreña) - the El Salvador Independence Day parade. El Salvadorans will whip out their blue-and-white pride to celebrate the anniversary of their independence from Spain on September 15, 1851. The local El Salvadoran community celebrates it on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend with a parade down Santa Monica Blvd. past popular El Salvadoran restaurants and shops, ending with a festival at Los Angeles City College.

The El Salvadoran community, which also has a large presence in the Pico-Union district (where the organizers of DEFISAL are based) is one of the most culturally-prominent ethnic communities in East Hollywood and has had a growing presence in E-Ho since the era of the Salvadoran Civil War from 1980 to 1992.

Linoleum City

The plot of land on the north side of Santa Monica Blvd. between Berendo and Heliotrope is shaping up to be a 3-story Linoleum City store, which currently operates about a mile west on Santa Monica and Wilston Place, next door to the big Sears Roebuck store. Though L-City has been a Hollywood institution since 1948, the days of its original location are numbered as the block is making way for the proposed Paseo Plaza mixed-use development coming in '09, so it's moving east.

The new Linoleum City site was formerly Miller Studio Rental - a company that rented props and lighting equipment to Hollywood soundstages and production companies - and an adjoining wreck shop where recently-damaged autos lay in limbo. Prior to that, the property was once home to Pennsylvania Garden Supply Co, which moved a couple miles west to Santa Monica and Las Palmas Ave., where it operates behind the spacious Arena Nightclub.

As a Heliotrope Drive resident, though I don't really have much need for linoleum at the moment, the new development solved a major blight problem by itself -- the small Southwestern-style garden built by the Pennsylvania Garden folks on the parkway on the Heliotrope side. After Pennsylvania left, the "garden" was left unmaintained and was a seriously blighted patch where not only trash, but food waste and human feces were dumped. Now that L-City is setting up shop, the Southwestern garden was removed and will soon make way for a driveway leading to the rear parking lot.

Another added bonus was the maintenance of the seven crape myrtle trees planted there during an East Hollywood Community Association cleanup day in early 1998. I personally planted one of them! After Pennsylvania moved out, the new business owners neglected to maintain the trees, and the roots attracted trash and stray saplings grew from the tree well. Whoever's building the L-City store cut out the saplings and cleaned up the trash! Looks like L-City seems to be a good neighbor so far.

Guatemalteca Restaurant

That "mystery building" on Santa Monica and Berendo is finally unveiled, even after curiously asking my contact at Councilman Eric Garcetti's CD13 office since the building sprang up last year. It's going to be a Guatemalan restaurant called Guatemalteca, which will also sport a bakery, adding to an already ethnically-diverse array of eateries in the neighborhood which include Armenian, Thai, El Salvadoran and Filipino (and countless other) cuisines.