My idea was to find a Hollywood hotel that was walking distance from the theater we’d be attending, with the rim shot being a sweet Italian eatery halfway between. My aspiration in traveling to a big city is always to park the car and leave it parked until it’s time to go home. Carol’s aspiration is to not get mugged.

   The hotel was adjacent to a parking garage, and offered a spectacular view of the L.A. skyline and the famous Hollywood sign from an 18th floor perch. The oldest family-owned Italian restaurant in the city was a few blocks away, and the theater was a half mile farther along down Hollywood Blvd. Perfect. But maybe not.

    “I want to drive to the theater first and then to the hotel,” Carol said as we arrived at the city limits. I knew why: she wanted to scout the demographics we’d be traversing on foot that night, imagining what it all might look like at about 11 o’clock. Hollywood Blvd. is a major tourist attraction. I imagined it filled with harmless tourists from Ohio and Nebraska until well into the wee hours. Carol imagined it crawling with characters out of The Day of the Locust. (I secretly hoped she would be more correct. In this, I would not be disappointed.)

Food vans fed hungry crowds of too young and too underdressed vamps, stalked by too old and too overdressed predators – or at least that’s how I spun what otherwise was an uneventful, run-of-the-mill Saturday night in L.A.

   At the restaurant, opened in the same year I was born, I added another data point in my lifelong quest to find the Best Veal Parm in the World. (The current title holder, as it’s been for the past almost 50 years, is Ralph’s in South Philly.) My concurrent quest for the best lasagna will require another trip or a two-day visit.

   The show ended, and we slipped past the swarming knots of people waiting for their Ubers, thankful we were not part of that confusion and could just amble straight on to our hotel. This boulevard of broken dreams was alight with a desperate energy generated by all the nighthawks looking for any connection to the ever diminishing promise that is Tinseltown. Food vans fed hungry crowds of too young and too underdressed vamps, stalked by too old and too overdressed predators – or at least that’s how I spun what otherwise was an uneventful, run-of-the-mill Saturday night in L.A.

   The best foodie find turned out to be in the city’s Chinatown section, a true dive (in the good sense) of a joint featuring authentic New Orleans cuisine, named the Little Jewel of New Orleans. It featured a huge selection of po boys, muffalettas and seafood, including soft shell crabs.  Were I to start a new quest for The Best New Orleans Style Restaurant That’s Not in New Orleans, I believe my quest would begin and end right here.

   I had the soft shell crab po boy on two slabs of french bread flown in fresh daily from New Orleans, and half of Carol’s toasted, overstuffed turkey and provolone came home with us. 

   A great hotel, classic Italian restaurant, a pair of $10 lottery tickets to Hamilton at the elegant Pantages Theater and a po boy to close out the festivities. Not a bad birthday at all. Love you, Carol!