Happy Hour International

Live: Trey Songz and J. Holiday
The pair bring ballads and hip-hop to the House of Blues.

It’s the moment that the rabid female fans in the audience have been salivating for at the Trey Songz and J. Holiday show Friday at the House of Blues: Songz is finally going to take his shirt off. It couldn’t have come any sooner, because he had pretty much lost the crowd to this point with a lackluster performance that dwelled too long on dreary R&B ballads.

Remembering the legend of the Ash Grove
The storied club not only gave groundbreaking acts a showcase in Los Angeles, it changed the national landscape. A documentary is in the works, and a 50th-anniversary celebration is next month at UCLA

“THE windshield wipers don’t work,” Ed Pearl warned as he approached his beat-up 1982 Volvo station wagon. That made the short drive from Echo Park to Silver Lake a bit of an adventure on a recent rainy afternoon, but Pearl handled the curves and arrived intact at his destination, the home of Aiyana Elliott.

Live: Double Edge
The two-piano duo performs Messiaen for Santa Monica’s new-music series, Jacaranda.

Easter eve. Spring’s second day, and Purim’s. The moon, coming off full, hangs over Santa Monica Bay. The weather is balmy. Night-blooming jasmine perfumes soft air. Lovers walk hand in hand.

Live: William Kraft’s ‘Encounters’
The L.A. composer creates feisty works with French color and jazz rhythm.

William Kraft paints with percussion.

Best Birthday Bar
This neighborhood spot is modest Middle America meets cool Brooklyn Heights.

Your New Favorite Bar
Our latest look at notable nightlife openings

New Talent Showcase at Caroline’s
The country’s top up-and-coming comedians test their acts against the toughest crowd in the country: New Yorkers. Every Monday and Tuesday watch these budding stars shine on Carolines New Talent stage.

cafe international

the best international connection nexus in the city

Sinister Swing

Best Dance Class Ever!

Great Coffee House

Killer Coffee on your way down I-280. Oh, and i make latte art, so don’t drink it, frame it!

V: Ladies Night

Ladies Night Wednesday

New conductors at Bowl unveiled
The summer season at the Hollywood Bowl will include Mahler, movie music and ‘Les Miz.’

Vancouver Symphony Orchestra music director Bramwell Tovey was named principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl at a news conference announcing the 2008 summer season Monday on the Bowl stage.

Live: Quartet New Generation and Gabriela Montero
A recorder quartet with ‘tude and a quick-thinking pianist find new ways to connect.

There are many foolish attempts to change concert life, such as surveying young people who aren’t interested in classical music about what bait would draw them in. Say we served pizza in cellphone-friendly concert halls, installed sofas and video screens, and guaranteed that no “song” would last more than five minutes? What if we made that gourmet pizza and supplied a fine Gewürztraminer to wash it down? Free iPhones to the first 50 who log on to our website?

Live: Matchbox Twenty with Alanis Morissette and Mute Math
The band celebrates its past and future, receiving strong support from its guests.

It’s good to be Matchbox Twenty. The band feted this fact with a triumphant two-hour set Sunday night at the Staples Center. Supporting its 2007 greatest hits album, “Exile on Mainstream,” with the band’s first national tour in more than four years, the quintet tapped unlikely but compelling openers Alanis Morissette and up-and-coming alt rock group Mute Math for an eclectic, heartfelt show.

Mary’s Secret Garden: for the vegan with panache
The Ventura restaurant has a sense of occasion to match its smart and appealing menu. Who needs meat anyway?

VENTURA’S favorite son, Erle Stanley Gardner, author of the Perry Mason mystery books, never wrote about a meal that didn’t begin with a martini and include a steak and baked potato, but times have changed since his fictional hero’s mid-century heyday. Today’s detectives — fictional or otherwise — can’t determine a car’s owner by peeking at the registration on the steering wheel column the way Mason could, and they most likely can’t pack away the red meat the way he did.

Marvin Franklin
The haunting last sketches of a late transit worker grace the Transit Museum

Best Record Store
The space has always drawn serious music fans in search of underground sounds in every genre.

The Seagull
Classic Stage’s strong season continues with Chekhov’s first masterpiece, starring Alan Cumming and Diane Wiest

Random Acts 2008
The New School’s celebrated one-act play festival features the work of 36 actors, nine directors and seven new playwrights in 26 presentations of plays drawn from classic and contemporary repertories?including seven original works by Drama?s playwrights featured in the final two weeks. Visit…

Canvas Cafe and Gallery

Laid-back and comfortable.

1 review - last on 02/13/07 by Hypatia

supper club

club, restaurant, cirque de sole in one

My favorite beer on tap: Chimay!!

Best Beer on tap: Chimay!!!

Backlit Lounge SF at the Rx Gallery

Backlit Lounge SF – A Monthly Event featuring Live Electronic Musicians

Die Machinen at 520 4th St. in San Francisco

A Good Way To Spend Your Thursday Night!!!

T&K Food Mart
Three tasty Vietnamese restaurants at one stop

THE cluster of shopping centers and maddening traffic along Bolsa Avenue — the main drag in Orange County’s Little Saigon — can feel claustrophobic. If you need to break Bolsa’s embrace, pull over and ask the nearest teenager for directions to “The Fast and the Furious” shopping center. He’ll direct you to the pagoda-style plaza that served as a cinematic bad-guy hideout. This is T&K Food Mart , your one-stop Vietnamese eating zone.

There’s lots of sizzle at the Buenos Aires Grill
The lively Northridge restaurant pays homage to Argentina with a freewheeling menu and grill-your-own feasts.

THE throb of tango music, the sizzle of grilling meat, crowded tables groaning under the weight of portable barbecues loaded with short ribs, sausages and yards of skirt steak that drape over the grills’ edges. We’re at Buenos Aires Grill in Northridge, it’s close to 10 p.m. and the place is still rockin’.

Hungry Cat: Downtown, with fishnets flying
The restaurant hits Santa Barbara with a fresh attitude and a Hollywood reputation. Is it ready to settle in?

A HUGE, purple-black sea urchin with glossy, lethal-looking spines lands on the table, looking like some improbable fur hat set on its side. It must be 6 inches around. The waiter passes out spoons and sets down a plate of crisp handmade crackers. “Spoon out the roe,” he says, “put it on a cracker, squeeze some lemon over and add a sprinkling of sea salt.” My friends have never eaten raw sea urchin straight from the shell before, but we follow orders. The taste is fantastic, briny and complex, with a mineral salt tang, lit up by that squeeze of lemon and the salt. This is a little bit of heaven on a plate: Small wonder the Japanese pay big money for these Channel Island sea urchins.

Axe in Venice is a fresh old-timer
This twentysomething local favorite has a casual vibe and a healthy heart.

“HAVE you had the nine-grain pancake?” my extravagantly fit friend asks me. “It’s fantastic. About this big,” she says, stretching her arms wide. “But the secret is, you can get a half order.”

Best Contact Sport
If you?re an aggressive person but don?t actually want to hurt anybody (or go to jail), you?ll love Punk Rock Pillow Fight.

Best Game Night
Since November, the Pourhouse has been drawing competitors with Guitar Hero Night every Tuesday to channel their inner Pete Townshend.

Best Birthday Bar
This neighborhood spot is modest Middle America meets cool Brooklyn Heights.

Best Surf Spot
Long Beach stands out because it is easy to reach, consistent, and uncrowded.

Best Illegal Poker Game
Rounders screenwriters David Levien and Brian Koppleman have plenty of cryptic hints about the adapting scene.

Hidden Paradise Cafe

Best hidden paradise cafe in the city

1 review - last on 10/11/06 by $thisName

Philz Coffee

Coffee with a Twist

Temple Night Club

IT’S TIME TO PLAY, CUS THE DOORS ARE OPEN

After Hours Happy Hour at Temple Bar
We love Temple Bar’s midnight happy hour round. Not only is entrace free, but there also drink specials and $2 tacos. Yet another excuse to show up “fashionably late.”

Saturday Nights at 86
For those who want to dance, drink and watch some after-dinner cabaret

El Show De Maritza at Le Barcito
Quite possibly the only place in the world with more Latin drag queens than a Pedro Almod?var film, Le Barcito showcases Spanish language lip-sync performances that are so good, you?ll swear to Amanda Lepore they’re honest to goodness trannies. With a wide selection of tequila?yes,…

Saturdays at Sugar
Hollywood’s “sweetest spot”

Bar Sinister
The default destination for Darkwave decadents looking for a good time