Last month I was over in California for ten days, starting off in Santa Monica for our friends' wedding in a beautiful outdoor venue up on Topanga Canyon called The Inn of the Seventh Ray which served locally sourced, seasonal food on white iron tables and chairs surrounded by trees, plants and twinkling fairy lights.
We stayed the weekend there, going for walks along the beach (we saw Caitlyn Jenner with a trainer when we were going for a jetlagged jog one morning), visiting the hipster stores on Abbot Kinney, eating Mexican at Mercado, making the obligatory trip to In-N-Out for burgers, watching the dudes at the Venice Beach skate park, drinking comedy-sized margaritas and cocktails at The Misfit, shopping at Nasty Gal (again, whoops), walking the Venice canals and going to West Hollywood for the seared albacore tuna at Izaka-ya by Katsu-ya I've been craving since we last had it there years ago. After five days and pretty much acclimatising to Pacific Standard Time, we hired a car and started our little road trip up the California coast...
