LAist Featured Photos Pool contributor LA Wad snapped us a shot of this unusual eatery that is an architectural and thematic curiosity in Koreatown. Our photog explains:Cafe Jack is a Korean coffeehouse and restaurant. No, that is not a real ship. The owners of the restaurant took a modular office building of a former used car lot and added elements to convert it to resemble a luxury liner. They are trying to go for......

Remember back in December when due to "human error" in tallying the votes, the crown that was placed on the head of Koreatown's Christina Silva, aka Miss Los Angeles, was placed on the head of Miss Barstow Raquel Beezley making her the winner in the all-important Miss California pageant? Now Silva is seeking $500.000 in a lawsuit over damages of public humiliation and lost prizes citing foul play of rigging the contest and using race......

Problem #1: Home sick with the flu. Problem #2: Unemployed (not necessarily a problem per se - I rather enjoy it, but the check hasn't arrived.) Hence Problem #3: My gym's spa is under construction, with the steam room out of order and the sauna marred by jackhammers and the workmen's radio. Bringing the vaporizer into the bathroom and turning on a hot shower doesn't have the same effect. Where can I go to......

Sometimes the news really does paint our wonderful town as something of a racial powder keg, which makes it all the more gratifying when you stumble across a truly diverse neighborhood. Hugging the western border of Koreatown, just south of tony Hancock Park and just north of West Adams, sits a neighborhood where true diversity is a reality. Just how diverse is Country Club Park? Ask yourself this; where else in town can you......

Dudes, it's become clear to me that just by walking about whatever fine neighborhood you happen to reside in (NoHo, WeHo, SilLake, DnTn, SanMo, KTown, HanPark, CulCity, etc), you're bound to happen upon a great little bar with great happy hour deals. Fer instance: this week I was walking around Downtown and ran into some friends, who happily guided me to the Redwood Bar & Grill, a fun and surprisingly classy little pirate bar......

Just like yesterday, when we announced that while the federal government can rob medical marijuana dispensaries, citizens can't, we find that LAPD officers are not allowed to rob drug dealers. In a separate case from the widely known Rampart Division Scandal, a group of rogue officers held up at least 30 drug dealers in a two year period ending in 2001 according to CBS2 News. After the robberies, which included taking the drugs, money......

As of 12:30 a.m. tonight, 10,300 LADWP customers went without power throughout the city, primarily due to downed wires from the weather, according to a press release from the city agency. Crews have been deployed to the scattered outages, affecting the following areas and number of customers: South LA 1,153 Cheviot Hills 1,442 Knollwood 151 Mid City 561 Granada Hills 12 Belair Estates 4 Country Club Park 29 Studio City 38 North Hollywood 3,257 Westchester......

Last week Monday, Metro released a series of service enhancements and additions including the new Gold Line schedule. In the additions bucket came two new Metro Rapid lines, both starting in Downtown. The 728 runs between Downtown and Century City, mostly along Olympic Blvd. A ride review by Wad at MetroRiderLA finds that the busy thoroughfare "has a cross-cultural crosstown aspect" as it runs through Central American community of Pico-Union, Koreatown, Little Ethiopia, South Carthay......

I'm still waiting for all your hot happy hour tips, Los Angeles! We'll be posting happy hour listings at least a few times weekly in 2008; send your secret spots and recommendations my way at carrie@laist.com. And besides, what better way to get 2008 started than with some cheap booze at some happening city spots? Here's a few more we managed to dig up this week: Miss T's Barcade, Koreatown, Happy Hour 5-9 pm:......

Due to "human error" in tallying the votes, the crown that was placed on the head of Koreatown's Christina Silva, aka Miss Los Angeles, was placed on the head of Miss Barstow Raquel Beezley yesterday in Beverly Hills, and Breezley is now the winner in the all-important Miss California pageant. - AP Guess who's getting naked for Peta now? Film star Eva Mendez. And if her poster is any indication, she's really behind this......

It's happened again: a perfectly good dive bar is about to be remade as some overhyped, shortlived blech, as blogging.la feared. The Lowenbrau Keller has fallen into the clutches of restaurant developer The Wanton Group. Yes, they really call themselves that. The Lowenbrau Keller was almost impossible to find, hidden behind enormous overgrown trees with a hard to describe street address (on Beverly but it seemed like First, or Temple), too far south to......

3,000 homeless plus 400 volunteers makes for a festive mood at a Skid Row Thanksgiving Dinner today. More Downtown holiday news at blogdowntown. 1.85 million. That is how many people expected to be traveling in, out and through LAX this holiday weekend. That number is almost half of Los Angeles' population! NPR gives out 9 tips on how to have a more eco-friendly Thanksgiving. Tip #3, skip the Turkey and go for native protein......

This past Sunday I dropped by a fundraiser event for Barack Obama in Koreatown, invited by my friend who works for Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas. Not really having kick-started my analysis of candidates out there yet, my only real knowledge of Obama, silly as it may sound, was that he is a) Democratic and therefore b) NOT BUSH. Hey, these are the important things. Although we had difficulty parking, and we basically had to cram......

Two really good bands (that taste great together) have announced today that they are heading East. The Art Brut / Hold Steady concert that was originally planned to happen at the Wiltern will now go down at the Music Box at the Henry Fonda on November 7. Art Brut is the crazy British band whose tune "Moving to LA" can be heard on KROQ and Indie pretty much every day, and the Hold Steady......

Last night came and went, but we know a select bunch of aware Angelenos turned off their lights last night for Lights Out LA, a program in San Francisco and Los Angeles asking residents to turn off lights for one-hour in the name of conserving energy. Alisa Pugha in Koreatown participated and she spoke to LAist last night. "So just as Light Out LA starts, my power starts dimming. What the fuck?" The anonymous blogger,......

Korea Town is a busy place, my friends, let me tell ya. There's bars and clubs galore here in K-town, insanity going on at all hours of the night, and when my Korean brothas and sisters are done drinking for the night, and are ready for something greasy or refreshing -- I could only imagine that they'd hit this house, the house of Nak Won.......

Driving through Koreatown we ran past this gentleman who had the most interesting sign hanging from his neck. Heartbreaking if you believe him, which we do. photo by Sonny I. LaVista for LAist......

- Green LA Girl takes her show to the LA Times via The Emerald City - congrats Siel! - LAT - Laker center Kwame Brown gets popped for Disorderly Conduct in Georgia on Saturday after his cousin was charged with drunk driving after going the wrong way down a one-way street. Laker fans would like to see that sort of effort in the paint - AP - Even though it's only 56-years old, and......

As development wraps up on the first of two major redevelopments above subway stations on Wilshire, the reviews are begining to come in. The Wilshire/Vermont station is just about complete and tomorrow the LA Times will give the design of the complex a negative review, complaining, among other things that it just doesn't fit in with what else is going on with the legendary boulevard. During the many decades that architects enthusiastically celebrated the......

So I'm sort of a musician and a writer, albeit aspiring, who after feeling like a misfit among yuppies that I continually ran into in the South Bay where I grew up, was thrilled to finally make the move into L.A. a couple years ago, specifically Koreatown and then Los Feliz. Finally, I was free to wear whatever the hell I wanted to wear, and not get hostile looks from people (I once wore......

Let me just come right out and say it. I'm not a huge Pirates of the Caribbean fan. Never have been. All of that swashbuckling just makes me feel sea sick. I know that for some folks such a statement might be enough to have me walk the plank, but it's the truth. However, despite my shallow enthusiasm for the Pirates trilogy, and really, pirates in general, I do have a confession to make.......

I found out that there's good reason why I don't go to Thai town often, because to get there in Friday evening traffic means a good 40 minutes of bumper to bumper traffic through Korea Town, with the scent of a billion Korean Barbecue joints wafting through the air. I swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on the bumper in front of me. It was tough, but I eventually made it to Ruen Pair......

LAist Editor Tony Pierce has blogged here non-stop for more than a year deserving a well-earned vacation (and did he ever earn it). While out of town, we decided to have a little fun and bring some guest day editors in from around the blogLAsphere. Monday we had Green LA Girl and Tuesday saw Fred Camino of MetroRiderLA.Zuma Dogg took Wednesday and LA City Nerd yesterday. Today, former LAist Editor Carolyn Kellogg makes a comeback!......

LAist Editor Tony Pierce has blogged here non-stop for more than a year deserving a well-earned vacation (and did he ever earn it). While out of town, we decided to have a little fun and bring some guest day editors in from around the blogLAsphere starting with Siel, our friend over at www.GreenLAGirl.com. Here's to a green start of your week! 1. Age and occupation: 28, grad student and blogger 2. Home town: Los Angeles......

There are three very distinct communities housed in the jumble of high-rise office towers, apartment buildings and houses that make up Koreatown. There is the Koreatown of middle-class and wealthy Korean families, who live, eat, shop, party and golf in a faithful facsimile of their native country. There's the Koreatown of toil and danger, experienced by the Latinos and blacks occupying much of the neighborhood, working in the thousands of local businesses and (occasionally)......

If you’ve ever lived in Koreatown and decided to take 3rd Street straight into downtown, (say you’re attempting to make it to the library one more time, because this time maybe you won’t miss the parking entrance and end up on the freeway), then you might know what I’m talking about. Between Grand View and Coronado, there’s the strangest little church with a neon sign known as the Superet Light Center. A little research......

I feel true joy when I’m able to experience the simple pleasures in life. These include loling, warm nights, people thanking me after I’ve let them into my car lane, and chill bars. I get downright giddy when said chill bars include passwords for entrance and a jukebox that plays Elton John, the Violent Femmes AND Smashing Pumpkins. Thank you, God. I’ve been praying for a place like this. R Bar is the newest......

Q: What do you call a road with five to seven lanes of traffic in one direction, if the only way to exit this road is by going to the right? Pose that question to most Angelenos and the answer would be "a freeway, stupid!" But they'd be wrong. The answer is the increasingly popular proposal by LA County Supervisor Zev Yarolslavsky to convert Olympic and Pico boulevards into one-way streets in order to......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

It's 2am. You’ve closed the bar down and you need something to soak up the alcohol. If you’re on the Westside, you might hit a coffeeshop. If you’re on the Eastside, it’s a taqueria. But if you are in Koreatown, it’s all about the Pho. This Vietnamese noodle soup has taken Koreatown by storm, almost surpassing Korean BBQ in popularity. All night long, the brightly-lit noodle shops that line Western Avenue are jumping. The people-watching......