What's going on lately in the L.A food scene? Chew on this: Pacific Standard Time has inspired secret menus and cocktails at two fabulous restaurants, a Beverly Hills food tour might be just the thing to get your sweetie (if they're a foodie), and a how-to video for cooking for Date Night, plus a few more bites of food news. more ›

One of Angelenos' biggest grumbles about taking public transit at night is that service is limited, both in frequency and how late the service runs. Now Metro says they are about to launch what they're calling a "major expansion" of night service on their rail lines. So what kinds of big changes can we expect? more ›

Good news for adult entertainment dabblers! Hollywood's Jumbo's Clown Room is featured in Playboy's After Midnight, a magazine feature tallying America's best late-night bars. The article lists 14 American watering holes where bartenders serve up stiff drinks during all hours of the day and night. Featured in Playboy's August issue, the piece includes establishment descriptions along with criteria for making the cut. more ›

Please check out our PaleyFest2011 video interviews with Jimmy Fallon who was being honored last Friday night for "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" and G4's Chris Hardwick who was moderator for the evening. Fallon dropped some hints for upcoming shows and Hardwick let us in on his many developments. --- We're happy to announce the return of nightly listings of TV shows in addition to the TV Junkie Must-Watch Plan. more ›

"Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" celebrates its 400th episode tonight! We wish Snooki wasn't guesting though. --- We have a new Channel Zero podcast up, this time its an hour+ recording of "Bored To Death" showrunner Jonathan Ames discussing creative process. --- Oscar-y stuff. --- Greg Proops has local gigs + live podcast. more ›

What's it like to see "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon"? Read on to find out and to find out how to do it yourself. Some hints and tips and a brief look at how difficult it is to put a late night show together. All this plus the TV Junkie Must-Watch Plan for the weekend. more ›

We made a couple good calls on last night's "People's Choice Awards" - congrats to "S#*! My Dad Says" for winning best new comedy, their runaway hit status is confirmed beyond the Nielsen numbers. --- Lot's of stuff happening in late night tonight, check out our ramble on it. Too bad there's not much else going on in the hours before the late night shows, check out our Must-Watch Plan and the listings. more ›

At the NBC party at the 2010 Television Critics Association summer sessions, "Late Night" host and host of the upcoming Emmy Awards, Jimmy Fallon, told us what he likes about visiting Los Angeles. This was shot at the Beverly Hilton on July 30, 2010. more ›

A late-night coffeehouse is tough to find. One open all night long is even harder. Sure, there are all-night diners like Norms and the 101 Coffee Shop, but true coffeehouses, whether it be one with an eclectic menu, cozy couches, hand-picked teas or other unique tendencies, are sorely needed in Los Angeles. more ›

The best way to control rumors most often is to confront them head-on, which NBC has done today via NBC Universal Television Entertainment Chairman Jeff Gaspin, who revealed just this morning that Jay Leno's "nightly prime-time show will end with the beginning of the Winter Olympics on Feb. 12," reports KTLA. According to Gaspin, Leno is being courted for an 11:35 p.m. half-hour slot, thereby bumping Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon back a half-hour, however it's "not a done deal," adding he "hopes to have NBC's late-night lineup cleared up by the beginning of the Olympics." Gaspin remarked that it was the NBC affiliates who were not satisfied with the Leno "experiment," which prompted the mid-season shakeup. The news came during NBC's segment of the Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena. more ›

Despite a recommendation from a city council committee (.pdf) to once again run trains into the wee hours of night, late-night subway service this holiday season will not happen. The culprit? The economy, of course. more ›

If you came to Los Angeles and had to choose one late-night diner, which would you go to? Playboy traveled the country in search of the top ten best such diners across the country, naming the Original Pantry Cafe in downtown as one of them (good choice!). What they say, in part: "Open all day, every day since 1924, former Mayor Richard Riordan loved the Pantry so much that he bought the diner in order to save it from demolition. Today the Pantry is dwarfed by the shadows of the Staples Center and other markers of downtown Los Angeles, but it serves up to 3,000 people every day...” Also listed: Orphan Andy’s (SF), Big Nick’s (NYC) and Diner Grill (Chi). more ›

Thai Town is priced perfectly for our sorry pocketbooks. We know this. One such standout is Ruen Pair, a restaurant LAist visited for our "Thai One On" series. It was both inexpensive and fantastic in '07, and that hasn't changed for '09. The only difference is a sharp coat of paint. Of course it's LAist's latest Recession Obsession. more ›

Protesters upset over recent elections in Iran waved flags, marched, shouted, and made a scene without fear of government reprisal. more ›

Dodgers Skipper Joe Torre, not yet done promoting his Yankee tell-almost-all, stopped by Universal City on Monday to visit another New York City transplant. As Conan mentions at the top of the video, the Dodgers have the best record in baseball right now. Hopefully we'll all get to say that in October. more ›

Word of the Taco Zone truck that parks near Vons in Echo Park being on fire spread in much the same manner as the blaze last night via Twitter and food-centric message boards. more ›

You don't even need to be on shrooms to get hypnotied by this. Thanks, Conan! Yesterday the blog Serious Lunch found that Conan's background seems based off the Mario Bros. Mushroom Kingdom. And boy, it looks like they were right. more ›

TV show host Jay Leno fell ill today and was checked into the hospital prompting the 'Tonight Show' to be canceled. It was not immediately known what caused his illness (food poisoning is rumored), but he reportedly checked himself into the hospital and is recuperating. Animal trainer Jules Sylvester and actor Ryan Reynolds and the band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy were to appear, according to LAist's TV Junkie column. A rerun will air instead. more ›

Tonight kicks off the last week of Conan O'Brien's run as host of the New York-based "Late Night" show. O'Brien is packing up his life on the East Coast and is headed to Los Angeles, where he will take over Jay Leno's timeslot and hosting duties of the night owl stalwart "Tonight Show." more ›

Councilman Jose Huizar, who represents parts of downtown, called last Holiday season's pilot program that extended the Metro Red Line to 3 a.m. a great success, saying that the program performed well despite little lead time on marketing and outreach. "[It] illustrates great demand and interest in late night transit for our City," he wrote in a letter (.pdf) to the city's Transportation Committee." He cites the following example: more ›

Although they admit the lead time to market the program was insufficient, Metro and the City have not committed to operating late-night Red Line service again in 2009, according to a report (.pdf) published by the Department of Transportation this week. However, they do believe Metro can "operate effective additional service" if funded and that the community may have an interest in seeing it happen again during the 2009 holiday season. more ›

Metro is estimating that 1,000 people a night took advantage of Metro's late-night subway service pilot program last Fall and Winter. For six weekends, Metro extended service on the Red Line until 3 a.m. at the behest of the business community who helped pay for the majority of the program. "Because Metro does not have turnstiles to track exact ridership, the numbers presented came from a survey conducted on Friday, December 12, and Saturday, December 13," observed Eric Richardson at blogdowntown. "Another survey conducted the next weekend offered roughly the same numbers." The report also hints that homeless accounted for up to 25% of the ridership. Again, of course, ridership counts were not an exact science here. more ›

The above clip is from today's taping of NBC's "The Tonight Show". In it Leno gives a kind of a weak explanation of how he renewed his contract with NBC to create a "cleaned up" version of "The Tonight Show" at 10:00pm, thus providing NBC with three hours of comedy/entertainment talk shows every weeknight. Somehow NBC just can't say "no" to the lantern-jawed man from New Rochelle, NY, and this inability to say "no" might very well undermine the efforts of Conan O'Brien on "The Tonight Show" and Jimmy Fallon on "Late Night". more ›

With much excitement, the six-week late-night Metro Red Line subway service begins tomorrow. Every Friday and Saturday night until the end of the year, you'll be able to ride the train until 3 a.m. more ›

At today's Metro board meeting, the group unanimously approved a pilot program that would extend Red Line hours until 3:00 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays from November through January 3rd. Yes, Los Angeles will finally have a subway that operates until 3:00 a.m... well, at least for a short period of time. more ›

Now that the LA City Council approved pilot late night Metro Red Line subway service for Fridays and Saturdays, it's up to Metro to take up the issue. It's on their board agenda for tomorrow, but the plan is even more slim than before. Instead of beginning November 1st and going through January 3rd, Metro's written motion has it starting on November 14th (that cut is 25% of the project's length). Likewise, the original idea was to have Thursdays included, but that was cut down during the city's proposal process because Metro wanted maintenance time. On the good side of things, Metro says that "it appears that a majority of the necessary $85,500 has been identified.” more ›

Without much discussion, the LA City Council approved the late-night subway motion which would expand service on the weekends to 3:00 a.m. between November 1st and January 3rd. But this doesn't mean everything is said and done. more ›

After passing out of the transportation committee last week, the motion to extend Metro Red Line service to 3:00 a.m. Thursday through Saturday nights from November 1st to January 3rd will be considered by City Council today. Because Metro doesn't have the funding for the expanded service, the "service would be supported in part by private sponsorhips," the motion states. more ›

It's official, for better or worse, Jimmy Fallon will host NBC's "Late Night" show after Conan O'Brien shifts to "The Tonight Show" next year. Despite being a fan of SNL alumni, I wish I felt more positive about this appointment. While it's true that Conan O'Brien was a relative unknown before taking the reins, he was a prolific writer for SNL and "The Simpsons" for years -- the point being that hosting one of these shows is more than just having a personality and reading cue cards. more ›

uWink, the entertainment/dining "experience," has just announced plans to open a new location in the Hollywood & Highland complex, in the space formerly occupied by Wolfgang Puck's Brasserie Vert. The restaurant is coming to Hollywood sometime in early May 2008, and promises to bring as-of-yet-unheard-of levels of FUN!!! and FAMILY EXCITEMENT!!! to the Highland complex. more ›