The Mexican/Spanish restaurant-lounge Senor Fred has cemented its reputation as a Ventura Blvd. hot spot for drinks, but it's also a nice lunch destination for those of you trawling the Sherman Oaks area. The place fulfills at least two requirements of a good Mexican restaurant: spicy salsa that tastes homemade (their version has a nice smoky flavor to it), and strong, simple margaritas. The food is far superior to Mexicali's questionable menu, but about......

Photo submitted by LAist reader Tom Godfrey Here's an interesting tidbit from Sherman Oaks. At the Valley's busiest intersection, Sepulveda and Ventura, you need to cross 17 lanes of traffic to get from one corner to its catty corner. Oy vey! Would this be one of those intersections slated for a diagonal crosswalk the Mayor spoke about last week? And for those who use public transportation and end up walking many of these large......

Photo by kpeII via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr The elderly women known as the 'Black Widows' have been found guilty of murder conspiracy. Partial verdicts were read today against 77-year-old Helen Golay and 75-year-old Olga Rutterschmidt for their roles in two murders. A 27-year-old man from Sherman Oaks jumped to his death this morning from an overpass on the 210 Freeway at Sierra Avenue in Fontana. He had left his car......

Watch those mailboxes, people are stealing. Reported by a representative of City Councilman Jack Weiss last night at a Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council meeting, homes in the hills of Sherman Oaks (you know, "south of the boulevard," as they say) are falling victim to mail theft. And while the immediate concern is ID theft, what is happening is that checks are being whited in the name field out and cashed by the thieves. Come tax......

Photo by delara-photos via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr A 16-year-old boy who shot at a police car in Boyle Heights last night remains at large today. Details are clearing things up about what was first reported as a drive-by shooting that took place on Ventura Blvd. last night; turns out it was two employees of a smoke shop who were shot. The assailants entered the store through the back entrance. The body......

Looks like some folks in the San Fernando Valley didn't get the memo about the city's 40 hour moratorium on violence. According to the Daily News, "a man was shot outside of a pizza parlor in an apparent drive-by shooting late Friday." The incident took place after ten o'clock last night in Sherman Oaks near Ventura and Van Nuys Boulevards, an area particularly dense with foot traffic and restaurants. A motive for the shooting is......

Meet the future location of Studio Oaks Park where a grassroots effort is the only way this strip of unusable, rat-infested land will become a park. In Los Angeles, if you really want to get something done, you've got to take it upon yourself. In the southeast Valley, residents are doing just that.......

More details have come out today regarding the alleged Sunday morning Freeway shooting in Sherman Oaks near Van Nuys Blvd on the 101. A car with a young man, now identified as 20-year-old Marlon Gordillo-Sical, was found shot in his car after it crashed on the freeway. He was taken UCLA Medical where he was pronounced dead. Police were cautious in assuming details yesterday as KNBC reported (emphasis added): The Honda sedan could have been......

"little green leaf," by Melle Music via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr For those who thought oil spills only happened when big tankers in Alaska collided with icebergs, may I point you to the South Bay? Crews were busy Saturday cleaning up about 5,500 gallons of oil that spilled into the wetlands area around Machado Lake. The oil apparently overflowed from an oil-and-water separator at the Cooper & Brain Oil Co. field near PCH......

Taken from the 8th Floor of the City National Bank Building | Photo by Mitch Oberstein with an iPhone *Update, 6:42 p.m.: A maintenance man familiar with the building has said they found an apparent suicide note.A witness is reporting to LAist that it appears a person has fallen from a building at 14724 Ventura Blvd. in The Village area of Sherman Oaks. "There's streaks of blood and just a sheet covering him," said......

"11.1.07," by edenjet via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr There is more information about the Wilmington shooting Thursday night that left one suspect dead and another in critical condition. "He just came out and decided, 'This is what I'm going to do today,'" one of the officers said. I think someone needed a hobby. Are you tired of the current crop of movies at the Arclight in Sherman Oaks? Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel,......

Sherman Oaks and South LA made national news yesterday when a Los Angeles native, now based in Oregon, became the latest decried author who penned a fraudulent memoir. Yes, Margaret Seltzer grew up in the Valley, no Margaret B. Jones (her non de plume) did not gangbang in South Central as her book said. Today, the fallout came in the form of experts giving quotes to the media about this reoccurring theme. What first comes......

A 33-year-old white woman from Sherman Oaks, now living in Eugene, Oregon, has made national headlines today as news comes that her memoir was largely fabricated. Last week, Margaret Seltzer who goes by the pen name Margaret B. Jones was featured in the New York Times' Home & Garden section in a fascinating story about her book, "Love and Consequences." One LAist reader explains her fascination about it in an e-mail: I read the home......

Lots of old school films happening around town tonight. / Photo by get directly down via flickr. THEATRE You have a hand at commenting on the Theatre of NOTE’s play selection this week and next. NOTEwood is their comprehensive series of public readings featuring new, original works. The 2009 season will be chosen from the 30 scripts selected to be read aloud at the year’s NOTEwood reading – but there’s a talk back session......

Fallout from the massive Westland/Hallmark meat recall scandal continues to affect Southland restaurants, stretching from San Diego to Ventura County. The California Department of Public Health has released a document listing every food purveyor which has purchased the recalled beef -- and at 59+ pages, it's a doozy. Chances are very good you have purchased or ingested some of Westland/Hallmark's product at some point, since markets and restaurants across the city are represented. My......

Pickle just about anything at the Machine Project tonight. / Photo by ccarlstead via flickr. Sure there are a lot of places closed for President’s Day, but nightlife does exist in LA...even tonight: FILM Roman Polanski’s Chinatown focuses on an intricate water scandal and an even more twisted family backstory. Starring John Huston, Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson as Detective Jake Gittes – the city of Angels plays a major part of this nourish......

Near the Studio City-Sherman Oaks border on Moorpark Street at Longridge near Fulton is a new spacious and clean contemporary feeling coffeehouse. M Street Coffee opened about a month ago serving the regular fare of espresso, macchiato, americano, cappucino, and chai teas. Eco and vegan friendly, they have organic frappes, soy and organic milks and fruit smoothies with raw vitamin complex add-ons. All are served in eco-friendly containers. According to a Chowhound review, Gene Liebenau,......

Cellos take center stage at the Colburn School tonight | Photo by Lachlan via flickr. FILM Before Alan Alda brought the character Hawkeye Pierce to homes everywhere in the M*A*S*H television series, Donald Sutherland (Keifer’s dad) played the role on the big screen in the Robert Altman-directed film (MASH). In both, though, the plot remains the same: the men who lived in “The Swamp” didn’t care much for military decorum during the Korean war.......

This morning at Elysian Elementary in Echo Park | Photo by Andy Sternberg/LAist *UPDATE, 5:33 P.M.: More problems continue throughout LA County at the beach, in Santa Monica. At Los Angeles City Hall, two City Councilmembers had an emergency press conference telling voters to pay attention when voting and Dharma & Greg Actor Mimi Kennedy explains what's going on in a video interview with LAist. Also, Hillary Clinton answered our interview questions. We're getting......

Barney's Beanery gets rocks the vote. Kind of. RED, WHITE AND BEER If you didn't get enough beer yesterday, Barney's Beanery in Santa Monica is hosting a "Super Tuesday Countdown Beer Vote" today and tomorrow. Alcoholics Drinkers vote for their favorite candidates by choosing which tap to draw their $3 beer from. They'll be serving up plenty of Hillarys and Obamas for sure. A running total will be announced as the votes are tallied.......

Two fairly large, but non-deadly crashes in the Valley, first on the southbound 405 in Sherman Oaks, ">then on the westbound 101 in Tarzana, snarled morning commuters today. Needless to say, traffic backed up to the 101/405 interchange which is the busiest freeway interchange in the United States. This brings up the question: where are the alternative options to traverse the 8.5 mile Sepulveda Pass between the Valley and metropolitan Los Angeles? There are currently......

It’s kinda quiet on the event front, a perfect day to reflect on Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy. But if you're into going out tonight: CLASSICAL Southwest Chamber Music continues its Musical Imagination and Color series with a concert featuring 20th century composers, including Stravinsky, Milhaud, Berg, and Bartók. Violinist Lorenz Gamma, clarinetist Jim Foschia and pianist Ming Tsu are on the bill tonight. 8 // Colburn School Of Performing Arts: Across The Street......

Monday Tanya Lemani presents Have Belly, Will Travel 7pm @ Book Soup Kim Sunee presents Trail of Crumbs 7pm @ Vroman's Tuesday Marc Porter Zasada presents The Urban Man: Staying Human in LA 7pm @ Book Soup Patrick Conyer presents Pasadena: A Business History 7pm @ Vroman's Elizabeth Pomeroy presents Pasadena: A Natural History 7pm @ Vroman's Muhammad Yunus discusses Creating a World Without Poverty 7pm @ Central Library Lewis Hyde discusses his books......

It's the biggest dance club night in Los Angeles over at The Vanguard and tonight is a special one -- GIANT is having its eighth-anniversary party. Join Steve Aoki, Glycerin and others along it 1500 clubbers. Metromix has the low down. And speaking of anniversaries, the monthly Dragstrip 66 at Safari Sam's is celebrating its Quinceanera! 15 years ago, January, L.A.'s queer/mixed underground have been eagerly descending upon the club night every second saturday......

Cisco Adler protégé and collaborator, Shwayze (seen to the left), is hitting up Redondo Beach tonight with his happier sounding indie hip-hop. He grew up in a trailer park... a trailer park in Malibu that is. “To me, it was the nicest trailer of all time," the 22-year-old musician says. He and Adler play at the Venezia Italian Grill and you can start your night in Malibu, riding the bus down with the gang (RSVPs......

A previous owner of Pane Dolce (Italian for "sweet bread") in Sherman Oaks, went up and down the immediate neighborhood on Ventura Blvd., taking notes on the neighboring restaurants' soup selections. What he found was little selection for vegetarian and dairy free soups. So he went to work on his cafe's soup menu, which is now the most popular item ordered. Made daily with fresh ingredients, the neighborhood cafe offers two or three soups......

Officer Down: A SWAT team was dispatched late today to a Reseda home on the 11800 block of Blythe Street where it is believed an officer was shot. The gunman has barricaded himself in the home and it's unclear whether he has been apprehended. The injured LAPD officer was transported to a local hospital. The funeral was held today for 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, who died after her insurance company refused her liver transplant. Mourners......

I will admit, I get a little excited when I notice that Starbucks launches their holiday-time drinks menu. Candy canes and Christmastime go hand in hand for me, and at this time of year I'm a total sucker for anything that's got some peppermint in it, from Trader Joe's' Candy Cane flavored "Jo-Jo" cookies to--you guessed it--the Starbucks Peppermint Mocha. There's something wholly satisfying and just a tad indulgent about a mocha jazzed up with......

This week Zach Behrens became the sixth editor of LAist. Behrens is no stranger to LAist staff or readers -- he was Co-Editor for nearly a year before taking the reins from Tony Pierce and contributed more than 1100 posts since 2005. We asked Zach a variety of questions to put in perspective how and why he came to be editor of the best city blog this side of the Hudson. Andy: When and why......

KITSCH: The Charles Phoenix Holiday Jubilee returns to REDCAT for the next four evenings. LA kitsch expert Charles Phoenix brings together an evening of live comedy, including the Bob Baker Marionettes, roller rink organist Dominic Cangelosi and a few other surprises. The entertainment's all in combination with his "Retro Holiday Slide Show," comprised of slides he found at area thrift shops and flea markets. 8 pm // REDCAT at Walt Disney Concert Hall //......