While I was in LA, I attended two Twitter meet-ups. The first was the LA Tweetah held at Air Conditioned Supper Club in Venice. As soon as Bad Kitty and I landed and check in to our hotel, we cabbed it over to the tweet-up to meet some peeps.
I was expecting throngs of people, after all, this was LA, but was surprised to find a lightly attended event where people could actually meet and talk to each other. We soon realized that tech in LA was not like tech in the Bay Area where a recent tweet-up in the sleepy, San Francisco suburb of Menlo Park attracted 300 people. There were about 30 people there when we rolled in about 9PM.
Bad Kitty and I chatted with some nice folks (no one had their twitter handle on their cards), had a drink, met the charming organizer, Monicuta, and took off back to hotel for dinner. (Which was as ridiculous and delicious as house-made guanciale and a bottle of Erath Pinot Gris could be.)
The next night was different.
Ever since I have been on Twitter, I have watched (and drooled) as people talked about outings to SoCal chain, Zankou chicken. How people raved about the chicken and the kebabs and the turnip pickles and the garlic sauce.
The garlic sauce.
I dream of that garlic sauce and up to this point, I had never tasted it.
I knew that if I ever got to LA, Zankou chicken would be one of the first stops on my list. (We never did find the Korean taco truck, but there's always next time.) I am a little obsessive about trying new things, what can I say.
I twittered that I would be in LA and a meet up at the West LA started coming together. People wanted in and in the end, our gathering included (please to follow these fine Tweeple): the gorj SweatpantsMom (who met us for drinks first and was our driver—thank you!) MOMocrats Cyn3matic and SoCal Mom, hawt Kim from HouseofPrince (who looks too young to drink) and her "So Sexy it Hurts™" side-kick WhitHonea (who really need their own TV show), newlyweds godotchris, onetake, and LA Tweetah's Monicuta who joined us for a second night of fun.
We all ate garlic sauce (which Bad Kitty dubbed "Garlic Crisco") which was good in case anyone wanted to make-out later.
And no, there are no photos because we like mystery.
The downside to Zankou is no booze, and this crowd needed some drinks, so after consulting Twitter, we moved on to The Arsenal where we met up with the beautiful and talented Rebecca Woolf and the Calamity to her Jane, the equally beautiful and talented Bite-My-Cookie Dana. Rebecca was on the same photo shoot junket I was (we briefly compared horror stories) and Dana came down from rainy PDX to rainy LA to be her Bad Kitty.
The party continued until we wrapped it up on the respectable side of midnight. Bad Kitty and I had a 7:30am call and we needed to try to sleep. (Didn't happen.) Seeing everyone together, chatting and laughing, made me wish I lived in LA. And also the chicken and garlic sauce made me wish I lived in LA. (Hey Zankou! If you are reading this, please open a restaurant in Silicon Valley or these people might have to see me on a regular basis!)
I have to mention, we arrived in LA ahead of a huge storm I cannot thank everyone enough for braving the pouring rain and worse-than-usual LA traffic to meet up in a location convenient to me but not-so-convenient to where everyone else was coming from.
As Kim said, "We'll always have Zankou."
(And focus boards.)
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The story about being at 50 Cent's old house is coming...
