Random L.A. Notes

::Langer's has a new website -- I dare you to visit and not salivate over shots of their pastrami sandwiches. Yum!

Site includes info on how to pre-order and pick up via their curbside service. But that, I assume, is for wussy Westsiders who cringe at the idea of spending any time in MacArthur Park. Puh-leeze. Part of the Langer's experience is the neighborhood. And parking, in the lot down the block, is free.

(Link via LA Observed.)


:: Jessica at LA Ritz discovers the best deal in Beverly Hills: 54-cent egg creams at Barney Greengrass.

I suck it down in a minute before the waiter tells me I owe fifty-four cents. I assume I've misheard. He brings me the receipt and the drink indeed costs fifty-four cents with tax. The three of us sit on the outdoor deck for a few more of the foamy delights and a bowl of first-rate golden onion rings. I could've had seven chocolate egg creams for the price of the one small bottle of sparking water I drink during the second round.

:: There's not a Wal-Mart for miles around Silver Lake... but the retail behemoth shot a commercial today in the hipster hood, according to Blogging.la:

I got a note on my door yesterday that a Wal-Mart commercial will be shot on our street tomorrow.

The fun part about this ... a union crew is doing it.

My neighbor also blogged about this (after selling use of her carport to the crew for catering), pointing out that the house they're shooting at is a home of architectural note (featured in a 2004 American Institute of Architects home tour) and probably worth over $1.5 million. So, Wal-Mart is featuring a home that is way out of the range of their customers, hell, the home is probably out of the range of the management.

Yeah, that $12.99 coffee pot is really going to make you feel like you live that life.

:: No shocker here. The cost of living has dramatically risen in Southern California, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Yes, high home costs, insane rents, ridiculous gas prices and more are to blame:

After adjusting for home prices, the percentage of Los Angeles County residents living below the poverty line increased from 15 percent to 18 percent, placing it among the 10 highest-poverty counties in the nation, the study found.

California's ranking among the states and Washington, D.C., rose from 15th to third.

"We don't have a realistic picture of how many families are struggling to make ends meet in California, which is particularly true in Los Angeles," said Deborah Reed, the study's author and director of the institute's population program.

The study also attributed California's hidden poverty to the nation's largest immigrant population and to growing income inequality.

Incomes have fallen 4 percent for low-income families since 1969, while rising 16 percent for middle-class and 41 percent for upper-class families.

And what is average costs a lot more. In the past year, for instance, San Fernando Valley home prices soared 17 percent and apartment rents 9 percent.

In addition, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has proposed raising water rates 3.9 percent this year and 3.5 percent next.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is pushing a 64 percent trash-fee hike.

And nobody needs to be told that gas prices - among the highest in the nation - are through the roof. The local average for unleaded is now $3.39.

(Link via LAist.)