Taking on New Adventures

My husband is doing more traveling this year and that means opportunity for me to tag along on some of his trips. In March, he spent a week in Los Angeles and Redondo Beach. So there was no way I was passing up flying out there for the weekend.

It’s easy to get to LA from New Orleans thanks to several direct flight options from Delta. I hopped the super early 6:00am flight out of MSY on Friday morning and was at the hotel by 10:00am California time.

Chuck’s hotel was right on the Redondo Beach marina. This was perfect for me as I love to explore new places. So while he was still working, I made my way to the marina to check out the area and grab some lunch.

I happened upon a brewery that was opening up for the day and got to chatting with the bartender. Project Barley‘s taproom in Redondo Beach is great and offered up several options that I had to try! While smaller than the brewery and taproom’s main location in Lomita, this was the perfect vibe to start my weekend.

After Chuck met up with me for a beer, we grabbed burgers from Proudly Serving, which shared space with the taproom.

While the rest of the day didn’t go well thanks to a monster headache and lingering queasiness from my flight, I got a good night’s sleep and we hit the ground running early on Saturday.

We walked up the hill from the hotel to a quaint diner that was recommended by every local we met on Friday, Eat At Joe’s. A walk to burn off our breakfast was in order, so we made our way towards the Hermosa Beach Pier. The almost two mile walk was perfect, if not a bit chilly thanks to the crazy cloud cover.

As we made our way off the pier after watching the surfers, we popped into a beer bar I had seen online. The Brews Hall opened at 10:30am, which was perfect. We popped in for a couple of beers and to chat with the bartender a bit. I’d definitely recommend hitting up this place if you are in the area. It was very cool.

We do enjoy watching the Food Network’s Diner’s, Drive Ins, and Dives, so when we travel, we try to check out the list of restaurants from that area that were featured on the show. There was one that Chuck always talks about going to based on what was featured on the show and it was just a few miles north of where we were, so of course we had to go.

Lunch at North End Caffe in Manhattan Beach was awesome. The sandwiches we got were huge! And the weather was perfect to sit outside and people watch.

We decided to check out a brewery that Chuck really wanted to go to. He’d had the beers from here thanks to a few beer exchanges and a couple of festivals we’ve been able to go to featuring their beers. Bonus? The brewery was closer to where we were staying than we realized. So to Monkish we went!

Located in a warehouse area of Torrance, the setup at Monkish is really interesting. A majority of the seating is outside, and you actually just order at the bar inside. It’s quite different than what we are used to here in New Orleans. But overall, it was a good atmosphere and the small pours were a great way to taste a couple of their offerings.

Afterwards, we headed back to our hotel and walked around a bit more before planning out our dinner. We wanted to stay within walking distance so made our way about a half mile away to Hudson House for a fabulous, casual dinner. It was casual, funky and just a great way to end a busy but great Saturday.

Sunday morning meant a quick walk around and breakfast at a little bodega-type restaurant at a condo complex just a short walk from the hotel.

We spent the rest of the morning driving around the South Bay and checking out the sites. The houses there are beautiful and the views from the cliffs are stunning. I got to see more people surfing down below and the deep blue waters stretched for as far as the eye could see.

We made one more stop at HopSaint Brewery for a quick beer and split some French Toast before heading back to the hotel to pack for our flight later that day.

We still had a little time to kill after packing so we headed back out for a final walk around the pier before grabbing some fish to go from Captain Kidd’s Fish Market & Restaurant across from the hotel.

We crammed in a lot on this short weekend but I now have more places I want to check out on our next trip to Redondo Beach.