Recharge and Relax at The Springs, Los Angeles

After many months of planning, design and construction, The Springs holistic wellness center finally opened its doors this past weekend. A one-stop shop for your personal well-being, The Springs offers yoga classes, organic cold pressed juices, organic raw vegan food, wellness treatments, and a space to just relax - all under one roof.

The Springs is located in the Downtown LA (DTLA) Arts District and is the brainchild of Jared Stein and Kimberly Helms, who met working on Broadway musicals in New York. While this is their first business, the pair (who are both business and life partners) have applied their experience in managing large scale Broadway productions to create this ‘Urban Oasis’. Stein and Helms first noticed the space in 2012 while touring in LA for work. Two years later, their vision for a holistic wellness community center turned into a reality.

Urban Oasis Design

The 13,500 square foot space was designed to look like a desert oasis, with indoor planters and cement being the main elements of the interior design. The space has such an airy and open feeling, it is hard to tell whether you are indoors or out. Design, Bitches is the company that designed this beautiful space.

There is also a cool graffiti motif throughout center. The artist behind the beautiful murals is Angelina Christina.

Yoga

The yoga studio also features a giant graffiti mural and the Yoga Director is Gloria Baraquio. There are 11 different types of yoga classes offered, some of which are Kundalini, Restorative, Flow and Hatha yoga. There are also specialty classes such as yoga classes conducted in Spanish. If you are a hardcore yogi, you may want to consider the All Springs membership, which  includes unlimited yoga, one free monthly infrared sauna session, and 10% off all wellness services, juice and food.

Yoga Studio

Yoga Lounge Area

Wellness Services

The wellness services here are complete offering reiki, acupuncture, massage, infrared sauna session, gravity colon hydrotherapy, cranio-sacral and The Grinberg Method.

Organic Food and Juice

All juices are organic cold pressed. They have a state of the art cold press machine in the back and bottle their juices the night before. The Forager is highly recommended – a juice blend of apple, fennel, cucumber, basil, cilantro, parsley, dill, lemon and lime. The food menu was designed by Chef Michael Falso (formerly from M.A.K.E.), and features 100% organic raw-vegan dishes. This means that the food is never heated above 118 degrees to retain natural enzymes, and to achieve maximum nutrition. Organic wine and beers are also served.

Juice Bar

Cold Pressed Juices

Pop Up Shops

On your way out, stop at the pop up shop area, a space that is for community use. Currently, the space is occupied with local products and crafts from Atomic Garden.

The Springs
608 Mateo Street
Los Angeles, California, USA
Telephone: 213-223-6226

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Plan Check Opening Downtown Location and Oktoberfest Special, Los Angeles

I’m not sure if I can claim that Plan Check has the best burger in town but they sure do make a dam* good burger!

Featured in Jonathan Gold’s 101 list this year, Plan Check has 2, soon to be 3, neighborhood locations – one on Sawtelle, Fairfax, and on Oct 20th, one on Wilshire. The new location is going to do something a little different by featuring a special Korean BBQ burger made with grilled pork belly and “kimcheese”.

Overall, the food is good ‘ol American comfort food.  But the traditional menu has a few items that are the chef’s interpretation of regional flavors such as the Smokey Fried Chicken, an ode to Southern cooking, which consists of Jidori fried chicken, smoked milk gravy, yam preserves and spicy pickled okra.

The name Plan Check was influenced by the history and activity near its first location, which was adjacent to the Building and Safety Department. Designers, Architects, and Engineers would go to the Building and Safety department to submit their plans for review for permitting and hence became the inspiration for the restaurant’s permanent name.

The PCB, aka Plan Check Burger, is a really solid burger and is the item that is closest to the restaurants original roots – a perfectly seasoned patty with Americanized Dashi cheese, a slice of ketchup leather, schmaltz onions, pickles, and a crunch bun. They have a great list of craft beers, cocktails and whiskeys to help you wash down the meat and grease.

According to LA Eater, Plan Check at the  Fairfax location will offer Oktoberfest specials through the month of October. Only 15 are served a day and for $15, you can get a pint of Licher beer with a burger and brats mash up special. Don’t delay, the early bird catches the worm.

PCB (Plan Check Burger)  - Dashi Cheese, Ketchup Leather, Schmaltz Onions, Pickles

Southern Fry - Smokey Fried Jidori Chicken, Spicy Green Pimento Cheese, Duck Breast Ham, Pickles 

Pickles

Baby Kale "Caesar" Salad

Plan Check Kitchen + Bar

1800 Sawtelle Blvd
Los Angeles, California, USA
Telephone: 310-288-6500
(Other locations on Fairfax and Wilshire)

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Italian East Meets West at Scopa Italian Roots, Los Angeles

With so many great restaurants in LA, Scopa Italian Roots in Venice somehow slipped behind the scenes. Open for nine months now, the absence of a restaurant sign (and purposely done so) makes it is easy to walk or drive by without noticing it at first pass. Scopa relies on word of mouth and feels confident enough to do so.

An upscale Italian eatery, Scopa’s menu might look a bit generic at first glance. The food, however, is anything but. Their dishes carefully blend both bold and subtle tastes, creating layers and layers of flavors to discover. The team behind Scopa are no rookies. Their resume rhymes off places like Black Market in Studio City, Pour Vous in Hollywood, and Harvard & Stone. Their Chef, Antonia Lofaso,  has also made multiple appearances on Top Chef. The concept behind Scopa’s Italian food is East meets West. Chef Antonia Lofasa, having grown up in Jersey, combines her Cali influences with her Italian-American upbringing in Jersey.

To give you an idea of how much we enjoyed Scopa, a group of us all went there for brunch one morning, and then went straight back for dinner a few hours later! 

They have an extensive drink and wine list, offering pages and pages of cocktails, whiskies, aperitifs and more to choose from.

Here is my force rank of all of the dishes we had with the best dish listed first:

1. Veal Chop Milanese - "cooks garden" sorrel, dandelion greens, cress
2. Soft Eggs - Italian sausage, cavolo nero, peppers, onions, polenta
3. Manila Clams & Uni - toast, parsley, garlic
4. Scallops Oreganata - garlic, parsley
5. Chitarra Pasta - pecorino, black pepper
6. Roast Chicken - creamed polenta, kale, calabrian chilies, shallots
7. Fresh Oysters
8. Italian Hero Sandwich - copa, prosciutto, salami, salami, provolone, lettuce, olive oil, vinegar
9. Prosciutto and Burrata - olive oil, grapes
10. Italian Chopped Salad - salami, imported provolone, ceci beans, oregano, peperoncini, radicchio, artichoke, red onion, roasted pepper

The first five on the list are must have's! It was incredibly hard having to force rank them, but there you go. The veal chop is only available for dinner and the soft eggs are only available for brunch. Their pasta was a perfect al dente and the simple rich sauce just made it heavenly.

Italian Hero

Veal Chop Milanese

Prosciutto and Burrata

Chitarra Pasta

Roasted Chicken

Manila Clams

Scopa Italian Roots

2905 Washington Blvd

Venice, California, USA

Telephone: 310-821-1100

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Taste of Yucatan at Chichén Itzá, Los Angeles

Repeatedly mentioned by LA Times Jonathan Gold, Chichén Itzá, located in Mercado La Paloma in Southeast LA, is a great place for good Yucatecan food that is fast and cheap.

There are 2 reason why you want to visit this place:

1. Yucatecan cuisine has Mayan, Spanish, Lebanese and South American influences, giving it a cosmopolitan flare compared to the Mexican food you may be used to.
2. Mercado La Paloma is an experience. It is more than just about food - it is a marketplace that offers Mexican crafts, cooking classes and community events.

Cochinita pibil is the restaurant's signature dish. Unique to Yucatan, cochinita pibil is a slow roasted pork dish marinated in citrus juices (normally Seville or bitter oranges) and achiote, which are the two main ingredients that give this dish its characteristic color and taste. Cochinita pibil is served in one of three ways: with rice and beans, as a soft taco, or as a sandwich (torta) with toasted French bread.

Tamale horneado is another unique dish where the tamale is baked instead of steamed, giving it a crunchy texture. The horneado tamale is stuffed with achiote chicken, hard cooked eggs and tomato. The kibi (ground beef and cracked wheat patties) is a dish with strong Lebanese influence.

There are bottles of habanero hot sauces available (which you can buy to take home) if you want to add some heat to your food. But if you don't find it spicy enough, ask them to bring you something spicier. In the back, they have a similar sauce but with alot more heat! The secret is rolling the habanero peppers between the hands (to release more flavor), and then charring them before making the hot sauce. Add this to your cochinita pibil, with a bit of fresh lime juice and salt, and you will be golden! This is how the locals eat it.

Torta de Cochinita Pibil

Taco de Cochinita Pibil

Tamal Horneado

Habanero Hot Sauce

A few miles from Chichén Itzá is an awesome market, ported over to LA from NYC this past year, called Artists & Fleas. Open on the 3rd weekend of each month at 647 Mateo Street, Artists & Fleas is an outdoor market with carefully curated local vendors featuring art, jewellery, housewares, vintage fashion and unique reclaimed wood work. It is an intimate setting where creative minds conjoin. A dedicated food area, featuring LA-based food trucks, is also set up for the hungry mouths.

Chichén Itzá

3655 S. Grand Avenue

Los Angeles, California USA
Telephone: 213-741-1075

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Flower + Coffee at blumenstudio, Ottawa

I've been MIA for a few months because I have been getting ready for my move to LA! I am changing jobs and this new adventure is moving me from Ottawa to California. While I am very excited, the last few months were full of ups and downs. Change is not easy! It was a long 5 months for me, but I finally have everything worked out and I've decided on an end of May move date...which is coming fast, yikes!!

Now knowing that I'm not going to be in Ottawa for much longer, I want to post all of the yummy places I have eaten at lately so that I don't forget how great Ottawa is. I'm consciously trying not to stock up on food at home, so CK and I have been eating out a lot more lately.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am a HUGE coffee lover. One of my favorite places in Ottawa for coffee is blumenstudio cafe on Parkdale.

What's really cool about blumenstudio is that it is a flower shop and coffee shop in one. When you enter, you are surrounded by beautiful plants, flowers and sculptures, making it a very warm and inviting atmosphere.

Kat Kosk and Nathan Turner are the owners of blumenstudio. Extremely talented, Kat was trained in Germany as a professional floral designer, spending most of her time in Dresden and Berlin. She moved to North America over 10 years ago and is now living her dream.

Blumenstudio is a cozy little space with great coffee and sweets. I love their marzipan balls and their coffee is consistenly good.

I recently found out that blumenstudio is dog-friendly, so little Pepper (newest member of our family) was able to join us for coffee, which was a lot of fun.

Check this place out. It is definitely worth a visit or two, or more!

Blumenstudio Cafe
465 Parkdale Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

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Worth a Trip to Carp. Alice's Village Cafe, Ottawa

The fact that I have been here 3 times in the last 2 months says alot! I am hardly in town because of my work travel and when I am, I usually try to get out to new places because I miss out on so much being gone all the time. Well. Lately, I've just been wanting to visit Alice's Village Cafe in Carp.

Why? I love Alice's Village Cafe for 3 reasons.

1. Their coffee is AMAZE-balls!
2. Their food is DELICOUS. I leave this place, everytime, feeling really full but really good at the same time.
3. It's peaceful out in Carp. I kinda feel like I'm on a mini getaway because it's in the exact opposite direction as the city.

Alice's Village Cafe is modern yet cozy. It's a family-friendly restaurant so you will see people and kids of all ages here, which is nice. The owners and operators of Alice's, Dustin and Crystal Therrien, are also the same people that own and operate The Cheshire Cat in Carp (which has re-opened for business).

For those that love coffee, they have a coffee club where your 10th coffee is free. My favorite dish here hands down is the breakfast wrap, a warm tortilla filled with egg, cheese, avocado, bean, onions and pepper. On the side are homemade hash, fresh fruit, fresh salsa and sour cream. They will change this up little depending on their menu. The first time I had this, the bean used was black bean. The last time I had this, my wrap was filled with a sweet delicious maple baked bean mash which completely made me melt. Two completely different experiences with the same dish.

One thing they are known for is their famous "Big Nasty" cinnabon bun. If you have a sweet tooth, this is definitely recommended.

Breakfast Wrap with Hash and Fresh Fruit

Cappuccino

Eggs Benedict with Salmon, Hash and Mapble Baked Beans

Big Nasty Cinnamon Bun

Apple Almond Muffin

Alice's Village Cafe
3773 Carp Road
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Telephone:613-470-2233

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Aussie-Grade Coffee at Workshop Coffee, London

The time I spent in Oz has made me appreciate coffee in a whole different way. In a few years, I learned more about coffee than I ever imagined. Aussie's are so passionate about coffee that they have schools (like Italy) that specialize in coffee where you can learn about latte art, the art of making the perfect espresso, and even the ins and outs on how to run a profitable coffee business. Baristas are the rock stars of Australia and the ones who do it really well, are surely recognized for it.

Everywhere I travel now, I'm always on the look out for good coffee. In London, a very notable coffee bar is Workshop Coffee. With roots in Melbourne Australia, Workshop Coffee was once St Ali, a sister coffee bar to Melbourne's St Ali. Almost a year after St Ali London opened, they decided to re-invent themselves as Workshop Coffee.

In Aussie fashion, Workshop Coffee takes their coffee seriously. They are meticulous about the sourcing, roasing and brewing of their coffee, which you can read all about on their website. Every year, they take the time to travel to different countries to learn from the people who grow their coffee. This year, the focus will be on travels to Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

Workshop Coffee currently has 2 locations - Clerkenwell and Marleybone. The Clerkenwell location (the one I visited) is the larger of the two and serves hot food including weekend brunch. The Marleybone location is the complete opposite with just 14 seats and a small selection of pastries and sandwiches. In March of this year, they are opening a 3rd location, a 1200 square foot space, on the ground floor of Amazon's headquarters in Holborn.

On Feb 17, they announced that they are shipping their coffee globally, which means you can enjoy Workshop's awesome coffee whether or not you can get to London.

Workshop Coffee
27 Clerkenwell Road
London, UK
Telephone: 0207 253 5754

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Great Brunch in London. Caravan, London

Do you feel, some days everyday, like a chicken with its head cut off? Productivity is not an easy thing to master. Especially at the pace life goes at today. With technology, smart phones and social media, it is sooo easy to be constantly pulled in a million different directions. Do you feel like you are always busy, but at the same time, feeling like you're not accomplishing much? I know I did. ALL THE TIME.

I've realized that being productive and feeling good about what you accomplished is not about how much you get done but what you get done. I've made a conscious effort the last few months to do the things that matter most, by focusing on the tasks that go the longest way. Tasks that will help me reach my end goal. When you slowly knock off the tasks that keep you moving forward, you will start to feel good about what you are accomplishing.

Stay Focused.

If you don't stay focused on what matters, you get distracted with busy work. Pick the top 3 things you absolutely need to get accomplished for the day and focus on them until they are done. Everything else should be non-existent until these things are done. I'm not saying to stop feeding your kids and neglect your household chores but DO Focus on One Big Task at a Time and get them done.

Do The Things You Don't Want to Do.

The things you don't want to do are likely the things that are most important. Why? Because they are mentally taxing or because it requires work. It's so easy to get distracted by small tasks that are easy to complete, but don't amount to a whole lot of result. Start with the things you dread. They are usually the most important tasks. 


Just Get It Done.



Deal with it and move on. It can't get any simpler than that :)

Being productive starts with a good breakfast. And with that thought, here is an awesome brunch place I found in London that is now a new favorite. They have amazing food and amazing coffee! If you can't easily get there, enjoy the photos :)

Caravan roasts their own coffee, in small batches, in the basement of the restaurant. Their coffee was exceptional: no after taste, just the right temperature and a great balance of bitter and fruitiness.

They have a great brunch menu that focuses on seasonal ingredients. The ham hock hash with poached eggs was to die for and their orange scented pancakes were perfectly fluffy. Be prepared to wait for a table if going for brunch. It's a really popular spot.

Cappuccino

Ham Hock Hash, Poached Eggs, Peas and Honey Mustard Hollandaise

Caravan Fry Up: Two eggs, Roasted Tomatoes, Streaky Bacon and Thyme Roasted Portobello Mushrooms

Baked Eggs, Tomato and Pepper Ragout, Greek Yogurt and Chorizo

Orange Scented Pancakes, Vanilla Butter and Blueberries

Caravan Restaurant & Bar
11-13 Exmouth Market
London, UK
Telephone: 0207 833 8115

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