{"id":818,"date":"2009-12-30T19:46:49","date_gmt":"2009-12-30T19:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/?p=818"},"modified":"2009-12-30T19:46:49","modified_gmt":"2009-12-30T19:46:49","slug":"fig_santa_monica_and_a_2_hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/fig_santa_monica_and_a_2_hour\/","title":{"rendered":"FIG Santa Monica and a 2 hour grilled cheese"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On a recent &#8220;suicide run&#8221; to LA (despite my vow a few years back not to do them ever again), I had a three hour brunch at FIG in Santa Monica.<br \/>\nBut first, what exactly is a &#8220;suicide run&#8221;?  A &#8220;suicide run&#8221; is when you drive to LA from SF when the return is 3 days or less.  Having not done these in a few years, I was amazed to find that the Tejon Ranch near Grapevine had been developed and even has an In &#038; Out, thus bringing the amount of restaurants on the 5 to two! Exciting if you&#8217;re a fan of driving.  And I&#038;O.  Despite the suicide run character of this road trip, I&#8217;ve not taken the MX5 out for a proper shakedown cruise.  I took the MX5 there on the 5 and back on the 101 and learned that Kumho Ecsta tires are noisy and new struts are in order.  But never mind the logistics of driving&#8230;<br \/>\nSo I met up with a friend and she drove me to FIG at the Fairmont Hotel in Santa Monica.  It&#8217;s basically American cuisine in nice surroundings.  This was the first time there for both of us.  It was a fun brunch; I think I spent more time laughing and chatting than eating.  It took me two hours to eat a grilled cheese sandwich and another hour to have a couple of drinks in the Southern California sunshine with wonderful company.<br \/>\nI need more meals like this.<br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG_0522.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/photos\/IMG_0522.jpg?resize=525%2C394\" width=\"525\" height=\"394\" class=\"mt-image-none\" style=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Signage is excellent; you definitely know where you are.  <\/em><br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG_0527.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/photos\/IMG_0527.jpg?resize=525%2C394\" width=\"525\" height=\"394\" class=\"mt-image-none\" style=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Sea salt.  Looks good and tastes good too. <\/em><br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG_0528.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/photos\/IMG_0528.jpg?resize=525%2C394\" width=\"525\" height=\"394\" class=\"mt-image-none\" style=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<em>When you&#8217;re seated, they serve you arugula butter with warm mini baguettes.  <\/em><br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG_0529.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/photos\/IMG_0529.jpg?resize=525%2C394\" width=\"525\" height=\"394\" class=\"mt-image-none\" style=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<em>This is how a 2 hour grilled gueyre cheese sandwich looks like<\/em><br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG_0439.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/photos\/IMG_0439.jpg?resize=480%2C640\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" class=\"mt-image-none\" style=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<em>The aftermath, a half finished pasta-less lasagna, fries and the second half of a grilled cheese.  And someone&#8217;s pair of Ray-Ban aviators&#8230;<\/em><br \/>\nGreat service and validated parking at the Fairmont Hotel.  Worth a visit then a stroll afterwards.<br \/>\n<em>FIG<br \/>\n101 Wilshire Boulevard<br \/>\nSanta Monica, CA 90401-1106<br \/>\n(310) 576-7777<br \/>\nhttp:\/\/www.figsantamonica.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a recent &#8220;suicide run&#8221; to LA (despite my vow a few years back not to do them ever again), I had a three hour brunch at FIG in Santa Monica. But first, what exactly is a &#8220;suicide run&#8221;? A &#8220;suicide run&#8221; is when you drive to LA from SF when the return is 3 &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/fig_santa_monica_and_a_2_hour\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;FIG Santa Monica and a 2 hour grilled cheese&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-domestic-travel","category-food"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2mgIi-dc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}