Bottles of wine for 300 dollars!?! That seems reasonable. Maybe it's an attempt to get the general public sober. Well, good on the Viper Room for trying.
The Viper Room is a Sunset Blvd. bar with the occasional music gig, one of which we were able to catch late on a Wednesday night. Entrance was free (my favorite!) if you uttered the secret code at the door (what's with codes in this city?).
The place was rocked out by the LA band, the City Museum (not to be confused with the other city museum).
For being a band that's "not really a band, but rather a group of dudes who have a band on the side," they were pretty good. Not the greatest pop-rock band of all time, but they were fun. The drummer was the most talented of the bunch, and one of the guitarists stole the show with pure energy.
Just down the street on Sunset we found cafe Hustler. I bought a muffin. And further down the road we stopped in for some fresh sashimi (well, sashimi is fresh by definition) at Tenmasa. Tenmasa's reputation online is riddled with negative reviews about the strange waiters, the "fishy" food, and the stale atmosphere. I certainly didn't think it was the worst sushi restaurant, and I actually found the waiters (a pair of twin brothers with eccentric personalities) to be quite entertaining. The waiter we spoke to had an anxious energy and talked with us about the Japanese school system fondly.One reviewer called Tenmasa "unpretentious" which is one quality I can agree with and admire. So if you're looking for a low-key, sorta expensive, entertaining sushi place, with not the worst food in the world, you can find that here at Tenmasa.
