#TheWeekender

Donuts, One Gun Ranch, and the Abandoned Zoo

It’s coming down to my last few weeks left here in California and while I am excited for my next adventure, I can’t help but feel the melancholy that comes with leaving a place in which you grew to love (and hate). However, this will not be a sad post (just yet).

Instead, let’s talk about something happier like, donuts. Yes, donuts. I knew that would change the mood. This weekend, I had the pleasure of eating the famous ‘stand-in-line-for-hours’ donuts from California Donuts in Koreatown. This place is open all day, errrrday. I have never been so thankful to not live close enough to Los Angeles. When I stopped by on this late Friday afternoon I must of have just missed the crowd, because I was the only person there standing in pure reverence. I had finally arrived at the Mecca of Donuts. California Donuts offers many specialized donuts ranging from ones with your favorite childhood cereals on them to their own custom ‘letter’ donuts where you can even have your name spelled out of donuts. Who wouldn’t pay good money for that? The next five minutes seemed to have been a blur as I found myself leaving with a smile on my face and a box of eight specially-crafted donuts. I didn’t eat all of them, if that’s what you’re thinking, but I did call dibs on the Oreo Panda doughnut.

On Saturday, my roommate was invited to an ‘invite-only’ open day at One Gun Ranch in the bucholic mountains of Malibu. One Gun Ranch is a local sustainable agricultural ranch that was originally purchased as raw land by the bassist from Guns and Roses, thus the namesake. One Gun Ranch is currently owned by the British millionaire heiress, Alice Bamford. Her name may not ring a bell, but you may have seen the famous photo of her holding her niece and having the honor of being photobombed by the powerhouse Kimye Family.

We enjoyed seeing the extravagant modern homes spatially placed in the mountains of Malibu on our drive to One Gun Ranch. I couldn’t help but wonder (and feel envious) about what these people do for a living that allows them to live in such beautiful homes. When we arrived at One Gun Ranch we were greeted with an army of young men valets eagerly waiting to take my keys away from me. Sadly, I could feel their disappointment when they realized I wasn’t pulling up in a Tesla. We had apparently been one of the first people to arrive. Typical. Since we arrived early, we decided to make the hike the rest of the way, instead of waiting for the golf cart carpool, to take us to the ranch. Set against the Malibu Mountains and overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the views of the ranch were absolutely breathtaking, and I mean that both aesthetically and literally (thanks to that “short” hike). I made a mental note to buy a ranch if I were to ever become rich. Once on the ranch, I channeled the inner roots of my Mississippian upbringing and got to feed the farm animals, pretend to know what bio-dynamic farming, and even plant my very own arugula plant. There was even a gelato station set up for guests. Talk about elegance. We spent a couple of hours exploring the ranch and then set out afterwards to look for a brunch place — preferably one that had bottomless mimosas.

A Google search later led us to The Malibu Cafe on Calimigos Ranch (I’m starting to notice a ranch theme here) with the promises of bottomless mimosas, but once we arrived we were sadly disappointed to find out that they only did it on Sundays. We were also sad to find out that we had missed their brunch hours. Apparently, The Malibu Cafe is a ‘reservations only’ kind of spot and they had conveniently had one available table up for grabs, so we decided to take advantage of this serendipitous moment. We ordered their lavender smoked chicken, grilled shrimp, and their truffle mac n’ cheese balls. The fragrance of the lavender from the smoked chicken had been so strong that we were attracting bees, so we ate in fear of our lives during the duration of our meal. Thankfully, they make their mimosas strong.

Afterwards, we stopped at a colorful coffee shop in the San Fernando Valley called, Compañía de Café. This was actually a delightful surprise for me, considering the area that we were in. I feel like the people here regard the San Fernando Valley as the ugly step-sister of LA, so it was surprising to me to find something this cool and not be in LA. The coffee shop is set up in a large open space with high ceilings and plenty of sunlight. It was also filled with students from the local university, California State University at Northridge, and younger professionals. This easily became one of my favorite coffee shops, because of the bright colors and fun decor. I ordered their Abuelita Mocha, which was strong, but good.

On Sunday, my cousins and I set out to find the abandoned zoo in Griffith Park. Once the Griffith Park Zoo, it first opened in 1912 only to be closed later in 1966 with the opening on the Los Angeles Zoo. The abandoned zoo features the ruins of the aged animal enclosures and is now a part of the picnic area of Griffith Park. At first, we had a hard time finding this abandoned zoo thanks to the vague directions on Yelp, but after asking everyone who came across our path if we were going in the right direction, we finally found it. The abandoned zoo is pretty small and smells like pee (the official fragrance of LA), but it was cool to see the historic architecture and graffiti.

We then went to a popular coffee shop in San Gabriel that specializes in latte art. Love to Go is a small Christian-owned coffee shop located in the mission district of San Gabriel and provides some of the coolest latte art in The Valley. This is probably the only reason to ever pay more than $5 for a latte, just because of their intricate foam art capabilities. I ordered their combination matcha and earl grey tea latte, which was very delicious. The foam art was too cute to drink up! We then ended one of our last evenings together (I promise, I won’t cry just yet) with bowling. Fun fact: I am terrible at bowling.

Thanks for reading, as always! I really appreciate it. I’ve also started posting some related mini-posts on my friend’s lovely website Briar Patch. Be sure to check it out and my other recent blog posts here on Medium.