The Perfect Healthy Spa Trip to Los Angeles

Though my partner and I live near San Francisco, we make a ritual trip to Los Angeles several times a year for our personal "spa" vacation. Some people here in the Bay Area think that's hysterical because of the long-standing rivalry between the north and south of this state. "You go to LA to relax?" they laugh. "You gotta be kidding!"

When done right, we've found LA can be one of the most peaceful spots around. Here's how we do it:

First of all, we always stay at the Hollywood Hills Hotel. This is a little-known gem up in, yes, the Hollywood Hills. It's quiet, spacious, and simple; not fancy but also not expensive. It's just the perfect spot to be out of the congestion. We've stayed there for years and even the staff is like a second family. They have one of the most professional and warm staff around.

Secondly, we organize our trip around the Olympic Spa, an amazing Korean bathhouse, for women only (sorry, guys). For , you can spend hours at the spa, dunking in and out of their wide variety of baths and saunas. They have a rare mugwort bath which is a tonic for women's bodies, a jade-inlaid steam fragrant with eucalyptus, and more. And for an additional you can get the pièce de résistance: a 1 1/2 hour combined scrub and deep tissue massage and facial. Incredible! Olympic is not for people who need fancy pampering. This is a meat and potatoes no-nonsense healing spa. If you need your body sprinkled with rose petals or chocolates served on silver platters, don't go.

I'm jonesing to get back on the plane to LA tonight just writing about it. We try to make this trip each turn of the season to have ourselves scrubbed "clean" for the new to arrive. It's a wonderful ritual.

Finally, we always take advantage, while we're down, of a lot of the amazing yoga classes available in Los Angeles. If you enjoy a vigorous inspiring workout here are some great spots: Maha Yoga on San Vicente, Steve Earth's Power Yoga on Fairfax and Melrose, Liberation Yoga on La Brea, all have incredible classes.

Quick Tips:

After a terrific yoga class we like to wander up to Melrose Avenue to one of our other favorite spots: Urth Cafe. This spot, despite its trendy see-and-be-seen location has some of the best healthy food in the world. Incredible salads, sandwiches, juices, teas, and more. It has a beautiful outside veranda where you can watch the crazy world of LA go by (and feel deeply relaxed because after all, you're on your "secret spa visit"...

Around the corner from Urth is the famous Bodhi Tree bookstore, one of the largest metaphysical bookstores in the world. Always worth a stop, including their nearby used book annex.

A couple blocks after Bodhi Tree, be sure to stop at the Elixir Tea spot at 8612 Melrose. The first time we found this spot, we couldn't believe it was in the middle of LA. The huge shaded backyard has a lovely large fountain as its centerpiece. Little nooks and alcoves for conversation or meditation are scattered throughout. The most delicious drinks and teas are available, and often even a tarot reading if you wish it. What a spot! We've never found anyplace like it in any large city before. An absolute urban haven.

So that's our usual rundown. Unlike most people we know, we come back from Los Angeles feeling like we've been at the best mystery spa we could have imagined. I've been reluctant to share the details online because, admittedly, I haven't wanted these spots to get more crowded. But what the hell, here it all is!

Best Way To Get Around:

Well, here's one truth about LA no matter what: you need a car; sad, but true. Most of the places this review describes are within a 20 minute drive of each other, so it's not that hard.

Have fun and relax!

I love to travel and rarely need anything fancy. As long as something is clean, quiet and a good price, I'll often be game to try the bargain just for the sheer adventure of it.

However, without a doubt, the worst hotel I have ever had the misfortune to sleep in was the Sea Shore. (And that includes some real dives in third world locations.) An absolutely unbelievable experience.

The room was dirty. Parking was impossible because the spaces were mostly filled by the time I got there. But the biggest disaster was the noise. There was an all-night party out on the patio. It didn't stop until 5am and even though there was supposedly someone "on duty" in the office, he laughed each time I begged him to restore some semblance of quiet. A huge battalion of frat boys had taken over the spot and were having the best time drinking, breaking bottles, barfing, burping, banging doors, and other exciting activities. Even though this happened during my visit last year, I remember every detail like yesterday. It was that bad.

Just thinking about this place practically gives me hives. And while I'm sure a party doesn't go on every night, the way management handled it said a lot.

I tried to call the cops directly and was told to have the motel deal with it. They said they got enough calls from the place they didn't answer them anymore.

No matter how much money you might save to stay here (it was about $80 for the night), it's not worth it. You'd be better off at a youth hostel. At least they have a rule for lights out and quiet. Plus they'd be cleaner.

What a nightmare.

This is the first stop we always make when we land in LA. Even though it was made famous in part by the show Entourage, and it is often a spot to see a celebrity or two, you can almost always get a table pretty easily (in part because there are signs on each table saying you can only be there for 45 minutes when it's busy!) And unlike a lot of trendy spots in LA, the food remains delicious, affordable, and healthy.

The salads can be made with organic greens for $1 extra upon request. The Urth salad has hearts of palm, feta, and olives in it and comes with a hunk of fresh crusty bread. Even the half salad is huge. Fantastic!

The sandwiches are generous and tasty. They make a wonderful portobello mushroom panini that comes with salad that makes a perfect meal while you watch the spectacle of Melrose Street go by. All the soups I've tried there are really great too.

Plus, they make an herbal chai latte which is sweet and soothing. No caffeine, yet leaves you both relaxed and revitalized. Something Starbucks could learn a little about!

Yamashiro is a very special place. We'd been coming to Los Angeles for years and never heard of it. Then when we stayed at the Hollywood Hills Hotel for the first time one year, we discovered this elegant sushi restaurant at the top of the hill, overlooking the whole city of LA.

The view and setting could not be more spectacular. If you go at night, reserve a table with a good view by the windows. All of Los Angeles will be sparkling beneath you like a tray of diamonds. There is also an interior large koi pond and garden that is peaceful and gorgeous, as well as the place to eat if you are still a smoker!

The food is uniformly excellent. While we don't usually eat fried food, we had a flash-fried calamari appetizer that I still dream about. The raw sushi was fresh, creamy, and delicious. The crab cakes were the best my partner had ever tasted, crisp, moist, and savory all at once. We also shared a delectable teriyaki salmon dish. We had tempera ice cream for dessert that was memorable, sweet coldness on the inside, warm crustiness on the outside.

The service was unobtrusive yet friendly and attentive.

While the place is pricey (about $80 for the two of us, without sake), this is the most wonderful location to celebrate an anniversary, birthday, or any special event. Yamashiro is one of those places where you feel the cost is worth every penny. When something especially wonderful happens, we sometimes fly down from San Francisco just to celebrate there. Now you can too!

Well, I can't write about LA without writing about Canter's. Even though I'm a yoga-obsessed health nut for the most part, I grew up Jewish and I'm a sucker for a great deli. In the Bay Area where I live, nothing comes up to snuff. After all, I grew up around New York City, world capital of delis.

But Canter's in Los Angeles fits the bill.

This is the real deal and by far I think the best deli in LA. Even though the prices are a bit steep and parking can be tough in the West Hollywood location, it's worth it. Try their bagels with cream cheese, lox, onion, tomato, and capers. Their salmon is perfectly smoked and not too salty. This might be my final meal of choice if I was about to be executed!

Or try any of the egg dishes, especially the matzoh brei. Or their cheese blintzes filled with delicious crumbly farmer's cheese and served with sour cream and strawberries. Or their rich chicken soup filled with vegetables and matzo balls or kreplach, little meaty dumplings. Even their half-sour pickles and cabbage salad fragrant with coriander are perfect.

You can't go wrong. I've never had a dish there that wasn't divine and authentic (i.e. like my Russian/Jewish grandmother made).

For Canter's to receive a certificate of true Jewish Deli Authenticity the waitpeople would have to be a little more curt and less friendly, and give you their unsolicited criticisms on what you just ordered (and anything else too!) That's how the delis are New York, but hey, I'm not complaining!

I love Govinda's and wish there was a comparable place up in the bay area where we live. It's a clean and simple vegetarian restaurant run by the Hare Krishnas with fresh, well-made food. They are a perfect representation of how healthy vegetable-rich food can be absolutely delicious and even addictive!

They have a salad bar with countless organic toppings and also a warm buffet bar with many delicious Indian dishes, both spicy and mild. Their dahl is great, all the curries fantastic. They actually must have a really skilled Indian cook in residence. You can buy food by the pound to go as well. You always feel satisfied and very healthy by the time you leave.

Part of Govinda's is a well-stocked shop which sells Indian clothing, statues, incense, books, and music. Definitely worth taking a look after you eat, the prices were unbeatable. They had the best selection of saris and punjabis (intricately beaded Indian pant sets) I'd ever found in Los Angeles.

This place is often listed as the "go-to" spot for viewing celebrities in LA, that major tourist pastime that even my partner and I have sometimes succumbed to. But here's the question with the Ivy. How desperate are you to see a celebrity or to pretend for a few hours that you ARE one? Because actually as far as we could tell, there is absolutely no other reason to eat at this grotesquely overpriced spot. To call the food mediocre would be generous, even if you weren't counting the prices. I paid $25 for a Caesar salad that was ridiculous...limp lettuce, lackluster dressing, stale croutons. I've had far better at a TGIF chain in Pennsylvania. The tuna sandwich my partner picked at was about the same tired quality and sinful price. A simple cup of tea was about $5 or $6.

The patio furniture was peeling and uncomfortable. I understand that there's a shabby chic look they're attempting here, but genuine bohemian charm doesn't come at these sort of prices. So it all seemed very affected, even though the patio garden was lovely.

So why on earth do so many of the stars still go there? I'm not sure they actually do, since the steakhouse Cut and the Château Marmont have supposedly become more popular. Are they saying, "Wow, I've made it so big I can pay $30 for a horrible overcooked bowl of sticky pasta and not even be bothered?"

Also, the service at Ivy was pretty awful. We felt as if the waiters were annoyed to even have to deign to help us since we clearly weren't "someone". (It was fun though to see them flutter around deferentially when a certain TV starlet arrived just as we were finishing our meal.)

Do yourself a favor, have some self-respect, and skip the whole scene. Unless you have a some masochistic need to recreate being at the "uncool" table at junior high school, for an obscenely high price, there are a hundred other things to do in LA which are much more enjoyable.

A better alternative: Stars often pop in to Urth Café on Melrose or Taverna Tony's, a terrific Greek place in Malibu, if you really are jonesing to see one. That way you can still get great food at a good price and not be punished for fulfilling your curiosity!

This is a peaceful, lovely oasis of a teahouse in the middle of Brentwood, an area of LA I usually find a bit upscale and pretentious for my taste. Yet, in the midst of the shop- gucci-till-you-drop atmosphere, here is tranquil Zen Zoo (also there's another newer location in Hollywood that I haven't seen yet).

The interior is appealingly serene with blonde wood and colorful cut-out fabric lanterns. The tea selection is vast, although I find I keep gravitating to the most delicious herbal chai they make with soy milk. No caffeine, but with all the uplifting qualities of chai anyway. Anything made with their roobios, a high-vitamin C tea originally from Africa, is divine.

The array of dim sum (Chinese dumplings mostly wrapped in rice flour) is excellent. They are freshly made, filled with either diced mushrooms or vegetables, or chicken or shrimp. The har gaw filled with shrimp were well-spiced and not a bit mushy as dim sum can be. The dipping sauces were complex and delicious.

Just know that a serving comes with three dumplings and is actually quite tiny. Two of us split four plates of dim sum and found it was not quite enough food. So we each added a crisp, tasty salad with tangy lemon tahini sauce and a bowl of delicious miso soup brimming with vegetables and glass noodles. This is not the usual delicate mineral-rich soup you may know from Japanese restaurants. Here it's thicker, hardier, and wonderful in its own way.

The location in Brentwood is below Maha Yoga, one other reason for me to weather the neighborhood. You can take a kick-ass, sweaty, rockin' yoga class with fabulous music upstairs and then relax afterwards with the peaceful beauty, delicious food, and sweet helpful service of Zen Zoo.