Entertaining the out of town contingent-

I've had a two visitors since my move to LA. Rebecca has come twice, and my best friend Tricia is here on business this week. I always feel slightly pressured to make sure they have a good time, and I take them to places that aren't too touristy, but are also trendy and fun.

Tonight we (Leslie and I) tried to take Tricia to Katsuya http://www.sbeent.com/katsuya/ for sushi (no, I don't eat it, but they have great teriaki.) BIG MISTAKE- we get there and are told that we only have one other table ahead of us. An hour later we still don't have a table. We see other people being seated, but not us. We're told if you don't have a reservation you can only sit at the sushi bar, and we had to wait for 3 spots at the sushi bar to open up at once. I went outside and called the restaurant and tried to call to make a restaurant and was told first available was 11PM. Silly us thinking Wednesday night wasn't going to be too crowded. But Tricia got to see the interior, and there were pap waiting outside (we never did figure out who was there, or whether they were just waiting thinking someone would come.)

By 9:15 we gave up and left and went to Malo, our old stand by. Malo is trendy, East Side trendy, but trendy. No celebrity sightings there for Tricia (I always feel like I'm supposed to provide guests with celebrity sightings.) even though we have seen Geena Davis and Michaela Conlin (Angela from "Bones") there.

My next visitor is my mother. I'm racking my brain for the perfect stuff to do with her. What restaurants would be good, where would I take her to see a celebrity? What's "LA" without being "touristy?"