The Standard Downtown cracks me up sometimes. That’s a sign I saw on the way to the rooftop bar –
which I still contend is the best place to read a book early afternoon, while nibbling on an organic salad and sipping a glass of wine.
I also always get the hummus plate there, but I have to say it’s just not the tastiest of hummus plates. We’re talking rather dry pieces of store-bought pita bread with a big blob of what seems like store-bought hummus. The toasty yumminess at Bodega Wine Bar’s much better –
But Bodega’s not on a sunny rooftop….
To the kind readers who emailed to say you’re looking forward to hearing me speak at 
The 
The Abbey seems to’ve gotten a lot bigger since the last time I dropped in about 5 years ago. Apparently it’s now about 16,000 square feet — and still quite busy and popular with the West Hollywood crowd. 
Well, the restaurant’s called 
Luckily, we got there before noon to order Seared Rare Ahi Tuna with Herb Aioli and Wild Arugula on Toasted Multi Grain and Rustic Homemade Falafel on Grilled Flatbread with Hummus, Roasted Pepper and Tomato Spread — which we split. The pics were taken post-splitting, which is why both plates have falafel AND tuna on them.
The one thing I didn’t like: The salad that came with my ahi tuna sandwich was way too heavy, topped with spindly potato chip sticks. Of course, it’s a little odd to complain about a salad being too heavy after voluntarily ordering buckwheat cake and practically licking the plate –
After 
And I found out you can order a 
When I take the bus in to USC, I “reward” my eco-friendly behavior by stopping for a drink and salad at the rooftop bar at 
I love that the bar offers an organic green salad — though my advice is to ask for the dressing on the side, because otherwise your greens’ll taste like they’ve been marinated in the stuff. 
For the first time, I got the Santa Monica Farmers Market Vegetable Satay at 
Still, you can order an Organic Cucumber Roll, Organic Tofu and Seaweed Salad, Organic Baby Mixed Greens, lots of free range chicken and farmers’ produce dishes. 
So skip that and just go to happy hour, 4 pm - 7 pm daily. If the front bar seems too full, keep walking past the hostess to the more spacious dining room and take a seat in the bigger bar there.
For a place called 
Along with a couple glasses of chardonnay, I had a fresh and pretty grilled tuna salad, medium rare with grilled zucchini and eggplant and new potatos on a bed of baby red romaine, Belgian endive, and Boston lettuces. The lemon butter sauce with tomato and oregano almost had me licking the plate –
Meg had been there for drinks a couple years ago, so I might just have to drop by for happy hour sometime soon. Hal’s website says live jazz happens every Sunday and Monday night — with no cover charge. If only the BBB line 2 ran later than 10:30-ish…
Another excuse to kick off your weekends on Thursdays: 
Think of Green Drinks as a place for eco-commiseration and sustaina-empathy. Here you can get drunk and ramble on about the dilemmas of composting in a small apartment — to people who’ll know what the hell you’re talking about.
And if 1 Thurs a month isn’t enough, East Side LA Green Drinks meets on the 3rd Thurs of each month. 
You can talk your green talk while drinking a cocktail at 
And after the movie, the Little Bar. Here we met Jill, a bartender-environmentalist (right) who made me yummy red concoctions — can’t remember what they were called. We also met Steve, an animator who’s created a depressed duck that gets shrunk by a goat.