Museum of Jurassic Technology and Red Medicine
Trip Start
Mar 02, 2011
1
69
192
Trip End
Oct 14, 2011
Los Angeles, California
Sunday, June 5, 2011
My original plan was to leave Los Angeles today and head for Yosemite. I
had a permit to climb the cables on Half Dome. Unfortunately, they do
not yet have the cables up due to the large amounts of snow they
received this past winter so I cancelled the reservation I had for a
campground in Yosemite. I'm going to stay a few extra days in Los
Angeles and then head for Boundary Peak, the highpoint of Nevada.
I decided to go to the Museum of Jurassic Technology today. I couldn't remember what I had read about it; I just recall it sounded interesting. I can't say I've ever been to a museum like it.
The museum is split up into a number of separate exhibits. The subjects covered vary all over the place. Here are the ones I remember: micro-miniature sculptures; collections from trailer parks; disintegrating dice; Geoffrey Sonnabend, whose attempt to build a suspension bridge over Iguazu Falls ended in disaster; Tell It To the Bees, about so-called "vulgar" remedies; stereographic radiographs of flowers; letters written to the scientists at the observatory at Mt. Wilson, mostly from crazy people; dogs in the Soviet space program; Cat's Cradle; and Athanasius Kircher, a 17th Century German polymath considered by some to be the last Renaissance Man. It's definitely an eclectic collection.
A couple people had mentioned a restaurant called Red Medicine. I was in the neighborhood and I thought I'd give it a try. The chef, Jordan Kahn, has worked at The French Laundry, Per Se, Alinea and a number of Michael Mina's restaurants. Although he's not Vietnamese, he decided to open a Vietnamese, or at least Vietnamese-inspired, restaurant.
I checked their hours online and thought they were open on Sundays but, unfortunately, they only serve their bar menu on Sunday's and Monday's. That was a disappointment, but I thought I'd try it anyway.
The two dishes I had were quite good. I hope to visit them again before I leave town.
