Dining in Santa Monica

[silentbob]

Santa Monica, with its sunny, beachy nature and tons of vacationer hotels, would be a good contrast to JT. However, I would warn that LA, more than other cities, is really spread out and driving across it to different destinations takes a lot of time. To make the most of your limited time, I would first figure out the activities you want to do and places you want to eat (ideally, pick things close to each other!) and then choose a central or nearby location to one of them. If you want to spend time at the Santa Monica Pier, perhaps the canals of Venice, and scoping out Muscle and Venice beaches (all worthy of notice), then SM would be a great choice. Also, the Getty Villa is super close to SM. If, however, you're more into, say, museums, shows, concerts, and TV/theme park stuff (e,g., LACMA, a studio tour, Universal, Pantages Theater), I'd perhaps stay more in the Hollywood-Burbank area. There is good food proximate to pretty much every activity, but it might not have been the food you were looking for, so if you're looking to go to specific restaurants/food types (a totally valid vacation itinerary IMO - for example, this San Gabriel Valley food tour), I'd pick somewhere central to them. 

We just got back from five nights in Santa Monica over Thanksgiving and this is spot-on.  Food-wise, LA has so much to offer that it's impossible to cover everything in a week or two, let alone four days.

The only type of food we ate remotely frequently this time around was tacos.  Our favorites were at Guisados, especially the ones with roast pork and fish. Guerrilla Tacos used much better ingredients with more sophisticated flavor combos (and were much pricier), but the menu is much smaller so you really have to like one or two of the few options they're offering on a given day. The wild boar, mushroom, and aged cheddar taco and the Tahitian albacore tuna tostada were both excellent and fresh. Kogi BBQ was our least favorite but still good, both the kalbi and spicy pork tacos are worth trying at least once just to experience the unique flavor profile.

Two other notable meals included the spicy, rich, and oh-so-satisfying tsukemen at Tsujita Annex (open on Thanksgiving night!), and both the fried chicken sandwich and avocado toast at the Free Range LA food truck.  Oh, and erin79 loved the boba tea at Urth Caffe.