day at The Getty

A spring Saturday in Los Angeles, a weekend with Conrad. We'd been looking forward to this, and our big plan (other than shopping at the RVCA store) was getting to The Getty Museum. After breakfast in Santa Monica, we did.

Ever been there? A gorgeous museum campus. Travertine marble all over, fossils in the walls, gardens, interesting collections, a terrific little gift shop, a mediocre lunch.

But let's hold off on that last one. Let's take that list in order.

Travertine. I'd never heard of it until I first visited the museum in 2005. Now, it seems, I spot its creamy spongy texture in many places and gravitate toward it. Much of The Getty is clad in the marble, and one of the fun things about it is just wandering the campus and spotting the fossils in the walls.
It might be poetic to suggest that the campus gleams like a castle on a hilltop, all creamy white, and if I lived in Bel Air and had a view, I might think so. We actually spent more time admiring the buildings and grounds than the collections.

The gardens. In spring bloom, perhaps not at their peak. Lovely, though. Conrad and I opted for an hour-long garden tour (and the accompanying sunburn) not long after we arrived at the museum. The most interesting things, I think, were the succulents,



but we enjoyed the whole tour.

We actually didn't see many of the collections. I was keen to see an exhibit on illuminated manuscripts, so we toured that. We also wandered through some of the European paintings, though we found ourselves distracted, thinking how very much we wanted to get back outside.

Gift shop! We visited twice: once to scope it out, the second time to shop. No photos, but a couple of people will find items from The Getty in their Christmas parcels.

And then there was lunch. Oh dear. You know, I generally do not criticize restaurants on the blog if I've had a bad experience, and I don't mean to rag on the dining room at The Getty too much. It was a handsome room, very bright. I thought that the menu looked good (though there was little that fit my cleanse). Our salads were tasty. Conrad's crab cakes looked really tasty. So, there were positives. Even the negative looked attractive when it was plated - that's a nice photo there.



The menu promised an English pea risotto with wild mushrooms, faro, and pea shoots. There was faro, there were pea shoots. Was it a risotto? No, not really - it was grains and stuff in a bowl with a thin broth at the bottom, not at all creamy from the rice starch. Once again, alas, I re-learned the lesson: if a restaurant calls them "wild" mushrooms without specifying what type they are, they probably aren't wild. No, I don't consider cremini or portabello mushrooms wild. They're button mushrooms deep down. What I received? Unabashedly button mushrooms. Lots of them. Easily a half cup or more left on the plate - pieces too large for me to just swallow without having to chew or taste. Worse still, there was a mighty long gap between the salads and the entree I disliked so. I will credit the restaurant for removing it from our bill, but I would be reluctant to ever go dine there again.

It did take us a handful of minutes or more after lunch to re-find the enjoyment in our visit to The Getty. Happily, we did. In all we spent some five or so hours there, and I wish we'd spent more.

More Getty photos in the set on Flickr.