House of Blues   

This sorry excuse for so-called Cajun and Soul food is pathetic. No place to sit, poor slow service and overpriced crap food that is no better than the fried turds you get at Disneyland along with the horrid parking situation and bad sound make for an absolutely forgettable evening at this dump. Go to a REAL dump and get some value for your money, along with great music, good seats, and cheap beer and plentiful parking. Go to Babe's and Ricky's in Leimert Park on Monday nights for the live blues jam. The real deal too, not some overpriced Hollywood wanna-be's or fat over the hill 70's rock band cashing in, just good honest blues music played for the love of the music. You can get in for 8 bucks and that covers the cost of a meal with fried chicken, black-eyed peas, collard greens, sausages, cornbread, potato salad, and sometimes sweet potatoes. Good stuff. Forget the HOB, leave that to the turistas and rubes.

Parking sucks. They charge WAY too much. And all the lots around there are way too expensive. $20 to park a car? LAME. Otherwise I like the place

Getting there/parking - This HOB venue is off Hwy. 101, in Hollywood. Parking on Sunset Strip is at a premium; I self-parked for $10 in a lot across the street, by the Comedy Store. The HOB also has $10 valet parking but I have heard complaints about the long wait for one's car after concerts. Walked across and down the rather steep hill around the corner to the box office, paid about $40 for my ticket, then walked down into the parking lot (their Porch restaurant and VIP rooms are on the upper street level). Got there about 20 mins. early and waited by the big double doors - didn't seem to be a big line this early autumn Sunday... Seating/the Buffet - The doors opened a bit after 1pm. There's a sign showing the venue capacity at about 230 - when everybody arrived it seemed about 2/3 full. I was shown to a rickety folding chair seat at the end of a long table behind the salad station (I kid you not - I could probably reach for a shrimp!) but it had a good sideline view of the stage. The buffet seemed standard fare for a brunch but not remarkable. Self-serve coffee/tea, couple of omelet stations, plus the usual breakfast, salad, hot dishes, carving station, bagels, muffins and other desserts. A waiter offered soft drinks but brought me water when I asked. There were only a few Southern dishes - biscuits/gravy, grits, chicken, mac/cheese - I expected more. The best dessert was the bread pudding. I tried a bit of the jambalaya, but like much of the food, it was nothing special. The Entertainment - After recorded gospel/jazz music with the buffet, the curtain went up and the live concert started at 1:45pm. The volume also went up; there seemed to be an imbalance of the mix out to the house that made the bass way too heavy, at the expense of the keyboards and the backup vocals (lead vocals were fine). That was improved about halfway through the hourlong show.