The 5 pound burrito

Burrito means "little donkey" in Spanish. El Tepeyac's 5 pound burrito is so huge, they should just call it a "burro" - straight up "donkey." And if you can eat the whole thing in one sitting, it's yours free.

Nestled in a hilly, lively Mexican neighborhood (backyard Quincenera dance floor lights and tuba music galore) in East LA, we were brought to El Tepeyac by some knowing insiders who insisted on giving me a birthday to remember. My husband ordered the 5 pound burrito, determined to polish it off like any gangly tall guy with the metabolism of a hummingbird. It nearly killed him. It took the entire weekend for the both of us to polish it off.

I must say, we ordered the burrito as a gimmick, but what no one ever mentions about the 5 pound burrito, or about El Tepeyac in general, is that they know good food. Our burrito wasn't just stuffed with general Mexican fare, the meats and sauces tasted like a hearty Mexican stew. The meat and sauce were slow-cooked, tender, thick and bursting with the classic Mexican flavors of cilantro, onions, chipotle and other sundries of the TLC persuasion.

Seriously?

There's a website called Hot Chicks with Hot Dogs in their Mouths?

In case you can't see through the smog...

LaBrea Avenue, Hollywood

The Fall of the Playboy Mansion

I'll never forget the episode of  Sex and the City when Miranda looks down at a cluster of topless girls in a hot tub at the Playboy mansion. She smirks and says, "Tit soup." In that instant, their floating implants went from sexy to sad-looking. For historical purposes only, I had always wanted to go to the Playboy mansion. I couldn't wait for an invite. Ironically, I've been invited a ton of times, but I haven't gone. Why?

"tit soup"

Because they were selling me these tickets. What was once the hottest ticket in town has not turned into a revenue-generating  commodity for a failing enterprise. An aging Hugh Hefner has seen sharp declines in sales of his beloved Playboy Magazine. This is mainly due to the explosion of free Internet porn (Creator of Addictions and Destroyer of Relationships) and partially, I hope, due to more refined tastes of the American male. Oh who am I kidding?

old-fashioned

Now the Playboy Mansion is Party for Profit, a naked Disneyland. This overpriced theme park of Old-Fashioned Sexuality seems the last vestige of places that evoke a time that predates the sexual revolution, before women attended college in and entered the workforce in mass numbers. The days when the number one goal was to train your looks solely for the male eye. Besides, can you even call it a party with a cash bar? Next thing you know, it will be turnstiles and metal detectors at the gates.

Hot Girls Needing Confirmation

Los Angeles is known for its beautiful women. And though the masses have been plucked, sucked and tucked into utter perfection, insecurity still reigns. Whether from studio rejection, or a self absorbed bartender boyfriend who needs the validation from his fellow insecure cocktail waitresses, even the most darling girls only feel pretty when they go back to their hometowns.

For those uber-competitive beauties striving for validation, they can enter themselves into The Hot Quest. She must force a jubilant, smiling face for a photo (at least they still look at that) and please the masses by adding body shots, so total strangers can ogle her at her expense. What's kind of gross, is that you can see how many clicks each photo gets. I noticed that the more naked a girl is, the more clicks it receives. I think we all know what the boys are doing with those photos. The site kind of feels like Halloween: yet another occasion when scantily clad girls seem desperate for attention, and men can take advantage of their insecurities and enjoy the spectacle, free of charge.

If the girl scores enough votes on the site, she will be crowned "Hottest Girl on Earth" or, as Thrillist puts it: "The Hottest Girl On Earth Who Still Needs Affirmation From the Lonely Geeks of The Internet."