November 7, 2000 (A Salsafreak from Washington, DC)
I just
got back from L.A for my Conference from work and I had the chance to
squeeze in some dancing... EVERYDAY!! can you believe it!! ... It was
awesome... I have lots of fun...there is a place to go everyday of the
week:
I got in Saturday, went to the Club Mayan - not many dancers
in there, however
is a nice club, HUGE! ...I got to dance with Alex De Silva that day.
Sunday, first I went to the Boathouse/Santa Monica (this place
is nice, you can find good dancers; to my surprise, Milton from North
Carolina was there, also Eddie was there... also I had a nice chat with
Albert Torres on the L.A. Congress preparations -- he told me he is
almost sold out already. Next I went to Steven's Steakhouse at night
(this place is nice...two dance rooms ...and with a different type of
Salsa playing in each room/one room has the L.A. style dancers and with
fast music ... and the other side is more cuban, normal salsa kind of
thing! --) lots of good dancers here...this is really a happening place...
here I got to dance with Ramon from Salsa Brava, he is very nice and
sweet guy!!)
Monday, went to Rudolpho's... nice music, nice dancers... Raul,
another guy I don't know but he was awesome and a soft dancer and then
three older guys who can dance a lot, I have seeing them around at the
L.A. congreso and of course all week at the clubs I visited-- they are
Don, Sir Harris and oops! forgot his name! ...very nice people and dancers
(they can dance anything--Casino, 'on 1', 'on 2') ...they are fun!
Tuesday, St. Mark's/Venice Beach, here Johnny Polanco was playing,
It was ok, not many dancers show up...but I have fun anyways, I brought
two of my co-workers (both americans) with me and they have a blast...
They even attracted personal trainers! :-) and danced Salsa and Cha-cha
all night... That was funny, they got so much into it!!
Wednesday, this was actually the one day I couldn't go anywhere
because we had a party at Universal Studios (awesome--all Universal
Studio for the Conference people!!), however , I was told that El Floridita
and Rudolpho's were the places to go, that night!! ... couldn't get
away from my co-workers!! :-)
Thursday, party continues...went to Marriott (Torrance) ... great
climate, ok music, not many dancers, but it was ok...
Friday, Albert Torres had a 'BIG Fiesta' with Oscar D'Leon at
the Hollywood Park Casino ... It was great!...lots of dancers ... I
got to dance with Seaon...Awesome...he is great! and I danced off course
with Joel our best DC salsa dancer, who has moved to San Diego now for
work! ...
Saturday, went to the Conga Room... 'Son Mayor' was playing this
night... not many dancers... however, we got to dance with the very
few that were there and had lots of fun... Ramon from Salsa Brava was
one of them...
Well, as
you can see/read, anyone can have a good time in L.A.- if they are looking
for Salsa, there are plenty of places...
January
2000 (Valerie Imperial from Vancouver)
Steven's Steakhouse
This is an amazing place.The music is 99% salsa, there are two dance
floors - the bigger one opens up around 10:30pm and a lot of LAs good
dancers hang out here. It's also a friendly place, so even if you're
a visitor, you don't feel like an outsider. It seemed like most of the
people were waiting along the sidelines of the dancefloor, watching
and simply waiting until there was enough space for them to join in.
Although it is a serious dancing place, the ambience is so full of positive
energy that the 'seriousness' is not intimidating but motivating. Steven's
tops my list of places I've been to for salsa.