‘Pretty Little Liars’ Star Troian Bellisario’s Personal Guide to L.A.

Ripley's, Believe It or Not.

When I was 10 I was like on a Ripley's tear.

I made my parents take me there every weekend.

I'm such a nerd.

This is what you're discovering.

This is a chart of my cool factor.

It's like, [Troain mumbles]

just flooring.

Hi, I'm Troian Bellisario

and I'm gonna show you around LA.

We're gonna taste some of LA's iconic food.

I'm gonna give you a few tips about parking.

I'm gonna tell you some fun places to go

and I'm also gonna teach you a little bit

of California lingo along the way.

[upbeat music]

LA has so much great food and I'm gonna try some.

We have an insane spread here.

These are tacos from Leo's Tacos.

I have the vegetarian.

You've got the avocado on top,

the shredded cabbage and lettuce.

You've got the tomatoes, the radish on the side.

Don't sleep on the radish.

I know a lot of people are gonna do that.

All of the tacos that you're gonna want to like be into

are gonna have the double mini tortilla.

Under here and you're just gonna wanna get in there

and just shove it in your pie hole.

So,

yep, yep.

You're gonna want to get some of that.

Generally every neighborhood

is gonna have their classic taco truck

that's gonna be central to their neighborhood.

There's a taco stand in my neighborhood called Yuca's,

which actually has a James Beard Award.

And here's the weirdest part about Yuca's.

It has burgers and the burgers apparently are,

and I say apparently 'cause I don't eat meat,

but my husband does.

I always know when he's a little bit late,

picking up our daughter because he stopped at Yuca's.

He calls it a gentleman's burger.

That just means it's not a part of a meal.

It's not a part of lunch, it's not a part of dinner,

it's just a gentleman's burger midday.

And he'll stop for that.

So next up is,

I mean, the words right here, it's a Erewhon.

What is in this smoothie?

Does it cost maybe the mortgage of your home?

I'm gonna guess that there's some kind of spirulina in here,

like blue-green algae.

Probably like a coconut cream.

We're gonna have to taste this.

Wow.

I'm gonna take a moment for this smoothie

because this smoothie,

it's gonna set you back a pretty penny

but it's gonna take you really far in this town.

Next up, you have my personal favorite.

Some people will say it's Maaru.

Some people will say it's Maru.

I couldn't tell you, but it's M-A-R-U.

This is a matcha latte.

What mama likes is an iced oat milk matcha latte.

It's basically what got me through both of my pregnancies.

I'd say my children are like 80% matcha latte.

They also have the best chocolate chip cookie.

Can we? Mm-hmm.

You okay?

Wait a minute. [package rustles]

They also have the best chocolate chip cookie.

And so what you're gonna wanna do,

especially, if you're pregnant is,

just get yourself one of these, every day.

It's lower in caffeine that's why I say that.

But then you're gonna wanna not sleep on this cookie,

the size of your head.

It's so good.

Now, you also see a number of baked goods on this tray

and these are

from one of the most incredible market restaurants in LA.

These are from Gjusta.

And they've got every kind of bread that you could imagine.

They've got bagels, they've got locks,

they've got whipped burrata.

Are you kidding me?

You could probably bathe in it

and you wouldn't need to do any sort of plastic surgery

or like botox,

like it's just gonna keep you young forever.

All of these baked goods are available for you.

I don't know what these are.

Let me guess for you.

You got like some marbled poundcake here.

I don't know what this is, but it's as pretty as a bow.

And then like this is some kind of crumb thing.

When you come to LA,

we can go to Gjusta and we'll probably just do a repeat

of this 'cause it's definitely worth the whole trip.

It's worth the whole trip.

The last thing that you have is the classic in-N-out,

that you're gonna wanna get anything animal style

and animal style is when they chop up the grilled onions

and they mix it in with their secret sauce.

This is a chocolate milkshake.

I actually tend to get vanilla

but I'm trying new things today.

So when it's so thick, I can't even suck it up with straw.

Wow, I might have to change my milkshake order.

So you can see the animal fries.

It's like, holy, there's even cheese on them.

This is my face.

These are animal fries.

This is my face.

These are animal fries.

And then you have a classic in-N-Out cheeseburger.

This is a grilled cheese, animal style grilled cheese.

Oh lord.

Alright, well now I'm gonna make another mess, so hold on.

By the way,

if anybody wants to hire me for burger commercials,

this is basically my audition tape for that.

[whimsical music]

Uh-oh.

You got the onions, you got the secret sauce,

you got the pickles and you have the tomatoes, right?

You have a double-double, which is two patties, two cheese,

4 by 4, 6 by 6, 8 by 8, 16 by 16,

wherever your gut leads you, it's your gastric journey.

You're on it.

Basically senior year,

when we were supposed to be on free period,

my friends and I would just be

at in-N-out seeing who could eat the bigger burger.

[upbeat music]

This is the greater Los Angeles area.

Here's the Channel Islands.

If you have a day, don't sleep on going to Catalina.

It's just a ferry ride away.

There's some excellent camping.

There's a town called Avalon.

There it is down there.

This nerd went to marine biology camp there.

I grew up in the valley

which is going to be right around here.

[Troian chuckles] I love it.

It's like there's nothing here.

Don't worry about it. [Troian chuckles]

It's just strip malls.

I now live East side.

So East side is like gonna be kind of in here.

It's where the cool people are.

There's a lot of great stuff to do here.

Griffith Park is going to extend

from the east side to the west side,

and that's where the Hollywood sign is.

There's actually like horseback riding.

My mom was an equestrian

or as you might know it, horse lady.

She was a horse lady.

We like to go horseback riding growing up

and there's a lot of stables right along Griffith Park.

Great hiking in Griffith Park and in Malibu,

there's actually some like really famous,

I think Jim Morrison once has a crazy cave up there.

If you really want to go into the hills,

you're gonna get into some like Charles Manson territory

which is like pretty trippy if that's for you.

I'm big into that.

Not killing people, not at all.

But the history of it.

Don't make this weird.

Hollywood Highland is gonna be your epicenter

for the Chinese theater.

Ripley's Believe It or Not,

when I was 10, I was like on a Ripley's tear.

I made my parents take me there every weekend.

I'm such a nerd.

This is what you're discovering.

This is a chart of my cool factor.

It's like, [Troian mumbles]

just flooring.

You also can see live performances here in LA.

I know that a lot of people think that we just make TV

and film here, but there's a lot of great theater.

So some of the biggest places that you can go

in Culver City is the Kirk Douglas Theater

which has some great stuff.

Downtown LA that's where the center theater group is.

And they have the Ahmanson and they have the opera,

the ballet, the Walt Disney Music Hall.

They have the broad theater,

they have the Moca,

like everywhere that you're gonna want to go

to see great art,

sort of towards Beverly Hills,

a little bit further in a place called Westwood

is the Geffen Theater,

which is also a really wonderful little theater.

It's where I met my husband.

So if you ladies are out there looking

to meet your husbands,

I don't know get a job at the Geffen Theater,

that's my advice to you.

When you are in California,

or in LA probably,

you might be in some restaurants

and some cafes walking down Venice Boulevard

and you might hear some of these terms

and you might wonder to yourself

what does it mean to be California sober?

So California sober is when you don't drink

but you do smoke the weed.

June gloom.

June gloom is when you get to summer,

generally the month of June.

And it is so gloomy.

It is like gray skies.

It might even be a little bit drizzly

and a lot of people that are coming to LA

for the summer are like, What the hell is this weather?

I was told it would be bright sunshine.

And we're like, Oh, it's June gloom.

And they're like, That's dumb.

It'll kind of get a little bit muggy.

It'll kind of get a little bit gray

but don't worry, it'll totally pass.

Oh, oh yeah.

So this is really important for you to know.

This is a whole California thing.

This is NorCal. This is SoCal.

This is not just LA.

So it's really gonna serve you.

This is an affirmative.

No, yeah.

So when you say like,

Oh my God, this whole semester's been so exhausting.

It's like, no, yeah, I've been so tired.

Yeah, no, is not the affirmative.

This is not, this is a negative.

Yeah, no, I'm not doing that.

Yeah, no. Yeah, no.

Oh, no, yeah, for sure. That's an affirmative.

So if somebody's inviting you out for the weekend

and you're so excited, you're like,

Oh, no, yeah, for sure.

I'm gonna be there.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, no, yeah.

[Troain gasps]

You guys, it's pilot season.

Oh no.

Pilot season is this time doesn't really exist anymore,

since the advent of streamers.

But all of these different networks

that have these major shows would have pilot season

and pilot season is when they take one script

and they decide we're gonna try to make the pilot

which is the first episode of a show.

Depending on how that pilot would test,

the pilot would then be made into a series.

This is what happened with me with a pilot that I was on.

But generally pilot season is really for actors.

And that's when you are going out on like,

sometimes three auditions a day

and not all of these pilots will be made.

Definitely not all of them will go to series.

So you are memorizing generally like 10 pages of dialogue

for each of these three different auditions

and you're just running all over time

between the different studios.

Then you're like going into the bathroom

and like changing into dress, like a lawyer.

And then you're changing into dress like a cop.

And then you're coming out

and you're like, I'm a firefighter now, believe me.

And then at the end of the day you get an email

and it's like,

You didn't get any of those

but here's five more auditions for the rest of the week.

Happy pilot season.

Around the first of the year like really kicks in,

February, and then it'll end around May.

But now that streamers are happening,

pilot season's just all year round.

Guys, so enjoy.

Cool.

Ah, California roll.

So this is really fun, California roll,

because it's actually two different things.

The California role is, it's really gross.

It's imitation crab with mayo

and it's just wrapped up pretending to be sushi.

But what you might not know about a California role is

that it's also a driving technique

in California that's illegal.

So I'm not advising you to do it

but a California role is when you don't stop at a stop sign,

you slow down and then you keep going.

You might get pulled over if there's a cop on the street

and he's like, You didn't stop, you California rolled it.

There you go.

[upbeat music]

Oh,

wow!

Did you guys Photoshop this or is this real?

[Background Guy] No,

that's a real sign. This is real.

That's a real sign. Oh my god.

We have notoriously confusing street signs.

We are working on our transportation system.

There's great buses you can take.

We do have a tiny bit of a metro.

You can get some places

but you're probably gonna need to park your car.

So come with me on a journey of the senses.

This top one, it's pretty simple, straightforward.

This is no parking.

4:00 AM to 6:00 AM,

on weekdays 'cause there's street cleaning.

I think you guys get that.

Let's go down to the next one.

Tow away on school days, so there's no stopping.

Additionally, Monday through Friday,

6:00 AM to 4:00 PM which is also weekdays like,

why couldn't you just say that?

Okay, now there's a school day's exemption.

This is fun.

Monday through Friday from 6:00 AM to 4:00 PM,

Culver City, United School District permits.

We're gonna have permits.

So that's probably if you go to school here,

if you've applied for a permit, if you work here,

don't not display your permit,

they will take your car straight up.

I can't believe you guys didn't Photoshop this.

This is absolutely ridiculous.

So on school days, again,

one hour parking from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM.

So that means that for those two hours,

if you park here longer than one hour,

your ass is gonna get towed.

District permits exempt.

That means that not only if you have a CCUSD permit

but if you have a permit for this district,

you can have your car parked here

during this time for longer than one hour.

That's probably the full two hours

and you won't get your car towed,

tow away for one hour on non-school days

which are Sunday at midnight through Friday.

That doesn't make any sense.

There's even more,

no stopping Friday through Sunday 6:00 PM

through 12 midnight.

Just don't park here, just don't come, here,

stay away, don't come to LA or park here.

Enjoy what you're doing for an hour in Culver City.

So that's how you should make your way around LA.

Hope you have a great time.

[upbeat music]