Redondo Beach, California: A Visitors Guide

This time, I'm in Redondo Beach, California, just seven miles south of LAX, right off the Pacific Coast Highway. For an LA-area locale within close reach of the airport, this has a lot of in-town destinations beat hands down. My temporary digs, the Portofino Hotel and Yacht Club, is right inside the high, stone jetty of King Harbor, and claims to be the only oceanfront hotel in Greater Los Angeles. My oceanview room delivers cool, ocean breezes, a view of the seawall and fishing trawlers, and the round-the-clock barking of sea lions, who congregate on a mid-harbor platform built for their pleasure and protection. Generous government spending resulted in the King Harbor seawall, a delightful waterfront promenade, a handy municipal car park right on the water's edge topped by a quaint, gray clapboard district courthouse and a cluster of matching, clapboard offices for the courthouse square hangers-on. Directly below and adjacent to the car park are marinas, the two-block long boardwalk (a warren of shops and restaurants sandwiched between parking garage and marina) and a topsy turvy maze of interconnected dining/shopping/fishing piers. Just south of the piers is the broad beach, curving off into the California haze.

I'd arrived from Michigan primed for seafood, one of my life-long passions. It was nearly noon (but 3:00 pm Michigan time), and it was now my task to settle on one (or more) establishments. The hotel concierge handed me a fine Redondo Beach Harbor & Pier Walking Map, which lists nearly 50 eateries from chain establishments like Cheesecake Factory and Joe's Crab Shack, to egg roll and taco stands, pizzerias, currascarias, neighborhood luncheonettes, we'll-cook-it-for-you fish markets, and expense-account-only steak and seafood houses. I boldly stepped out into the warm sun and cool, ocean breeze. The day couldn't have been more perfect!

First stop on my travels, Captain Kidd's Fish Market . Buy your fish by the pound from the market cases, and they'll cook it up for a $3.50 surcharge that includes two side dishes. Or, order from the menu. Bring your tray out to atmospheric picnic tables with a lovely view of the parking lot (a glimpse of the marina and Pacific a bit beyond). Looks well-worn and authentic, but despite the fish market trappings, I doubt many people buy fish to cook at home. Definitely a place to try out if I return, though. I press on, in search of a holier grill. I strolled from King Harbor at the north down the boardwalk at water's edge, and looped around the sprawling Redondo Beach Pier, surveying all my choices. At the far south end of the district is the beach itself, a long, broad crescent ending at the haze-shrouded Palos Verdes highlands. (Over the hill lies San Pedro, Disney Cruise Line's temporary home port when visiting California).