My favorite restaurant in LA is a dive in Chinatown. I went there a couple of weeks ago with my lady-friend and whilst we waited for our table she looked over at an eccentric British woman dressed in wool and said, "She looks like Helen Mirren." She looked nothing like Helen Mirren.

We sat down - my lady-friend and I - and faux-Helen Mirren sat behind us. My lady-friend again said, "She looks like Helen Mirren." Still, she looked nothing like Helen Mirren. The table next to us finished up and when they stood to leave, revealing the table behind them, there sat Helen Mirren. The real Helen Mirren with her husband Taylor Hackford. My lady-friend looked at me and said, "There's a glitch in the Matrix."

Perhaps we were in the Matrix. I, after all, was wearing a rather futuristic black jacket that I'd bought down the street, down Gin Ling Way, down at Choose Chinatown.

Yes, Choose Chinatown: in what was once a toy store on the Gin Ling Way, Choose Chinatown opened in February as a concept store housing designers for two seasons at a time (currently it's Cheap Monday and WKND).

Proprietors Robin Cervar, Raymond Tseng and Jason Gillis, have a keen eye for buying, for though lines like Cheap Monday may be familiar to patrons of Urban Outfitters, they have a much deeper design sense than the skinny jeans that retailer is so fond of. The jacket I bought has a masculine Balenciaga cut, and other designs have the same Comme des Garçons polka-dot whimsy that so enamors me to that line.

So follow Helen Mirren down the Matrix-brick road amongst the opium dens of Chinatown and Choose it baby, Choose it good.

THE DETAILS: Choose Chinatown
441 Gin Ling Way
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213.613.9200
www.choosechinatown.com

Story by Jeremy Tarr.

SCREW THE RECESSION - SHOP, BABY, SHOP!!