​Friday

1. Hard to Get, 3 p.m.

It’s rare that hype doesn’t disappoint. But the Broad, which opened earlier this year to critical raves and huge crowds, is an exceptional museum. Compared with the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall next door, the Broad’s 120,000-square-foot, $140-million building is understated. Yet its cheese-grater exterior and worm tube escalator shaft seem as instantly iconic as the Guggenheim in New York. The collection, 2,000 works by 200 contemporary and postwar artists, including both household names, like Warhol and Koons, and less familiar figures, is both wondrous and overwhelming. Admission is free, but tickets must be reserved on the first day of each month via an online ticket reservation to avoid same-day standby lines.

2. Radical Reuse, 5:30 p.m.

Even if you don’t plan to spend $21,000 on a massive globe of reclaimed steel illuminated with LED lights, $65 on candlesticks made from gears and machine parts, or $2,000 on a mosaic of recycled aluminum cans depicting a ‘57 Chevy, the works on display at the Arts District’s Cleveland Art showroom warrants a stop for its brilliant use of recycled materials. Or, save your lifestyle envy for Saturday and stop into Highland Park’s midcentury modern furniture and housewares emporium Sunbeam Vintage, where you’ll find a classic Hollywood Regency bar cart, a set of vintage Dorothy Thorpe glasses or a ceramic volcano vase. While not obvious souvenirs, Sunbeam’s Mad Men-era collection may invoke fantasies about moving into an Echo Park bungalow fitted with beautiful objects.

3. Stylish Cerveza, 6:30 p.m.

Within the last few years, three new breweries have opened within blocks of each other downtown, making the area, already overflowing with spectacular, high-end cocktails, an imbiber’s delight. On the ground floor of an office building painted in aquamarine, peach and canary yellow circles and swirls, Mumford Brewing stands out for uncommon offerings like Golf Clap, a dry-hopped saison, and Unpresidential, a Northeast-style IPA. Three blocks east, Angel City Brewing has a stage-set Art Deco aesthetic, a spiral metal slide and bean bag games. The newest of the bunch, Arts District Brewing, greets visitors with a Charles Bukowski quote in blue neon and a fleet of Skee-Ball tables. To its credit, the beer scene in Los Angeles doesn’t take itself too seriously.

4. Mall Food (and Music), 8 p.m.

Some of the city’s most exciting food resides in strip malls. Kinjiro, an izakaya — a Japanese-style pub, serving small plates, sake and beer — is a small space with sake bottles along one wall and a sculpted bull’s head on another. Order from dozens of sakes and a menu that features tender, deeply flavorful grilled prime beef tongue with sea salt ($18); a raw dish of uni, scallop, blue crab and ponzu jelly ($16); and homemade age dashi tofu with mushroom ankake sauce ($12). Reservations are required. Down the street, on the top floor of a Little Tokyo shopping center, Blue Whale Bar is a jazz club and art gallery where the owner mans the door and the music is eclectic, ranging from “The Brazil You Never Heard” to electronic funk-pop. Cover starts at $15.