Paolo Pizzi

Buena Park Mall was a good place to stroll and do some shopping, some 15-20 years ago. Now it's basically deserted, even on a weekend. A lot of stores have closed, and they've been replaced with businesses that are either uninteresting or cater for a specific market segment (a trampoline park?) I realize that this is common to many malls in the area, if not in the entire country.

If you like the smell of weed and pee mixed together, you'll love this pier. For everyone else, keep driving south until you hit Seal Beach or Huntington Beach. Besides the horrible olfactory experience, the view from the pier is quite depressing: former military structures, tankers at anchor, and the cranes of the Port of Long Beach in the distance.

The A.R. Supermarket is just about the cheapest you can find in the area while maintaining a good quality of the products, from produce to meat, to fish, to Asian imports from Korea, Japan, China etc. Also noteworthy is Ginkgo Katsu, an excellent Japanese restaurant that offers great food quality at very reasonable prices.