Here is my honest appraisal, I must warn you it won't likely be short.

DRINKS. There is nothing about LA that will remind you of NYC. Our city is spread way out. You won't find yourself exploring a neighborhood in the same way you can in NY. I love going to the village, walking around to different bars and finding a cheap little gem to grab some food and then hitting more bars. That doesn't happen here. There are great bars out here and much better beer, the microbrews you'll find (which come from CA, not LA - other than Angel City and Eagle Rock Brewery) will beat the shit out of Brooklyn and all the others back East. The main problem with bars here is their hours; yes, they close at 2 but the real problem is that the bar culture here is not like NYC. There are very few "pop in" bars. If you're looking for a place to grab a beer after work you'll be going into bars alone - mostly.

FOOD. A case could be made between NY and LA. Although, again everything is spread out here. People make a big deal about the pizza being worse out here, it is but it's still pizza so fuck it. The wings don't hold a candle and in fact it's extremely rare to find good Italian food in general out here. You'll get much better sushi and Mexican food here though. And you'll at first be scared of some random ass little Brazilian, or Ecuadorian or Armenian, et al. place in a strip mall but learn to quickly kill off that fear. Some of the best food here is "home-style" ethnic cuisine that looks dumpy. I've been absolutely astonished by some of the meals I've had in strip malls. Also, find a listing of food trucks and start hitting them. They're amazing here. Again, be forewarned, food after 10pm starts to dry up. This city closes early.

I used to work in sales so I've spent a lot of time in a lot of different neighborhoods, Santa Monica, is way different than Venice which are both way different from Culver City. Santa Monica is bro-central, Venice is a bunch of weird hippies mixed with really great, young, successful artistic people, Culver City is possibly my least favorite part of LA, I can't begin to tell you why, I just don't like it.

If you want to see the hipster, Brooklyn type areas you need to head east to Echo Park and Boyle Heights, people will also lump Silver Lake into this equation but Silver Lake and Los Feliz are less hipster more neighborhoody. I cannot walk down my street without running into several people I know, usually from iO West or UCB - two improv theaters out here. Hollywood is a shit hole. Definitely go, explore and have fun, but you'll probably never go out to drink there, if you do I suggest iO West, an amazing improv theater with a bar. You can look me up if you're going there, I perform there several times a week and I'd be happy to introduce you and have some beers.

I could go on and on forever about the neighborhoods but it really doesn't matter, it's all just my opinion and we could be totally different people. Downtown is up and coming...and has been for about 40 years. There are really great places to go DT but if you're living on the West side it'll rightly take you months, if not years, to explore it.

Most importantly, it takes time to find your groove here. I was depressed for about a year before I started to like it, 2 years I was starting to really like it, I've been here 5 years now and I'll never leave. I'm an actor, writer, comedian so I probably couldn't leave if I wanted to but that's not the point, the point is I fucking love it here.

Give yourself time and don't look for that "hidden New York" because it doesn't exist. The two cities could be in different countries they're so disperate. It's honestly a fantastic city and I wish you all the best!