Beverly Center

Going to the Westside Pavilion mall is a Friday afternoon ritual for Jenny Ouchi and her 8-year-old son, Will. But shopping isn't usually on the agenda. Ouchi drops Will off at Music Stars & Masters on the second floor, where he takes private piano lessons. During the half-hour session, Ouchi, 38, runs errands in the Los Angeles shopping center, such as getting her nails done or mailing a letter at the in-mall post office. "It's definitely a timesaver," said Ouchi, a part-time pediatrician who lives on the Westside.

Jocelyn Mull recalled finding the lifeless body of her 18-year-old son, Eron, lying in an alley near the Beverly Center. She had rushed to the scene after receiving a phone call from her sister alerting her of a possible shooting involving her son. She saw Eron's mouth gaping wide, she said. He had been shot once in the neck. Blood was everywhere. "A mother never expects — it's unthinkable — to bury her child," Mull said in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Friday as she demanded the maximum sentence for his killer, Kenneth Webb.

Perhaps no single individual in the last half-century has promoted and showcased African American beauty and fashion with as much flair as Eunice W. Johnson. The co-founder with her husband John H. Johnson of pioneering magazine Ebony in 1945, she was one of the first to market a cosmetics line, Fashion Fair Cosmetics, to African Americans, . And, most famously, she created the Ebony Fashion Fair — a traveling fashion runway show that's raised more than $55 million for various charities since its inception in 1958.

Obikà Mozzarella Bar Rating: one-and-a-half stars Location: Westfield Century City Shopping Center, 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., No. 206, Los Angeles; (310) 556-2452; http://www.obikala.com . Also in Beverly Center, Los Angeles. Price: Antipasti, $7 to $12; salads, $8 to $16; pane cunzato (open-faced sandwiches), $14 to $15; main courses, $14 to $18; mozzarella tasting for two, $27; for four, $58; salumi selection, $9 to $18. Corkage, $15. Details: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday to Thursday; 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday.

I distinctly remember an Italian friend raving to me a few years ago about the new mozzarella bar Obikà she'd just come across in Milan where you could get bufala mozzarella still dripping with milk, fresh from Campania to the south. Now, you have to understand that in Italy, food is always regional. And although, yes, you can buy mozzarella in practically any little deli in Italy, it usually isn't super fresh and mostly it's fior di latte , mozzarella made from cow's milk rather than the much more prized buffalo, which has its own delimited production area just like a wine.

Who says luxury is dead? Fendi, the Italian designer label famous for its lavish furs and Lilliputian baguette handbags, has opened a new boutique at the Beverly Center ? the first in the U.S. to feature a designated men's accessories section. The 1,825-square-foot boutique boasts the same undulating ribbed white walls, slate-gray granite floors and steel accents that mingle so harmoniously in the Peter Marino-designed Fendi flagship on Rodeo Drive. But the Beverly Center boutique also features a striking amber-colored glass facade incorporating a backlit pair of puzzle-piece-style double-Fs, the brand's logo.

Angelenos headed out en masse for some "shopping-tainment" Sept. 10 during second Fashion's Night Out, a celebration that reverberated from Newport Beach to the Valley and beyond. Designers, retailers and shoppers revved up for an evening centered on style and spending that seems to have paid off. Venues were crowded, sales reportedly brisk. More than 20,000 people went through the doors of the Beverly Center, the night's official Los Angeles hub, where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa addressed the crowd, telling people to "shop until they dropped.

Here's where to click to kick it into high gear with Fashion's Night Out, a long night of special shopping events on Sept. 10. MANHATTAN For more on the mayhem in Manhattan — and links to the official FNO events around the globe, go to the homepage of Fashion's Night Out NYC: http://www.fashionsnightout.com . Beverly Hills A four-story Ferris wheel, 77 stores, seven food trucks and Samuel L. Jackson? Download all the details — and find a place to park — at http://www.

These days when a business withers on the vine it's usually because of the sagging economy. But a 73-year-old Fairfax District landscape center is shutting down so that a blossoming neighbor can sprout a new commercial venture. The venerable Mordigan Nurseries near the northwest corner of 3rd Street and Fairfax Avenue will close Aug. 15 so the even older A. F. Gilmore Co. can redevelop a key parcel at the intersection. The 95-year-old Gilmore Co. also owns the popular Farmers Market on the northeast corner of the intersection as well as the property occupied by the Grove, the huge shopping and entertainment center.

Grammy-winning musician Ziggy Marley has purchased a Los Angeles home in the Beverly Center area for more than $700,000. Mature trees shade the Spanish-style house, which was built in 1929 and described in the Multiple Listing Services as a fixer. Details include high ceilings, a living room fireplace and hardwood floors. The 1,600-square-foot house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Fruit trees fill the backyard. Marley, 41, is the eldest son of the late legendary reggae artist Bob Marley.