Kicking things off with a martini or 2

AS one of dance music’s most in-demand acts, Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland of the Crystal Method have to preface their rundown of an ideal weekend with “If we’re in town.” But when the duo, one of the headliners for the rescheduled Giant Village taking place Saturday, is in its adopted hometown of L.A., the weekend kicks off with its Friday radio show, at 10 p.m. to midnight on Indie 103.1 FM.

Funny warmup

Jordan: Friday night is always based around the radio show. A lot of times we hit restaurant row on La Cienega beforehand; we’ll go to Lawry’s, and I like the Stinking Rose. And we have a funny ritual of going to the Marie Callender’s on Wilshire, right across the street from the radio station. We meet there for martinis right before the show. They’ve got a little piano bar and sports on, so it’s a nice warmup to radio....Afterward I’ll drop by King King, which has a couple of revolving Friday nightclubs going on, and there’s always some good DJ there I’m interested in.

Kirkland: In the last six months my wife and I had a baby. So basically Friday night is having dinner with my family before I go to the radio show, go have a martini before the show, record the show and go home.

Fire up the grill

Kirkland: We’ll start Saturday off lounging around, watching some sports; recently it’s been a little casual baseball. Then we’ll go down to Whole Foods, pick out dinner for the night, maybe have a barbecue in the back of the house. They have these dry-aged steaks over at Whole Foods that are just ridiculous. Or we have this raspberry and jalapeno chicken.

I like to get out my frosty beer mug and have myself a couple of beers and just do the barbecue thing.

Jordan: A typical Saturday is barbecuing early, and then I like going to Avalon when there’s a good act there. I think Avalon’s a lot of fun. I’m so far from Hollywood though. I’m in Encino.

We’re looking for hangout spots in the Valley. There is this one place called Springbok in Van Nuys, sort of a South African sports bar with weird food and beer, which is kind of fun. And there’s the Katsu-ya Encino, one of the best sushi restaurants in town.

Chill time

Jordan: I generally have an ice hockey game every Sunday with my team up in Valencia. It’s usually evening, and we go afterward to this weird little dive bar called Sugar Suite. The name of our team for some reason is Newcastle, and we go there and drink Newcastles.

Sunday during the daytime is almost always recovery. Either we fly back early from whatever our Saturday night gig was or if we’re in town we’re recovering and hanging out, sometimes we’ll go to Jerry’s Famous Deli for breakfast. I’ve got two convertibles and I have to drive them at least once a week. They don’t get a lot of miles.

Kirkland: Sunday we’ll take the dog and the baby to a little neighborhood park not too far from our house in Glendale.

Then we’ll go to lunch: La Cabanita in Glendale, this Mexican restaurant that’s worth the drive. They have good mole and amazing salsa, really good carnitas. And they have these pork chops; it seems like they marinate them for two or three days ... and they have this special sauce. It’s real authentic Mexican. It’s more of a Mexico City kind of restaurant.

*

-- Steve Baltin