restaurant

At the top of a tall, round building casting a shadow on the highway — right where Sunset meets the 405 — is a restaurant called West. I ate there Friday night with my girlfriend fiancée and her mom. The view of the city is just incredible and the bone-in New York strip was one of the top ten steaks I’ve ever had.

Their website is craptacular and looks like it hasn’t been updated since last June, but the Panini Cafe in Marina Del Rey is a damn good place to have lunch. I’ve eaten there probably two dozen times since my company moved into our current building several years ago. I’d go there more often but there just aren’t many places within walking distance of my office and I don’t want to spoil Panini’s by going there every other day.

Except for Uncle Darrow’s (best Cajun food in LA) and Benny’s BBQ (best BBQ in LA) there are only fast food chains near me. We usually rotate between Soup Plantation, Rubio’s, Del Taco (barf!), Quizno’s, and Panda Express. We’ll splurge and go to Chin Chin if it’s someone’s birthday lunch but nobody wants to be spending $15 on lunch on a regular basis.

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Tricia and I had dinner at Citizen Smith in Hollywood last night. ‘Twas quite an adventure just getting there. We didn’t have directions or know the address when we left the house. Cingular’s 411 service is frustratingly bad. It’s all computer-aided voice prompts now and they inevitably connect you to the wrong number the first time you try. Once we finally got through to the restaurant, it took three calls to find an employee that apparantly knew exactly where the place is.

So. We were an hour late for our reservations. (This is shockingly not uncommon in Los Angeles.) We were seated right away, though, because it wasn’t very crowded. There was some confusion with the waitstaff and after getting our waters it wasn’t for another fifteen minutes before Gerron, our waiter, realized we were in his section.
He recommended and beautifully described the night’s chef’s special: Linguini with clams. Tricia ordered that and a red wine and I got the pork chop and a pinot grigio.

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My girlfriend and I had dinner at Mr. Chow last night to celebrate her dad’s 60th. Paris was there with — apparently — her entire family. Bummer for them: They were seated on the much-less-prestigious right-hand side of the dining room. (We, of course, were on the left.) The paparazzi was in full force out on the sidewalk because Jessica and her mondo entourage were sitting at the table next to us. I could have sworn her little sister was there with her, but my girlfriend’s little sister told me it wasn’t her, and it’s a wise man that defers to someone less than half his age when it comes to matters of pop culture.

Went to Sushi Matsuri (next to the Blockbuster on Archer) for dinner with a group of doctors-to-be, one other husband and one wife. I really don’t like sushi. I try to get into it, because it’s supposed to be so hip, but it really does nothing for me. The steak teriyaki was really good though. And the Sapporo. And contrary to what you might think, people who are just about to become the most trusted individuals on the planet (American physicians) can be really funny when you get them high on California rolls, Kirin, and that sick, green, sludgy, spicy stuff that you mix in the little dish and create that strange sauce into which you dunk things that you just know are going to fall from your chopsticks two seconds before they get to your lips …