Archive for September, 2008

Newer Entries »

Club 55, “Cinquante Cinq” – St Tropez, France

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Plage de Pampelonne
Boulevard Patch
83350 RAMATUELLE – FRANCE
Tél.+33 (0)4 94 55 55 55
Fax.+33 (0)4 94 79 85 00

Club “Cinquante Cinq” is a lunchtime beach destination accessed by a narrow road, clogged bumper to bumper by high-ticket automobiles. The beach club is also one of the toughest tables to book for lunch in high season, which makes you wonder if it is all worth it—arriving by private yacht is far easier and certainly a more pleasant experience, but the booking problem remains the same. The beach club is divided between a main restaurant; while a white canopy-shaded beach bar is adjacent.
An overgrown bamboo forest is the backdrop to a Provençal beach bungalow with white canopies and lavish beach club jetting all the way down to the water’s edge where a wooden pier extends out a short distance. Huge yachts are anchored offshore and the occupants slowly arrive by launch.
It is interesting that Club 55 was once a ramshackle beach hut, where the Colmont family lived. By an accident of good fortune, they wound up catering for the cast and crew of the film starring Bridget Bardot “And God Created Woman” in 1956, and over the last three decades or so, became a sometimes destination for the more well-behaved and less boisterous element of the St Tropez crowd.

They have fresh wild salad and a menu that offers more interesting items, which is best accompanied by bottles of Provence rosé or rouge wine, at least this is what I experienced whenever dining there with a French friend of mine who never ordered from the menu. He usually finished the lunch by ordering a large pitcher of green apple sorbet with an entire bottle of Calvados mixed into it.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in St. Tropez | 2 Comments »

La Voile Rouge Beach Club – St Tropez, France (CLOSED BY POLICE)

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Route des Tamaris 83350 Ramatuelle France
Opening Hours: 11am-8pm, daily (Apr-Oct)

One of the most famous of the 30 odd beach restaurants along Pampelonne’s Beach, La Voile Rouge is a dining, drinking and must-be-seen expanse of sandy real estate about 60 meters in width. Yet, with such a worldwide reputation they failed to make their Miami branch work; it went bankrupt. A lounge, or mat rents for around $50 per and these prices are right in line with similar beach destinations on the Med. You should probably book a day ahead, for by midday during peak season Bastille Day to Sept 1 everything is taken tables, mats, everything!
The clientèle are more wild than chic and “bronzed nubile little things” carry irascible designer dogs and everyone drinks great quantities of Champagne that they take to spraying after time; what a terrible waste! I tend to have lunch late about 3:30pm as dinner is never before 11pm, to avoid the booking hassle.
Paul Tomaselli, owner of the club sometimes can be found playing backgammon, made famous in the west by Prince Alexis Obolensky, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in Palm Springs with Carlton Alsop, and later in other parts of the world. As an interesting bit of information, Carlton and his wife occasionally dined in one of the private rooms at Chasen’s Restaurant in Los Angeles accompanied by their two dogs (small) and in their bathrobes; they entered from their limousine from the rear of the restaurant. He used to consume a bottle of Champagne while having his hair cut at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and he did not spray one ounce of it!

RELATED LINK: Champagne Spraying Is Over At Voile Rouge, Closed By Authorities

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in St. Tropez | Comments Closed

Players, Imperial Gardens Location Sadly, Goes to Dodd Mitchell

Sunday, September 7th, 2008

Defunct Miyagi Restaurant

8225 Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood

In the 1940’s this historic building was the famous club called the Players owned by writer/director Preston Sturges , then in the 1970’s it became the Imperial Gardens where I first met Hoki Tokuda while she performed playing piano and singing in the downstairs bar, she later married well known author, Henry Miller. It then morphed into the Roxbury and finally Miyaki. It has now fallen into the grasp of designer, Dodd Mitchell as his personal project to turn Miyagi into a venture called Ming & Mi. This is really sad, and a great pity that he now has the opportunity to destroy, once again, another establishment with a history and inflict his atrociously bad taste upon it. What is the point. The establishment usually fails after he finishes his redesign.

Tags:,
Posted in Bars, Los Angeles | Comments Closed

Update: Trader Vic’s – Los Angeles

Sunday, September 7th, 2008

It appears as if the replacement of the shut Beverly Hills Trader Vic’s will be in downtown at L.A. Live it has been rumored. This Traders will be managed by the Valencia Group, and this may be a good thing as all the relatives and original owners are no longer actively involved in the original corporation. I know a lot of people living in Beverly Hills that will rarely, after taking an initial look, ever drive to downtown L.A., even though most of them have chauffeur driven cars, it is simply too far unless they are going there in the evening for another purpose. Since Trader Vic’s main customer base for the past 50 years have been mainly from the westside of the city; does this make any good business sense or are they trying to develop a new market?

Tags:,
Posted in Bars, Los Angeles | Comments Closed

Spoon Byblos – St. Tropez, France

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

Byblos St.Tropez
Avenue Paul Signac
83990 St.Tropez, France
Tel. 33 (0)4 94 56 68 00
Email: Saint-tropez@byblos.com
Opening Hours: Dinner only
Credit Cards: All Major
Prices: Expensive

There are many Spoon Restaurant’s around the world but none as illustrious as this pairing of the legendary Hotel Byblos in St. Tropez with international celebrity chef Alain Ducasse’s Spoon.

Spoon Byblos, a Patrick Jouin designed space, has a different slant on the chains’ ethnic dining concept and focuses on the Mediterranean rim countries healthy cooking especially Provencal and Italian cuisines. The large wine list includes globally produced selections of wines from both the new and old world. After it opened in 2002 the St. Tropez crowd gravitated to this bistro very quickly. Just a short walk from this bistro is the famous disco Les Caves du Roy, the original Beirut nightclub was built underground and survived bombings that destroyed the luxurious Exelsior Hotel it was housed in. The Los Angeles and St. Tropez branches were all orchestrated and built by the same interior designer who created the original club in Beirut, the late, Serge Sassouni. I flew down from London to attend the opening of the Byblos Hotel and the Caves du Roy where friends of Serge and mine were gathering such as actresses: Vivian Ventura, Barbara Bouchet, and Joanna Pettet along with so many others, perhaps Charlotte Rampling and Jeremy Lloyd—it has been such a long time I do not recall the entire guest list, although I do remember it was a fun night!

Tags:, ,
Posted in St. Tropez | Comments Closed

Alameda Brazilian Restaurant – Beijing, China

Friday, September 5th, 2008

Chaoyang, Sanlitun Beijie (between Sanlitun Xiwujie & Sanlitun Xiliujie)
86 10 64178084
Opening Hours: Open Lunch: Mon-Sat 12am-3pm, Dinner: 6pm-12pm; Sun 12am-10pm
Prices: Moderate

This popular, light and breezy style Brazilian restaurant is punctuated with light colored furnishings to be found in the Na-Li Mall, off Sanlitun Lu Street and commonly referred to as Bar Street due to its many drinking establishments. The chef, Viviane Gonçalves offers a prix fixe menu for 128 Yuan (about $18) and 60 Yuan set lunch. To produce her Brazilian menu she has to search out and adapt many ingredients because the originals are not available in China. Feijoada (Brazilian National Dish) is served on Wednesday and Saturday. A long and varied international wine list compliments the menu as does, the caipirinha (a drink made with cachaça, limes, and sugar with ice).


Tags:, ,
Posted in Beijing | 3 Comments »

China House, Oriental Hotel – Bangkok

Monday, September 1st, 2008

Oriental Hotel
48 Oriental Avenue,
Bangkok 10500
Tel. 02 659 9000
Website: www.mandarinoriental.com
Opening Hours: Lunch 11:30am-2:30pm; Dinner: 6pm-10:pm
Credit Cards: All Major
Prices: Moderate-Expensive

I first dined at China House in the Oriental Hotel when it was a converted Thai house next door to the hotel. It went through a major renovation and became encompassed into the hotel itself as a separate wing along with a few designer stores in 2006. With such a large population of Chinese in Thailand, it makes perfect sense that there is a Chinese restaurant in almost every hotel and many more freestanding ones all over the city.
The interior was completely redesigned to appear as if it was a restaurant in Shanghai in the “good old days” before the communist takeover, when Shanghai was known as one of the most interesting cities in Asia devoted to fun as was Singapore in that same era both were labeled “sin city”. Everything in the restaurant is red and filled with Chinese decorations of all sorts; the female staff are all dressed in long Chinese high-collared slinky dresses—very beautiful.
Jereme Leung, is consulting chef, he was founding chef of the Whampoa Club, the stunning Art-Deco style Shanghainese restaurant located on the Bund in Shanghai. One of his proteges, Chef Kong Khai Meng, with stints in both Hong Kong and Shanghai is resident chef. As it was an impromptu lunch, we ordered two types of spring rolls, noodles and dumplings along with a few other small dishes. Since the cooking was extremely satisfying and well prepared, I look forward to having dinner where I can order more complicated dishes from this marvelous restaurant.

Tags:,
Posted in Bangkok | Comments Closed

Newer Entries »