Archive for the ‘Los Angeles’ Category

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L.A.: Models, Actresses Augment Income Parking Cars for Rich And Famous

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Valet Girls Parking Service www.valetgirls.com, sounds like “Valley Girls” doesn’t it, and maybe the pun is intended, in any case, they are using a new twist on an old trade, it is quite simple, they have ditched the pimple faced boys in red vests and swapped them for some flashy girls dressed in hot pink. The company claims that the sexy, although struggling models and actresses have been trained in vehicular safety and can perform as well as their male counterparts in style and service.
The potential employees are hired in a “casting call” type interview session as used in the film business and so far they have received a big turnout. Valet Girls will debut at Susan Feniger’s new STREET restaurant (www.eatatstreet.com) 742 North Highland Avenue, on March 30, 2009. Prepare to encounter all-female parking services to crop up in big cities all over the U.S.A.

The valet company’s goal: Leave a Good First and Last Impression, a key ingredient so important for restaurants in today’s uncertain economy.

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Chez Jay’s, Santa Monica – Los Angeles

Friday, February 13th, 2009


1657 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica
Tel. 310-395-1741
Valet Parking and Parking Lot
Opening Hours: Dinner: Every night; Lunch: Tues-Fri; Breakfast: Sat & Sun
Credit Cards: Yes
Prices: Moderate

This is a scruffy neighborhood joint, a watering hole that has been going strong for decades under the guidance of owner Jay Fiondella, who ran the place for over 40 years. He recently died at age 82. Presently, long-time manager Michael Anderson is in charge. It is conveniently located above Santa Monica Beach just south of the Santa Monica Pier on Ocean Avenue, close to major hotels. They are known for serving mainly steak and seafood.

A genuine little dive with sawdust and peanut shells on the floor.

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Susan Feniger’s Street – Hollywood

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Street Restaurant

742 N. Highland Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90038
Website: www.eatatstreet.com
Tel. 323-461-7813
Credit Cards: All Major
Prices: Moderate

Chef and restaurateur Susan Feniger, one half of the team that created the “Two Hot Tamales” TV cooking episodes and restaurants with a latin theme such as City Cafe, City Restaurant, Ciudad and Border Grill, which includes a Las Vegas branch. She has developed a new concept: Global Street Food, which amounts to up-scale vendor food to be consumed in relative comfort off the street. It is called Street and located on Highland Avenue in Hollywood; she is assisted by her protégé Kajsa Alger. They are now open, and almost immediately after releasing their menu and prices, criticism about high-pricing for street food is circulating on the web. This was to be expected, and it will stop, and they will find their niche.

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Pomme Frite Belgian Restaurant, Palm Springs, California

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

256 South Palm Canyon Drive
Palm Springs, CA 92262
Tel. 760-778 3727
Website: www.pomme-frite.com
Parking: Street
Dress Code: Casual
Reservations: Yes
Credit Cards: Yes
Prices: Moderate

This French-style Belgian restaurant, located on the main drag in downtown Palm Springs, has built its reputation on excellent pomme frite served in a wire cone and Moules à la Marinière, which is as Belgian as it gets. They also offer an equally outstanding roast chicken, Carbonades Flamandes (beef stew made with beer), escargot and various homemade pâtes. It is interesting to dine and people-watch on the sidewalk terrace.
The owner Jean-Claude Constant, who in the past spent more time in the kitchen, has now hired a chef who came from the award-winning Desert Sage Restaurant in La Quinta. This may be a good thing for the kitchen, but it assures for a terrible experience for diners, as it has given him more time to spend in the front of house and the unpleasant sound of his loud voice bossing his wait-staff and yelling orders to the kitchen is really irritating and annoying. It is a shame that this restaurant’s cooking, which is quite all right, is diminished to nothing due to the constant (no pun intended), distraction of the reverberation of this tyrannical Belgian’s voice in the dining room.

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Fig Restaurant, Fairmont Miramar Hotel, Santa Monica – Los Angeles

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

101 Wilshire Boulevard
Santa Monica, California 90401
TOLL FREE: 1(866) 540-4470
Tel.(310) 576-7777
FAX (310) 458-7912
E-MAIL santamonica@fairmont.com
Website: http://www.fairmont.com
Seating Capacity: 92 including the Bar
Opening Hours: Breakfast: 7:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Lunch: 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Dinner: 5:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Credit Cards: All Major
Prices: Moderate-Expensive

FIG Restaurant – Opened February 3rd, 2009
The Fig Restaurant at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, named after the enormous 100 yr. old fig tree on the property that I remember quite vividly, having spent a great deal of time at the Miramar as a young boy when my grandparents took up temporary residence there, which stretched into several years while they looked for a house in the vicinity.
John P. Jones, a silver magnate, built an estate in 1889 on five acres of land above the cliffs where Wilshire Boulevard ends and named it “Miramar”.
It seems as if the Fig Bistro has mimicked the menu of of the successful Anisette Brasserie on the Santa Monica mall to a certain extent.
Fairmont Miramar guests may call for room service around the clock or rendezvous at the Koi Pond Lounge for cocktails or soon at The Fig restaurant for California brasserie cuisine.
Enjoy the California Brasserie featuring a Cruvinet and Charcuterie area. The menu features delicious dishes with ingredients from local Farmers Markets to ensure only the freshest produce is used.
The parklike grounds add a wide selection of venues flanked by lawns, fountains, and waterfalls.  ocean-view balconies, and private saunas. Guests may call for room service around the clock or rendezvous at the Koi Pond Lounge for cocktails or The Fig restaurant for California brasserie cuisine. Or use the hotel’s Lexus SUV, to head for the new Miramar Beach Club, where butlers attend umbrella-shaded lounges and furnish Boogie Boards, volleyballs, soft drinks, snacks, and a full beach menu.

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Church & State French Restaurant – Los Angeles

Monday, December 15th, 2008

Church & State        photo by Anne Fishbein
Located in the Biscuit Company Lofts
1850 Industrial St. (Mateo St.)
Los Angeles, CA 90021
Tel. 213-405-1434
Website: www.churchandstatebistro.com
Opening Hours:  Lunch: Monday – Friday: 11:30am – 2:30pm
Dinner: Monday – Thursday: 6:00pm – 10:00pm,
Friday – Saturday: 6:00pm – 11:00pm
Credit Cards:  Visa, MasterCard, American Express
Prices: Inexpensive-Moderate

This is a new French restaurant in the industrial district of downtown Los Angeles. It is Steven Arroyo’s latest after Malo (Silverlake), Cobras & Matadors (West Hollywood), 750ml (Pasadena).

The industrial look stems from the former Biscuit Company, the frontage is floor-to-ceiling windows and the interior has been given a coat of red paint on the walls, accented by antique mirrors.

The menu has the usual list of classics: fruits de mer, salad frisee au lardon, steak frites, and cassoulet, etcetera.

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Hollywood’s Nightclub Scene is Booming! – Los Angeles

Sunday, December 14th, 2008

In the past, as far as nightlife was concerned, downtown Hollywood was a wasteland of bawdy tattoo parlors, neon-lit liquor stores, and dirty sidewalks and save for
Les Deux
1638 North Las Palmas Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90028
323-462-7644
Credit Cards: All Major
Prices: Expensive

Owners Mike Malin, Lonnie Moore and Sylvain Bitton have transformed this restaurant/club, which was one of the first on the scene many years ago when there was virtually nothing. L.A.’s hottest restaurant of the ’90s has had a soft reopen in 2006, the Parisian-style main room still features familiar peach-tinted mirrors and curvy-black architecture accented by Louis XVI candelabras. An added Ultra Lounge offers a dimly lit bar area with overhead projection of foreign films and vintage fashion shows to DJ-spun house music. The patio is still the best place to see and be seen
Presently, there are almost too many clubs that have opened in Hollywood, starting with The Highlands Hollywood, which really never caught on with the club scene set, although it opened the doors for what was to come, namely the
Kress
6608 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA
(323) 785-5000
Website: www.thekress.net
Opening Hours: Tue-Sat. 5:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m.
Smoking: Outdoor Area/Patio Only
Prices: Expensive

A 38000 sq. ft. multi-floor entertainment center, located in the former quarters of Frederick’s of Hollywood, including a basement nightclub. It was developed by Mike Viscuso—who was at least partly responsible for the renovation of the Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego.

Avalon
1735 Vine St
Hollywood, CA 90028
Phone: (323) 462-8900
Opening Hours: Show times vary
Pros: Music, Crowd, Service, venue
Cons: Strict bouncers, 18+ nights
Parking: Pay lot
Live Music: Yes
Credit Cards: Visa, MC
Music Types: Alternative Rock,  Rock & Pop, Hip-Hop & Rap, Techno & Industrial, Funk, Soul & R&B

It first opened in 1927, this classic Hollywood art deco landmark and former Palace location has played host to almost every entertainer. Extensive renovations and posh additions have brought the art deco landmark into the 21st century–think minimalist, modern decor; an outdoor smoking lounge with its own bar; an entirely new upper lounge built over the existing balcony; reserved seating; and a private club-within-a-club called the Spider. The impresarios behind the venture are a pair of ex-East Coasters with a string of successes, including the Limelight and Tunnel in New York, and Axis and Embassy in Boston.
Entrance to the Spider Club is handled separately from the Avalon. You must be on the guest list. The line forms just north of the main entrance, near the alleyway.
DJ Mr.White spins good selections. Service is very good, the bottle girls are pleasant. A 33000 sq. ft. club that holds rock shows on weekdays and electronic extravaganzas during the weekends has been open since 2003 and now with the recent opening of its exclusive lounge and Bar BARDOT atop the Avalon, they are expecting to attract an elite crowd who will enter through a separate entrance.

Bar Delux
1624 Caheunga Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Tel. 323-461-6800
Restaurant / Bar
Music: Pop / Top 40
Cross Streets: Selma Ave.
Dinner served
Dress Code: Casual Chic
Alcohol: Full Bar
Smoking: Outdoors Only
Bar Style: Whiskey, Lounge, and Martini
Audience admittance: 21+
Atmosphere: Upscale
Prices: Expensive
Credit Cards: All Major

This is the latest venture from Adolpho Suaya and designer Kristofer Keith (Spacecraft), Delux is an Art Deco cocktail lounge featuring elegant chandeliers and a massive emerald stained glass mural.

Ecco Ultra Lounge
Located on Cahuenga corridor this club is L.A.’s first green nightclub that features organic cocktails, energy-efficient LED lighting and waterless urinals.
Katsuya a late-night sushi bar and the adjacent Philippe Starck designed S Bar at the famous intersection of Hollywood & Vine are both very popular venues.

Playhouse
6506 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028
Bar / Club Type: DJ / Dance Club

Robert Vinokur’s Playhouse is emulating a bit of La Vegas blended with a healthy dollop of South Beach in the center of newly-revitalized downtown Hollywood.
The 13,000-square foot nightclub (designed by the same design firm behind STK and Villa, Manhattan-based Icrave), situated inside the Fox Theater on Hollywood Boulevard at Wilcox Avenue will feature top name DJ’s from Europe and a 24-hour diner type of operation. It will have top-name DJs from Europe.
The sound system is state of the art and was designed by Dan Agne from Sound Investments (known for work at Cielo New York, Vanguard, and Beta Nightclub in Denver).  The lighting system at the Fox was designed by Steve Lieberman of SJ Lighting, known for his work at Tao Las Vegas, Cherry Las Vegas, and Crobar New York. One can easily see they have spared no expense on the technical side.
Projected Opening: Mid-December 2008

Vanguard
6021 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90028
Driving directions: Located on North side of Hollywood Blvd. between of Gower St. and Bronson Ave, 3 blocks East of Vine St. Entrance from the back (parking lot).
Tel. 323-463-3331
Website: www.vanguardla.com
Type:  Afterhours, Club

In Hollywood where most clubs shut their doors by 2 A.M., the Vanguard’s dedicated after-hours dance scene has become a mainstay for house music and late-night action in L.A.  with a rooftop patio.
Credit Cards: All Major
Prices: Expensive

The next massive development to be opened in the next year or so will be the W Hollywood operated by one of Las Vegas’ top nightlife destinations.

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Conga Room – Los Angeles

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

The New Conga Room
Neighborhood: Downtown L.A.
800 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, Ca 90015
Tel. 213-749-0445
http://www.congaroom.com/

Bar, Club Type: Rock Club, Latin Club, DJ, Dance Club, Dinner and Dancing

Brad Gluckstein who describes himself as an “inherently Jewish” guy “with a corazón Latino” has opened the new Conga Room where long-time patrons might be astonished by the expanded musical bill-of-fare. The offerings naturally will include voluminous amounts of salsa and merengue, the club’s signature sound. But there also will be a tapas bar’s worth of World Beat, tropical, rock en Español, jazz, mariachi, Brazilian and alternative Latin sounds, all under the guidance of the Conga Room’s newly appointed musical director Oscar Hernandez, leader of the Spanish Harlem Orchestra and collaborator with the likes of Paul Simon and Ruben Blades.

Hernandez will direct the club’s house band, hand-picked, crack musicians who Hernandez vows will be not only danceable but as listenable as any concert-hall ensemble. “My vision is to basically create the perception that this is an elite team, this is an elite ensemble of musicians.”

Hernandez, who moved to Los Angeles from New York two years ago, said he’s grateful to have the chance to bring to Los Angeles audiences “some hard-core, real-deal salsa.” One key challenge for the club’s owners, he believes, will be to create a congenial space that’s equally accommodating to the hoi polloi burning up the dance floor and the velvet-rope crowd stashed away in Barcelona chairs sipping cocktails in the VIP lounge.

Chef Alex García, a pioneer of Nueva Latina cuisine, promises to replicate the classics — arroz con pollo, churrasco grilled meat, green plantain fritters — while also inventing new dishes infused with culinary tips he absorbed from his Cuban grandmother. “We’re trying to do a menu where everybody’s going to feel included,” he said. “It’s really a nostalgia corner for every Latin American person around.”

From its perch on a noisy, light-swept public plaza where on any given night there could be thousands of Lakers, Clippers or Kings fans plus mobs of concert-goers and tourists milling around, the Conga Room also must strive to maintain an atmosphere that’s both intimately human-scale and cosmopolitan. “It’s a deliberate balance to really keep it elegant and sophisticated in a setting that would want you to be more like a sports bar,” Gluckstein said.

This sounds to me to be a hard bill to fill, if they can squeeze elegance and sophistication from a mainly sports fans audience, then they have amazing magical powers. K.M.

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Rivera, New Concept in Downtown L.A. by Chef John Sedlar – Los Angeles

Thursday, December 4th, 2008

I made the trek quite regularly to Manhattan Beach to a little store front in a large strip mall where a Southwestern restaurant called St. Estephe was located. The Chef/partner John Sedlar was turning out some very upscale cuisine and quite unlike anything in the area; it almost seemed out-of-place at the time. I visited him less often at the oddly named Abiquiu (its namesake is a small town in New Mexico) in Santa Monica.
In December he is about to open Rivera across the street from L.A. Live with partners Bill Chait, founder of Louise’s Trattoria chain, and designer Eddie Soto a former Disney imaging technician. Sedlar has developed a new twist on Latin Cuisine with touches of gastronomic molecular chemistry à la Ferran Adrià. There will also be the Samba Lounge with a bar menu featuring Ceviche and other raw items and the Playa Bar.
Small plates will range from $8 to $16, and full-plate entrées will run from $18 to $29. It could be that the check average could be $35 to $45 per person.

According to Bill Chait, “The price point is designed in a way so that people can eat casually and spend only $30 for dinner.

It will be interesting to see how this restaurant and Celestino Drago’s “Drago Centro”, both establishments coming from seasoned operators, go down in downtown Los Angeles. Most probably, they will do well.

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Bastide – Closed Again! – Los Angeles

Monday, December 1st, 2008

Joe Pytka has closed down his restaurant Bastide located in West Hollywood, once again. That is the direction it has been drifting since Chef Alain Giraud left in 2004 and its last closing not long ago. He may have another revival, although I think not. I feel sorry that this had to happen as Mr. Pytka really appreciates good food and excellent wines; he may now have to quaff his expensive Grand Cru wines in someone else’s restaurant, at least for the moment.

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