Are we really going to eat little Furball??? What flashes into one’s brain with the thought of Peru? Machu Picchu, the source of the Amazon, the Andes? Those with a more juvenile mindset might think of Lake Titicaca or toilets flushing counterclockwise due to the Coriolis Effect. I harken back to my teenage years, before I…
Omerta “Mista Silverstein, how they hangin’?” boomed raucously across the main dining room in the unmistakable voice of Johnny “Roastbeef” Williams. Roastbeef is the greeter, raconteur and wisecracker at Rao’s in the heart of Hollywood, the west coast branch of the famous and exclusive East Harlem Italian haunt. My Tuscan born wife and I were…
Third time’s a charm My close friend Morrie Grossman, brother of producer Les Grossman of Tropic Thunder fame and himself a celebrated food critic (and who introduced me to Dear John’s), has another brother, Bernie Grossman. Bernie is a power attorney, a mover, a shaker, a rainmaker. He is the supreme managing partner of the…
Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles Los Angeles has a fascinating and colorful history, from the original Native American inhabitants who eked out a living along the seasonal L.A. River to the Spanish missionaries to the Americans of the 20th century led by William Mulholland who brought water to the arid basin as was famously depicted in…
Grazie a Marco Polo My wife is an immigrant from Italy, self-described as off the boat. Her father Gino moved from Tuscany to the San Fernando Valley (as schizophrenic as that may seem) to start a successful tile and marble business. Gino was an American success story, a penniless immigrant with a sixth grade education…
Faith Restored What does one say about the restaurant scene in the City of Angels in the 21st Century? To be granted the privilege, the permission, to be allowed to spend $300 per couple to be told what to eat, how it shall be prepared and how it shall be served by an unemployed Thespian…