Unchain My Heart I have been on a six month hiatus because as I sat down to write my latest review, I realized that I have nothing left to say. I have become a tabula rasa. I am bereft of all original thought. I perched at my metaphorical Smith-Corona, unboxed a metaphorical sheet of 100…
Yo Quiero Taco Bell Newton’s three laws of motion, Dante’s nine circles of hell, the Bible’s seven pillars of wisdom. Tragedy or comedy, poetry or prose. Over the centuries, the brilliant minds of humanity have organized, categorized and classified knowledge so that we peons may better comprehend our universe and mankind’s place within it. Without…
You are what you drive I want to take you for a trip in the Wayback machine. When I was in medical school, I invited two classmates from large, rectangular states in fly-over country to join me at home in L.A. for the beginning of summer vacation. They traded their Polo shirts and Brooks Brothers…
The Waste Land I had intended to start this review of BLVD Steak, a new swanky restaurant in the San Fernando Valley, in my typical pseudointellectual fashion with a reference to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land: “April is the cruellest month”…blah, blah, blah. To be honest, I never really understood poetry. At every lecture that…
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…
In vino veritas “Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the gods to man” said Plato, who knew a thing or two about a thing or two. It has also been said that a bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world, so you can thank…
A Tale of Two Cities It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was…
Can we all get along? While valuably spending last Friday afternoon lounging on the couch with Nolan, my pet Yorkie, and a Bombay Sapphire and tonic watching reruns of The Rockford Files, my usually dormant cell phone rang. Who do I know with a 202 area code? Out of sheer curiosity, I answered the call…