Musso and Frank

Musso and Frank pushes 1945 L.A. ambience with their eight dollar Bloody Mary cocktails. Even the menu choices here seem a bit dated and if you are offended by twenty four dollar beef stroganoff and an eight dollar parking lot rate then this might not be for you. But if you want to feel William Faulkner’s ghost as you churn out your next movie script, then you need to make it your next stop while driving through Hollywood Boulevard. Everything, from the wood-paneled interior to the servers wearing red tuxes speaks of the past, and I suspect viewings of “Sunset Boulevard” and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” are enough to make you nostalgic and misty-eyed. When you sit at the counter, the server will tell you to avoid the ravioli while singing about the braised lamb shanks. I mean, literally sing. He tells me he’s been serving cosmopolitans longer than I’ve been alive as he plops a bread basket in front of me. Maybe I’m overly appreciative but I always like it when joints offer sliced bread and butter before my meal, especially when the bill goes skyward. Loretta ordered the Salisbury steak, as did I, as our conversation veered on cheats that we’ve met. I myself have never cheated on someone because I have learned how to handle exes and all women in general when I’m in the midst of a relationship: cut them off. All of them. Delete them, all numbers, erase the Facebook, the MySpace, everything, every detail. I’m no dummy, I know that if the contact with an ex doesn’t turn into a disaster and destroy a relationship, the ensuing argument about the contact will. Can we finally be honest with ourselves? “Network” websites are really only about one kind of network. It’s inexplicable why some people don’t get this.
So has anyone ever cheated on me? I don’t think so, but if she has, I just want to let her know now that I just cheated her out of Musso and Frank, with its singing waiter in a red tux, thickly cut bread and butter, steak and creamy mashed potatoes, served with carrots and peas. I cheated her out of Faulkner, Chandler, Elroy and ninety years of LA history. I’ll call it a push.

Homage

This blog pays homage to one of the great LA writers of all time, the LA Weekly’s venerable restaurant critic Jonathan Gold. I submit that Mr. Gold not only writes about food, he brings the world to your doorstep. Vietnam, Mexico, China, El Salvador, Malaysia, and Uzbekistan (Uzbekistan?) are among the many countries’ cuisines that have been showcased in Gold’s columns. Jonathan Gold demystifies the unknown and the “spooky,” those regions that were once only in our imagination. When we eat nam kao tod at a Thai joint that he recommends, we are a step closer to our brethren from the Far East. After breathing in the silky mole of the city of Bell’s La Casita Mexicana, our friends to the South seem far less hostile. For this reason, Gold is a civic treasure and worthy of respect.
Gold also gives us the “essentials,” restaurants that speak more than most, those places that tell us who we are as Angelenos and where we are going. These serve great food and reflect the character of Los Angeles. Each year he compiles and updates a list of ninety nine of those restaurants. This year, I’m visiting all ninety nine. If Mr. Gold tells me to eat extra-spicy grasshoppers at an Oaxacan eatery, I’ll consume them with bells in tow. If he writes of the wonders of live prawns, I’ll smile, close my eyes and pretend they’re caramelized onions. And I’ll eat them. There are those who grouse, saying some restaurants on the list are unworthy or that Gold seems misinformed about the “latest” fad or trend. To these I reply: when you win a Pulitzer, come up with your own #%@! list.