An Intimate Dinner for 60

30 Aug 2013 7 Comments

by scolgin in Eating Out, Food, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories) Tags: , , , , , ,

Who would’ve guessed finding a good loaf of pumpernickel could be such a challenge!

I do a number of fundraising dinners, usually for my kids’ schools. It’s something I’m good at that I can contribute, the dinners bring in a lot of money for the schools, and they make a lot of people happy. But I had never done one quite this large before.

Heirloom tomatoes for gazpacho and green zebra risotto

Heirloom tomatoes for gazpacho and green zebra risotto

Let me establish one thing: I am not a caterer. I don’t have all that caterer stuff, I dislike buffets, I don’t like not having creative control over every single dish. I typically do fancy dinners for anywhere from four to 16 or 18 people. More

Larry’s Folly

23 Jul 2013 9 Comments

by scolgin in Eating Out Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

When our friends Vic and Jessie invited us out to dinner, who were we to say “no”? We love them, and besides being a person of fine taste and author of the restaurant blog, Vic Ate Here (he got his review up before me — how is that possible considering 12 hours ago we had just sat down for our reservation!?), Vic is also the man behind the wonderful new food website, Foodie.com, and wanted to treat us to an evening checking out one of our fine city’s newer restaurants.

Waiting for Nikita

Waiting for Nikita

They chose to take us to Nikita, a new restaurant in Malibu funded by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison — one of the richest men in the United States, who likes fine things and has been busily buying up a swatch of Malibu’s Carbon Beach. More

Old School

24 May 2013 7 Comments

by scolgin in Eating Out, Food, Humor Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Many years ago, I’d reconnected with a high school friend, Tracy — whether it was on Facebook or not, I can’t recall — and we decided to meet for a drink. She suggested Monty’s.

In the Monty's dining room

In the Monty’s dining room

Monty’s is an old school steak and chop house. It still has the same sign in the same groovy Mad Men font from the 1960s. It used to have several locations, and now it’s down to two — one in Westwood, and one in Woodland Hills, where I had arranged to meet up with Tracy. More

Lunch in Little Tokyo

21 May 2013 20 Comments

by scolgin in Eating Out, Food, Humor Tags: , , , , , , , ,

When I was a lad, one of my favorite parts of L.A. to visit was Little Tokyo. I loved traveling downtown with my mom, walking around Japanese Village Plaza, grabbing an imagawayaki at the Mitsura Café, strolling through Japanese gardens at the New Otani Hotel or the Japanese/American Cultural Center, maybe popping into the warehouse-y MOCA Temporary Contemporary Museum.

Totoros of every size at the New Tokyo Lifestyle gift shop in Japanese Village Plaza

Totoros of every size at the New Tokyo Lifestyle gift shop in Japanese Village Plaza

It’s a love I’ve passed along to my own children. So when, on a Mother’s Day, we’re trying to decide where to go on an adventure and for lunch, it is not a surprise to hear Flynn suggest: “Let’s go to Little Tokyo!” More

The Legend of Hannosuke

10 Jul 2012 5 Comments

by scolgin in Eating Out Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

“They may have tasted good sushi in the United States of America, but chances are they have never encountered authentic superb tempura.” — A sign promoting the opening of the first Hannosuke America

When I was in Tokyo, one of the things that impressed me was the profusion of restaurants, counters and stands devoted to a single particular type of food. There were of course sushi bars. But there were also tempura bars. And there were joints serving only chicken on skewers, and others serving only chicken hearts, gizzards and tendons on skewers. There were shabu shabu places, sukiyaki places, places that served horse, places that, sadly, served whale.

The legendary Mr. Hannosuke-san

One of my favorite meals in Tokyo was the dinner I had for my birthday with friend Joe at the tempura bar in the New Otani Hotel. I didn’t know tempura could be served at a bar, nor that it could be so good. More

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