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While there is nothing awful about this place, there’s nothing special either. My great friend, Mimi, took me there on my birthday for Sunday brunch, which I greatly appreciated. It definitely seemed popular enough, by the length of the wait. For a place this “in” the personnel is surprisingly non-snobby. They’re the highlight, actually. But, for me, it went downhill from there.
Usually, hip places are populated by The Beautiful People, which this isn’t. If you’re looking for celebrities, this is not your place, as the clientele is made-up of totally regular Joes, and not that young, just-dragged-myself- in-from-the-club-and-haven’t-brushed-my-hair-yet-so-you-know-how-late-I-was-out crowd. (I’m fine with any crowd; just the hype about BLD is such that you’d expect those people.)
Little Mims loved her e-words and coffee served in a press. We both were fans of her sliced, crispy fingerling potatoes and half Caesar salad. But my food was an entirely different story.
I ordered the pretentiously named “bruleed grapefruit.” I make it at home all the time, and mine is about 1,000 times better and 75% less expensive. Seriously. To both. It’s grapefruit with brown sugar that you put under the broiler. Whoopee. And when I erroneously said “broiled” instead of “bruleed,” the waiter (who was fine otherwise) acted like I had said “nucular” instead of “nuclear.” Shame on me.
They had virtually nothing that I eat, since the menu was unbelievably limited for breakfast, the “B” in the name. There was one kind of pancake, one French toast, and one crepe, which is what I was stuck with. It contained Nutella and bananas, another dish that is incredibly easy to whip up at home, and tastes better that way, too.
Speaking of “whipping up,” they served some really weird brownish-tinged whipped crème on the crepes. It tasted very bizarre, too, kind of rum-flavored. I asked the waiter if I could have just plain whipped crème, and explained why. He obliged, and said the kitchen may have put vanilla extract in it, which I’ve done myself and love the taste of. I think what may have happened is that they reached for the VANILLA extract, but picked-up the RUM extract by mistake.
Either way, my meal was less than stellar. Everybody else seemed happy, and just for the liveliness of the place, I would try BLD again, but this time for lunch (“L”) or dinner (“D.”) As of now, though, those letters stand for Bland, Lackluster, and Dull.
BLD 7450 Beverly Blvd. WeHo 323-930-9744 www.bldrestaurant.com
And lastly, you may have noticed that the restaurant portion of this column is a little shorter than usual. That’s because I want to make sure you have time to click over to my review of the Oscar Suites that I attended last week that were so amazing I didn’t want to leave anything out. Just click on the link at the top of the page.
Karen’s Restaurant Revue airs on March 5, 2007 at 8PM and March 12 at 8:30PM (2 different shows) on Time-Warner Cable, Channels 98, 77, 37, or 3. Check the listings in your area. |
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