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A few months ago, my friend, Carole, who’s a belt designer
headquartered in
Culver City, offered to take me to belated birthday lunch. So, even
though
she’s a nice girl who said we could eat anywhere, I’m a good
friend, too,
and wanted to make it easy on her by choosing her ‘hood.
Culver City has become pretty hip in the last couple of years, and I
actually had a few supposedly happening places to choose among. [Mini
grammar lesson: “Between” means two; “Among” means more than
that.] I
chose Ford’s Filling Station because I felt it was the most famous
one (for
the unaware, it’s owned by Harrison Ford’s son, Ben, late of
Chadwick in
Beverly Hills) and because its website was down and I couldn’t check
out
the menu. If I could have, I doubt that this would have been my
choice.
(BTW--the site is still down as of this writing.)
When we got there, Carole asked me to choose the meal because she
didn’t
know how to do it. I couldn’t imagine what she was talking about.
Turns
out, it’s primarily a charcuterie menu, where you pick out several
meats and
cheeses, which is far from my cup of tea. I panicked and wanted to
leave,
but, though it was one-ish PM, a prime lunch hour, the interior was
just
about empty, so our exit would not have gone unnoticed. Many more
people
were enjoying the patio, but it was far from the scene I was expecting.[Sidebar: I’ve heard that it is usually jumping at night, but with
all the
near-by studio personnel, one would think that if it was really THE
place to
go in the area, there would be more patrons at lunch than I saw on my
visit.]
At this point, my hopes of having a great dining experience had pretty
much
disappeared. But I was happy to spend time with Carole, and all you
need to
order is one or two dishes anyway, and we were able to find three,
which
turned out to be surprisingly good.
We shared the four-cheese flatbread, which was basically a designer
pizza.
Pretty tasty, though. She chose steak tartare, which she enjoyed
sufficiently. And I had a weird breaded shrimp sandwich, which I
can’t tell
you the title of because of the aforementioned problem-plagued website.
(I
didn’t actual think this place was special enough to review, either
good or
bad, so I didn’t try to remember the names of the dishes.) It was
fairly
decent, and served with an equally flavorful potato salad.
Then we got to my favorite part, dessert. Carole insisted on two, so
we
chose a flat chocolate cake, which was fine, and a pear
something-or-other,
which she hated and I was indifferent toward.
To sum up, the experience was just okay, on every level. No horrible
stories to regale you with. But no props to hand out, either. The
food was
okay, the service was okay, and the ambience was okay. For a
restaurant
that’s been around for over a year now, to very mixed reviews, I
might add,
I feel that everything about it should be way better. The Filling
Station
was actually unfulFilling, on every level. Shame, with all the hype.
Ford’s Filling Station 9531 Culver Blvd. Culver City 310-202-1470
www.fordsfillingstation.net
And lastly, to make this week’s theme be not-fabulous restaurant
experiences, I attended the opening of Empress where Sushi On Sunset
used to
be. I couldn’t gage what a meal here will be like from this event.
Granted, I arrived around midnight, so only the punky night-lifers were
left, and not the crowd who’ll be dining there, I suppose.
And I lasted only a few minutes because the entire place was filled
with
smoke, which is not only disgusting, but illegal in Los Angeles.
Ordinarily, if I ever find that an establishment is allowing smoke, I
would
report it. But this was an opening, so perhaps there’s a special
ruling for
private parties.
The thing that annoyed me the most about the scenario is that when I
explained why I had to leave so soon to the hostess and to a man who
appeared to be in charge, they both made believe they couldn’t tell
that
anyone was smoking. Both of them seemed like teens who were trying to
appear innocent to their parents who know better. They should have
just
fessed-up and pleaded the private party defense that may, indeed, be
true.
But to make believe they didn’t know just chapped my hide. I was in
there
for about five minutes, but my hair smelled almost as bad as it did
when I
used to get home from an evening at Sammy Davis, Jr.’s house, way
back in
the day. (Which means it smelled like an ashtray, for those of you who
can’t
remember those dangerous years of people smoking like chimneys.)
Anyway, I’ll try to pay a return visit to see what a real night is
like, and
let you know if the situation has improved. I have a feeling it will
be
better than the opening. It almost has to be.
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