MID-CITY/HANCOCK PARK: With for lease signs on both sides of it, a concerned tipster wonders about the little strip mall on Vine and Melrose that holds Mario's Peruvian: "I wonder if the whole mall will get the wrecking ball." According to the property management company, Mario's Peruvian is not threatened, just the former Popeye's and another smaller space are available. Lomo saltado for all! [EaterWire Inbox]
STUDIO CITY: Craig Trager and the Vintage Bar Group (The Well, The Woods, NoBar) took over the Studio Suite space (4823 Whitsett) to open The Fifth later this month. The lounge will have three areas: a game room with gold diamond wallpaper; a seated area with burnt orange flock wallpaper; and the main bar with cherry red paneling and the backbar from Daddys. [EaterWire]
Here we have a new installment of Eater's Journal, wherein we discuss some of our recent meals because, hey, we eat too. These are just snapshots from individual meals in the month of May; in no way are these multi-visit full-on reviews.
Wolfgang's Steakhouse (5/1): Opening night, packed. Lights way too bright, server told us they couldn't find the dimmer. The douchebag next to us with tie thrown over shoulder, drinking a martini, explaining to non-NY natives that Wolfgang's is the best in NY. Stale onion rolls in the bread basket, martini not cold enough, wines by the glass pedestrian and over priced. Lots of servers/busboys some in from NY, some being trained, fast-paced, brusque. Porterhouse for two could feed three, hot sizzling on a plate, lots of juice and grease spattering. Good flavor but missing the char. German potatoes like diner homefries, creamed spinach nice. Junior's cheesecake delicious. Chance we'll go back: If someone else paid.
Yet another reason to love/hate the Mozzas is Joe Bastianich's secret stash of Italian digestif amaro. Love: "According to the Mozza staff, Bastianich dutifully smuggles these regionally produced after-dinner liqueurs back from his frequent trips to the Italian countryside like most people steal hotel towels." Hate: "Of course, the impossibly rare stuff is off limits to everyone but close personal friends of the Orange Croc'd One." More than a dozen amaros are actually "on- menu" for the dining public, some are even used in cocktails. And don't tell Danny DeVito: Look for house-made private-label limoncello later this month. [LA Mag]
Mario Batali explains why West Coast pizza pales in comparison to New York; until he makes some changes, that is: "Water is huge. It's probably one of California's biggest problems with pizza..." Batali himself encounters the water problem at his upscale New York restaurant Del Posto, where he makes traditional Italian food. The tap water in Manhattan is far different from that of the motherland. His solution: create his own mineral-water composite. Working from a chemical analysis of l'acqua italiana, Batali's team basically clones the H2O that gives the food in Italy its — well, its gestalt. He plans to do this at Pizzeria Mozza in LA... [Wired]
It's difficult enough just getting a reservation at Pizzeria Mozza, but to deal with the people who don't know how to deal with a busy, packed restaurant on a Saturday night is enough to make you leave...and go to Terroni. Some people can deal with sitting inches away from strangers and hearing every word of their conversation; others, not so much:
Apparently the cause of the kerfuffle was the woman directly to my left made some nasty comment to her dining companion to the effect of, "I can't believe this. They have us packed in here like sardines. This dude's ass" -- that would be my ass -- "is on my purse." The air of ungraciousness and entitlement with which it was expressed just completely incensed my friend. I didn't hear it - hey, it's loud in there - so it didn't bother me. I could see some really nasty faces on both diners next to us, though, when I finally started to look around. Had I heard the remark, I'd have just brushed it off or maybe thrown her a dirty look. Had my friend told me in the restaurant and let me known it really bothered her, I'd probably just turned, said something like, "You don't like me ass on your purse? Would you rather have my crotch on it?," and be done. But whatever. It sucked that three people were shoved onto a two-person table, but welcome to trendy dining in L.A.. I can handle a disgruntled princess whose tiara has gotten bent shoved beside me during a meal, but apparently my friend could not.
Long story---and it's a doozy---short, this threesome left Mozza on a busy Saturday night because the next door neighbors didn't know how to keep their passive agressive attitudes in check. Here's hoping someone with a really fat ass sat next to princess pizza.
· Mozza Mêlée/Terroni to the Rescue [Chowhound]
LARCHMONT: The story about chains taking over the charm of Larchmont Village isn'tnew, but one depressed local writes: "So sad...corporate America is in full attack and my beloved Sam's Bagels on Larchmont is paying the price. They lost their lease and will be gone effective Feb 15th. A PANDA EXPRESS is going in! Are you kidding me?" That Panda Express rumor remains unconfirmed, but it's spreading like wildfire. We can offer a little solace: According the corporate website, out of the 24 planned California outlets, not one is on Larchmont…but it only goes to July 2008. [EaterWire Inbox]
Talk about timing: For anyone who saw the above sign on Christmas Eve at the Mozzas, please know the temporary power outage was just that: temporary. Staffers got a two-day rest, and all reservation lines, kitchen lines, pizza lines are full steam ahead today.
An email from Osteria Mozza announced that the restaurant bumped to a seven day-a-week schedule (now open Sundays 5:230p-10p), plus plus, it now offers a seven-course pasta tasting menu for $69 per person ($50 extra for wines). Please view this one of two ways:
Glass half empty = Restaurants, even the Mozzas, need more business.
Glass half full = Now you can finally get a table.
TMZ isn't usually our go-to spot for restaurant gossip, so this incident at Mozza was buried from us. Naturally, someone sent us the link. The other night, Scarlett Johanson tried to leave the Mozzas via the back door and paparazzi were waiting. While security gaurds stood around, you could hear GM David Rosoff's voice saying, "Get off the property. Off the property." And then, in frame, he gets all up in some paps face telling him to get the eff off the property and BAM! Rosoff's down. The pap threw him to the ground.
WTF? Why is that OK? Why is it not OK, according to the paparazzo, for Rosoff to touch him, which comparatively looked like a gentle push (but shouldn't have happened anyway), but it's OK to aggressively shove another human being to the ground? We just don't get it. We asked Rosoff what the hell happened, he simply said, "Gotta protect the house." But then added: "He was enormous, I was stupid." Well, yeah, but that pap is an idiot, too.
· Security Gets Smackdown Thanks to Scarlett [TMZ]
If Mario Batali has only 10 minutes to talk on national TV, be sure he'll hawk everything with his name on it. Last night on Kimmel, he talked the Mozzas, B&B Ristorante in Vegas, Ernst Benz watches, panini pans and his private label Italian wines. When he dished on traveling around Spain with Gwyneth Paltrow for upcoming PBS show, Kimmel asked if Chris Martin knew about it. Batali said "He is the jealous type, but knows I'm benign." With Danny DeVito by their side, the trio make a big meatball mess and down some limoncello. You see who held their liquor best.
We knew a B letter grade wouldn't stop the Mozza hordes. Yesterday a commenter suggested now would be the time to make---and actually get---a reservation: "People will be turned off by it so it won't be as busy, and the restaurant will hold itself to higher standards to make up for the slip up." It's actually quite logical; whether it worked or not is another story. For those who don't know or understand why a restaurant gets the rating it does, we did a little digging and came up with a few fun facts.
Per the Department of Health, while a B should be taken seriously, the whole idea is to stop any contamination before it happens. Mozza was cited for temperature violations, covering and labeling food, and keeping products off the floor among other things, mostly minor infractions (unless, say, a 50-pound paper sack of flour somehow got set in a pool of chemical-laden dishwater or something). But they add up. Naturally one of the most important is food temperature. The inspectors test food all over a commercial kitchen---in the walk-in refrigerator, at steam tables, at the stove. If the temp is just a little off, the inspector asks that the food get reheated or re-cooled and then retests. All's well if it tests well. If not: The food gets chucked. No, restaurant inspections during heat waves aren't easy on anyone.
See, this is what happens when a restaurant widely touted as the best in the city, with the best pizza, chef, vibe, menu, etc. slips in its DOH standings: Everyone notices. Since late last week, we received an onslaught of emails from mostly drive-by observers that Pizzeria Mozza went from an "A" letter grade to a "B." We've heard everything from "Oh no!" to "Ew." In May, the restaurant scored a 93 with points taken off for "shellfish tags," "hood," and "facility not fully enclosed," all minor infractions with little to no real impact on the quality of food. The new report isn't online yet, the inspector is out today (do all city inspectors have Mondays off or what?), and we're not calling the restaurant at crazy lunchtime to ask, so we don't really know why the B.
Everyone notices the grade, but will the slippage deter them? Most likely, no. From one tipster: "Can we discuss the fact that I was at Pizzeria Mozza last night and the rating is a B? Just wanted to let you know...it was still delicious."
· Everything Mozza [~ELA~]
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It's difficult enough just getting a reservation at Pizzeria Mozza, but to deal with the people who don't know how to deal with a busy, packed restaurant on a Saturday night is enough to make you leave...and go to Terroni. Some people can deal with sitting inches away from strangers and hearing every word of their conversation; others, 
TMZ isn't usually our go-to spot for restaurant gossip, so 
