Bin 8945
1) Miss S. Irene Virbila has a go at Bin 8945 this week, the diminutive WeHo wine bar that's attracted everyone from Thomas Keller (he's friends with the owner's parents) to "rigorously fashionable women in their 20s," which Irene calls attention to almost as quickly as she did at Simon L.A. Although the headline suggested a fine night of sipping, the grand dame leaves with just one-and-a-half-star on her mind:
One night when my table had almost finished, Haskell brought us a taste of two oddball spirits, and then set down a dish with M&Ms and a Butterfinger candy bar cut into pieces. Put some M&Ms in your mouth, he tells us, and then taste the way the sugar mitigates the alcohol. Wild. I'm not quite sure I get it, but the combination is fun, and surprising.Everything reeks of "those crazy kids" in this week's review—again—so today, the "S" stands for "schtick." [LAT]
Read on for neo- or whatever-you-want-to-call-it-Asian from City Beat, Larry Lipson's sexy find in the Valley and picks elsewhere.
2) Martin Booe combines two reviews in LA City Beat, hitting what he calls "We Swear on Every Single One of Buddha’s 81,000 Teachings It’s Not Fusion” Asian." This takes him to Asia Los Feliz and Red Pearl Kitchen, and as always, with a bit of humor.
First, Asia Los Feliz, which happens to be in my ’hood. It’s in what used to be that ancien Swedish place before it became a hideous mustard-colored Italian place.The building was scruffy; now it’s beautiful. Just like Atwater/Los Feliz. Just like me. It’s an upscale addition to a neighborhood that’s not exactly a restaurant mecca, and a welcome one – especially now that the Griffith Park Observatory has reopened and we must tend to the care and feeding of the inscrutable Westsiders who come a-stargazing. But we will be counting our spoons.Striking a considerably more scene-y pose is the Los Angeles incarnation of Tim and Liza Goodell’s Red Pearl Kitchen. The Goodells are all about concept, and the one you’re in for is something on the order of “Shanghai speakeasy.”?Praise the Lord and pass the opium.
Elsewhere, LA.com peruses local legends; Larry Lipson finds a boite worthy of its limited menu at Toluca Lake's Lucy's 51; Potatomato checked out Osteria La Buca; and Mashti Malone's woos another non-sweet tooth.
