Week in Reviews: Gouged at Gladstone's of Malibu, Loteria Grill, Garage Pizza, Gordon Ramsay and MORE

Photo from PetersReviews, Flickr

Folks, Brenner is back, and what fun she has with this week's review of Gladstone's of Malibu. The PCH restaurant drops the bait---great views, lots of seafood, waves---she bites, but her teeth are sharp. Jumping right in, she can't figure out why people are carrying out so many leftovers: Is it the cute foil packets? Are the portions too large? Is the food that good people want to savor more for later? In fact, she says, it's the exact opposite of the latter. She calls the food at SoCal's highest grossing restaurant "abominable."

Beware the Gladstone's clambake, which the servers push hard. Intended for two, it includes steamed clams, a 1 1/2 -pound lobster, a pound of Alaskan king crab legs, steamed shrimp, corn on the cob and boiled red potatoes. The corn is desiccated. The lobster is fine, but the crab leg, with the same shape and texture as a dog chew toy, seems to suffer from freezer burn. The shrimp are as toxic-tasting as those on the tower. It's terrible to gaze out to the ocean and imagine the volume of precious seafood being pulled out and ruined every day by this restaurant. Suddenly those doggy bags seem almost sinister.

This was really such an easy target, but Brenner found nothing redeeming about Gladstone's "Pacific Highway Robbery"---the price gouging was as offensive as the food---and gives it a big fat "poor," no star, proving our point once again. More notable, nothing the LAT or anyone says will stop the unsuspecting masses: They'll just keep going. [LAT]

ELSEWHERE: Metromix drops the 'tude and finds fairly authentic Korean fare at Jian Korean BBQ; Dig Lounge loving the new Loteria Grill; Eating L.A. checks out the new Garage Pizza in Silver Lake (and even likes the banana pizza); HotelChatter tries Gordon Ramsay and it's just fine; when the need for seafood and ocean views strikes, LAist prefers Captain Kidd's in Redondo Beach; Potatomato heads for soba at Otafuku and skewers at Nanbankan; and Franklin Avenue stops at the venerable La Super Rica on a Central Coast road trip.