We’ve played this game a couple of times. I ask: If you could move one restaurant here, which one would it be? You answer. Sometimes I throw you a change-up: If you could bolster the profile of one cuisine, what would it be? Today, let’s do both.
When I lived in LA©, I loved to eat at Madeo. I used to see Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder there. He was a young punk filming What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Lots of hookers with movie execs. I wouldn’t move Madeo to Dallas because it wouldn’t work. Not enough movie execs.
When I was in LA© last September, I ate at Hinoki & The Bird. The groovy Century City restaurant is one of the few places that offers Jidori chicken, the Japanese bird now being raised on a few farms in California. The “chicken of the earth” are beyond free-range, they are the world’s most pampered bird: each day they are massaged in herbal oil recovered from Cleopatra’s tomb, serenaded by Ruki, and hand-fed an all-vegetarian diet. (Only one of those is true.)
I’d look to Teiichi Sakurai to bring us Jidori chicken. Perhaps Matt McCallister can duplicate the black cod served with a thin slice of burning Japanese cedar (hinoki) wood.
So, tell us what you want. Santa’s listening.
