We Got a Bad Potato! Part 2 of 2

Now by then I had waited on hundreds of the rich and famous, but this moment was an epiphany. This was Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous incarnate.  I had heard that in the 1970s Marvin threw lavish parties at his home in Palm Springs for the Annenbergs, Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford and their ilk. Attention fact checkers.  I heard this from a person with first-hand knowledge, who I trust.  In fact I trust this source with my most important worldly possession.  His name is Pete, the mechanic.  Pete, a Mexican-American cross between one of the polite chipmunks from Warner Bros. cartoons and Mickey Rooney (minus the asshole part), owns a successful repair shop in Highland Park.  Pete bought his repair shop in an all cash transaction, with funds acquired from the obscene tips he made in the 1970s as the VIP waiter of Section 1 at Chasens.  Section 1 signified royalty at Chasens.  Think Frank Sinatra and 100% tips (i.e. $1000 tip on a $1000 bill!).  These Palm Springs parties were catered by Chasens, and if there were 500 guests, and the choice for main course was a choice between steak, salmon, or chicken, Chasens prepared 500 of each dish, always one step ahead of the whimsical change of mind, and always factored into the final bill under Miscellaneous.

          Still, this was astonishing. How on earth could Greg, the chauffeur, have an extra potato on hand?

          How? Greg explained it to me. He always brought along two of everything, just in case “we got a bad potato.”

          This wasn’t the last of Mrs. Davis’s whims. A few weeks later I was waiting on Marvin and his symphony of sycophants, Mrs. Davis finally agreed to try our Dover Sole. Just one thing. She wanted that sole grilled, but she wanted no grill marks.

          I wrote down the order without blinking an eye though I knew that a piece of fish that is grilled but has no grill marks is just about as easy and likely as a sunrise without sun. I finally made my way to Marvin who thankfully ordered a simple Cote du Boeuf, rare, and as I was about to make my way to the computer terminal--the same terminal where fellow waiters greeted me with supportive words like, “Better you than me,” or “You must have been evil in a previous life.”--Mrs. D grabbed my arm with her bejeweled bony fingers, and said, “Adam, will the food be coming soon, I’m starving.”

          Never mind that I had just circled the table, and written down insane requests from Sydney Poitier, in the same “They call me Mr. Tibbs!” voice he was famous for.  Poitier wanted poussin—baby chicken—pounded thin.  Yeah, I’ll pull one of those out of my ass right away!  Or one of the Davis girls telling me she’s allergic to salt.  It makes up 0.9% of our blood volume!  If you’re allergic, you’re dead!  Regardless, in this Kafkaesque universe that I call Spago, the customer is always right.  Par for the course, I had to enter “SEE ME” under every item, and the “SEE ME” included a giant post-it note to the chef about those grill marks, poussin and salt allergies.  And as I sheepishly handed it to Cuko, the expediter, and ran from the line, I could feel Chef Lee’s breath.  I knew he was glaring at me through the hockey glass that separated us, furious at this mad request.  “What am I supposed to do,” he bellowed, “levitate the sole?!” 

          But unlike a Kafka bed time story, ours ends happily.  Lee grills the sole on a bed of carrots—they took the grill marks for the team.  Sydney Poitier got his poussin, although his poussin was little more than a slice of free range “adult” chicken pounded thin, and the salt allergy lady received a salt free dish that she promptly returned for being tasteless. 

We Got a Bad Potato! Part 1 of 2

          For years Marvin’s wife had been bringing her own food to Spago—salad, a piece of fish, green beans, and a baked potato. For months we tried to convince her to let us cook her Dover Sole, but she hadn’t yet agreed when, one night, as she was eating her own food in the Spago dining room, she flagged me down.

          Naturally I hurried to her side. I couldn’t imagine what the problem could be since I hadn’t served her a thing from our menu.

          “Adam,” she said, “this potato tastes bad.”

          By then I had learned that the customer is always right, so naturally I said, “Let me remove it, then,” and I removed the delinquent potato from her plate, prepared simply to toss it.

          “Tell Gary about the bad potato,” she said.

          Gary was her security guard, a retired LAPD detective and a bear of a man with a thick walrus moustache. Gary dressed in a slick black suit, an earpiece in his ear, and whenever I saw him, it struck me that he looked right at home riding shotgun in a limo.

          That evening I found him standing at the end of a quiet hallway by the bar.  To the left was the wine room, to the right another beveled glass door with the Flame of Life etched in it, which opened eastward to a beautiful narrow alley.  Shrouded in almost perpetual shade by towering blue gum eucalyptus, with a brick raised garden bed overflowing with exotic, shade loving bromeliads, and the wafting, intoxicating scent of night blooming jasmine, this walkway cleverly disguised an ulterior purpose: the surreptitious transport of VIPS.  For you see, the pathway broke in the other direction, by means of a narrow passage that connected the valet station and the alley.  When informed by the Maître’d, valets ran to the back and assisted “camera shy” celebrities before the paparazzi could run around the building.  Mr. Davis; however, was not in need of this service.  He had his own valets (body guards), Gary and John, and Greg the chauffeur.  So I saunter up to Gary, as he sips a coke. “Gary,” I said, proffering the potato, “Mrs. Davis wanted you to know we got a bad potato.”

          I had no idea what he was supposed to do with that information, but that wasn’t my problem, after all.

          He turned and looked at me. “Really?” His voice had that deep-throated cop sound to it, and I watched as he leaned into his wrist mic and said,

 “Greg, we got a bad potato here!” 

          Greg was the limo driver, and I couldn’t imagine what the limo driver was supposed to do.

          Gary listened a moment and turned back to me and said, “Hang on,” and I stood there, vaguely wondering if they had a plan. A few seconds later Greg came running through the alley and to the back door. He was carrying a new baked potato!

The Taming of the Review--the Spago Tasting Menu Part 5 of 5

An elegant white Burgundy from Pouilly-Fuissé precedes the agnolotti, and we waiters inform the guest that this postage stamp-sized ravioli are closely inspired by the Piedmontese model, filled with fresh sweet corn, a touch of Mascarpone and Reggiano, butter and caramelized corn kernels.  But when the manager steps up and presents a cutting board with a large summer truffle and begins shaving it into delicate slivers that float like rose petals onto the dish, the din of the crowd vanishes. A portal opens. Goodbye Earth.  I say this with no apologies for the summer truffle’s status as third tier truffle, behind the classic black truffle of late summer and the angelic white truffle d’Alba that graces us with her presence in November.  Tasting menus done on the scale of Spago allow for elevated culinary journeys that do not necessitate a credit check.

The truffles allow the next dish, roast suckling pig with last of the season morels and fava beans, to offer an experience of two great spring flavor combinations nearing the end of their availability.  The crispiness of the pork, coupled with the earthiness of the morels, lend themselves nicely to a classic California zinfandel, and Michael Bonaccorsi forces the guest to think outside the box by offering a Ravenswood “old vine” Zin from Lodi, California!  Educated wine lovers, with all this talk of terroir and AOC, might be perplexed to discover this superb wine originates from the heart of California’s central valley, a place famous for raisins and Gallo wine. But there is that zinfandel with its deep purple hue, its jammy nose, the pronounced black pepper on the palate and supple tannins, the Ravenswood “old vines” Zinfandel from Lodi tells us to forget our pretenses and to look for quality and value wherever it may reside, and despite his predilections, that ability is Bonaccorsi’s genius.

Traditionally, the final meat dish would be rack of lamb or Kobe beef; however, now and then a guest might request another kind of beef, one that happened to be on the regular menu.  Côte de Bœuf , which loosely translates as “hunk of cow,” is a bone in rib-eye, or cowboy steak.  Added to this incredible cut, seasoned with only kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, we served pommes aligot, for which there is no direct English translation, the closest being “cheesy potato heart attack.”  Rumor had it Chef Lee brought the recipe back from three-star Michel Bras in Laguiole, France—and the fact is, this was the only dish at Spago that came with directions to Cedars-Sinai hospital.  Such a dish demanded a wine with enough tannins to tame it, and fortunately we had many to choose from, from a young Bordeaux to a rich Syrah from Santa Barbara County—Bonaccorsi’s preference being Santa Barbara where ultimately he moved to make his own high quality Pinot Noir.

The dishes cleared, the table crumbed almost for the last time, the good waiter fades into the background, leaving a guest on her own for a while.  She might observe a smartly dressed man and beautiful young lady having a light dinner—wondering at that, though we knew that the man had earlier eaten dinner with his wife.   The sommelier returns with the cheese cart, displaying  Brillat-Savarin, a triple-cream from Normandy; Brin d'Amour, a Corsican raw sheep's milk cheese rolled in herbs; Stilton, the famous English blue cheese; Pont l'Eve^que, from Normandy; and Te^te de Moine (aka Monk's Head), a raw Swiss-made cheese shaved by a spinning shaving blade into flower-like ruffles.  Sometimes we offered a trio, sometimes all of one, and the wine pairing depended on the cheese.  Bleu cheeses call for ports; soft whites go well with sauterne, and the harder cheeses allow the guest to carry forward the Syrah from the last course.

Next came a phase that that often incited the ire of the pastry chef, Sherry Yard.  Often Chef Lee hit guests so hard, they raised the white flag at this juncture, fearing even eating a thin mint would cause an explosion like that of the gluttonous man in the Monty Python sketch.  Sorbet arrived to cleanse the stinky cheese breath palate, and on its heels came a light fruit-based offering, or perhaps something astonishing like a classic mille-fueille, “thousand leaves,” embellished with blood orange zest in pastry cream and with juice from the fruit in the crème anglaise.  As if the artistry of the presentation wasn’t enough, Sherry often served the dessert herself, flooring the guests, leaving them sated and grateful.

At last, from a perch on the cliffs of culinary bliss, warmed by the Spago sun, a guest might take in the look of the bustling place with a clarity she missed on arrival. As intimate as the meal felt and was, the dining room is huge, one that easily could seat 200 guests at once. Since the tasting experience stretched out over two seatings, over 300 meals were likely served over its course! 

The bill arrives, always a rock solid reminder that the guest has returned to earth. Indeed, a guest might wonder if he’s just eaten in a tourist trap.

The answer is yes. Spago is a tourist destination. But the food and service elevate it far above other tourist traps like Mann’s Chinese Theatre or the Hollywood Wax Museum.  Still, some social critics—and more than a few jealous restaurateurs have knocked Spago’s fame as indicative of undeserving Hollywood glitter. There have been whispers and worse—that the Spago scene swindles through culinary subterfuge; that it’s all smoke and mirrors, a false heaven. 

To that I always said, “Praise the Lord!  You’re cured!  You can walk again!”