The Knife

10 Reasons to Attend the 4th Annual Malibu Wine Classic This Saturday

1. 60 wineries, 20 restaurants, three hours, 79 bucks.
2. Score whores! The wineries include Saxum (2003 Bone Rock Syrah, Parker 95), L’Aventure (2004 Cuvee Cote A Cote, Parker 97) and Linne Calodo (2005 Problem Child, Parker 92)
3. Malibu Wine Classic founder Michael Barnes also founded law firm Barnes Morris Klein Mark Yorn Barnes & Levine (in the CAA building's north tower). More importantly, he’s from Iowa and one reason he started the event is he missed going to state fairs. Only this is Malibu, so you have celebrities instead of farmers. Maybe even drunk celebrities.
4. In addition to locals like Il Grano, Michael's and Water Grill, one of the restaurants will be American Flatbread, which makes what’s probably the best pizza on the West Coast. However, its only location is the otherwise godforsaken Los Alamos.
5. It’s a good cause, dammit.
6. Malibu's weekend forecast: 73 degrees and sunny.
7. The wine comes from four counties (Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Ynez, Santa Barbara) and include microboutique garage winemakers (next year, Barnes will probably have bottles from his own Malibu acre of Syrah, Malbec and Touriga Nacional).
8. Winemakers mean barrel samples; barrel samples mean bragging rights.
9. Barnes remembers his first wine tasting more than 25 years ago: “It was Riunite Lambrusco and Velveeta cheese on a saltine cracker. I tried to suck it down my windpipe and almost choked.”
10. Barnes admits it.
    
    
    The Malibu Wine Classic will be held Saturday March 31 from 1 p.m.-4 p.m. at Sunset Restaurant, 6800 Westward Beach Rd. on Zuma Beach. There's also an evening session (6:30 pm-9:30 pm), but that's more of a sit-down/silent auction thing at $250 a head.

Bad Commenters Get Spanked: Outing the Village Idiot

Two days ago, I received a comment about Village Idiot -- a restaurant I like a lot -- that, had it been in print, would have probably qualified for libel.

"Bathrooms that were filthy... overflowing toilets... A 'chicken breast' plate that showed with leg, bone and skin all attached and a medium-well hamburger bloody and cold inside."

I'd just gotten back from Texas when this came in, so I didn't pay much mind. But props to Lesley Balla at Eater LA, who did. She noticed that in addition to the Knife, the identical sentiments appeared the same day on Citysearch, Digital Cities and five times on Chowhound.

For the uninitiated, this bears all the signs of an Antichrist shill alert  -- someone who makes outrageous claims to serve a personal vendetta. (Lesley puts her money on someone who's been screwed by a waiter, but I'm wagering a business deal gone bad.) And I quote: "The menu lacked imagination and truth." Yes, of course; would you like some veritas with your vino? I mean, who the hell says that?

I'll tell you who. According to the comment writer's i.p. address, it's someone at the Re/Max offices in Manhattan Beach. I've written "Carly" asking for comment.

Why I Love Anthony Bourdain

Over at Ruhlman.com (blog of cookbook author/food writer Michael Ruhlman), Anthony Bourdain wrote a brilliant and acidic guest post about the James Beard Awards' brain-dead decision to hold the ceremony at the Lincoln Center -- where, you may have noticed, THERE ARE NO KITCHENS. What an honor to be a cook at this august event, where you'll get the opportunity to impress the culinary world's finest while hunched over a propane burner! 

However, Bourdain saved the best for last, describing his interaction with a woman who I presume is current James Beard Foundation head Susan Ungaro, formerly editor of Family Circle:

10 Reasons Why Lou is My Favorite Restaurant in Los Angeles

1. It’s in a minimall. Next to a laundromat. With a stark-white sign that says, LOU. It's not even centered, which makes it look like either a mistake or like Lou ran out of money.
2. Heavy, floor-length curtains make it feel dark like a speakeasy and make you forget you're next to a laundromat.
3. Great wallpaper and lighting fixtures. Even the ceiling is cool. You'd never believe this was next door to a laundromat.
4. The city’s best wine list.
5. The menu is small, changes often and everything is good. Everything. The pig candy, the house-smoked duck breast, the salad plate, the macaroni and cheese, the cauliflower gratin, the burrata with proscuitto and wild arugula.
6. But especially the frisee salad with housemade bacon and poached egg. And the egg is perfect every time.
7. The waitstaff is just... nice. No attitude. Smart.
8. Monday nights are wine dinners; Tuesday nights are leftovers.
   
9. About that wine list: It’s not the longest or the rarest. There’s maybe 30 wines at any given moment (plus a couple of beers, like Hopf Dunkle Weisse). But they’re wines you’d be hard pressed to find elsewhere and owner Lou Amdur has a thing for stellar examples of lesser grapes like Carignane, Lagrein and Cabernet Franc, with a special fondness for biodynamic producers; he'd also like to restore Chardonnay's good name. And most of all, his wines taste and smell fantastic.
10. Best seat in the house: At the bar, where Lou is prone to pour you a little something he’s about to put on the list. And where you wind up sitting next to people like this guy, who beg you not to tell anyone about this place: “It’s hard enough to get in as it is.” Sorry, Tate.
    
    Lou, 724 N. Vine, Hollywood. (323) 962-6369

   

Las(t) Manitas

I am in Austin for SXSW.

That means I ate at Las Manitas this morning, home to the best Mexican breakfast in Austin (and therefore everywhere else). Killer cinnamon coffee. Vegetarian tacos with the holy trinity of black beans, white cheese and guacamole. Service is as efficient as it is frenetic.

It will be the last time I eat there because a godforsaken Marriott is slated to take its place.

I'm told Las Manitas will continue in a new location nearby. I hope they get to keep the formica counter and and the lumpy leather booths.

BREAKING - MORTONS, HOME TO VANITY FAIR OSCAR PARTY, MAY LOSE ITS LEASE

My source said it was a done deal. When I called Mortons for confirmation, the woman who answered the phone (ADD: Pamela Morton, who owns the restaurant with her twin brother, Hard Rock Cafe founder Harry Peter Morton?) said, "We don't know what's happening. We're trying to buy it. We're in limbo."

She hung up before I could get her name.

The story is, as they say, developing.

UPDATE: Things are tough all over, according to this article that ran in Saturday's Los Angeles Times. San Gennaro lost its lease in the newly hot Culver City. (It'll be replaced by "a more upscale, all-organic restaurant run by celebrity caterer Akasha Richmond.") And of course, Hollywood lost its Hamburger Hamlet last month; an H&M outlet will take its place.

Campanile: The Best Seat In The House

If you saw the Variety ad announcing the imminent arrival of video to The Knife, it's still imminent. Like around 11 a.m. Noon. OK, by the time you get back from lunch.

Attention Lousy Tippers: Making Bad Movies Is No Excuse

Over the last four months, The Knife has worked hard to sift through the latest in big-, bigger- and biggest-ticket restaurants, seeking only those that are worthy of your attentions.

Now, it's time for a moment of reckoning.

From (of all places) Fox News:

"The tangle of fame and fortune can also result in terrible tippers," said Eliza Pharrell, an assistant manager at a high-profile New York restaurant. "For instance, Kirsten Dunst came through and ran up a $233 bill and left without even the smallest gratuity." But the "Spider-Man" star isn’t the only one weaving a web of whining waiters. According to the Web site bitterwaitress.com, where workers spill on the stars who do the Scrooge, Bill Cosby spared only $3 from a $375 meal, Ricki Lake parted with only $8 from $142.50 check (even after having been granted free dessert) and Sean Penn didn't top his $450 wine and dine in New Orleans with a single penny."

Let's leave aside that I am deeply suspicious of this "Eliza Pharrell," who assistant manages "a high-profile New York restaurant." (Someone says things like "The tangle of fame and fortune can also result in terrible tippers"?) But buying a $450 dinner and not leaving a tip is Penn trying to spread the pain of making "All The King's Men." And $3 on a $375 tab is sheer cojones. Did Cosby mean to write "$30" before the pen ran out of ink? (Bitterwaitress.com has a whole database of these mingy misers, but it's down as the site undergoes a revamp. The Knife eagerly anticipates its return.)

Anyway, if you know of someone who deserves to join this ignoble lineup, tell me. Or if you were a server in a former life and you bear the scars of a celebrity diss. Or if you feel the need to confess. The Knife is of a generous heart and can see the way to grant papal dispensation. Probably.

Celebrities eating well, behaving badly

• A Notting Hill restaurant says if you're size zero or less, you can eat for free. What a cynical marketing ploy -- why didn't Los Angeles think of it first? (Jossip)
• Kanye West paid $3,858 to have a fish curry flown to New York, says an Indian restaurant in South Wales; Kanye denies all. Currygate! (BBC News; AP)
• Joel Madden bitch-slaps a paparazzi's breast while leaving Mr. Chow's with Nicole Richie; the BH Police Dept. moves in. That sort of thing might fly at Les Deux, but not in the 90210. (TMZ)