The Knife

You'll never believe where I found the best chocolate pudding in L.A.

This is the best chocolate pudding* I've had in LA. And what's shocking isn't that it's served in a plastic cup (although it deserves better) but that it comes from M Cafe De Chaya. And they're a bunch of macrobiotic vegans. That means there's no milk, no refined sugar and the primary ingredient is probably soft tofu. And that probably means it's better for me or has fewer calories. Whatever. It was creamy and it was delicious and I was sorry when it was gone.

Noise-O-Meter: A mellow 62dBs

* by my definition, which is a pudding that can't be confused with a mousse, that in the spectrum of milk to dark chocolate it should definitely skew toward the former and that it should be soft and creamy and not so rich that you're suffused with regret by the second spoonful.

M Cafe De Chaya, 7119 Melrose Ave. (323) 525-0588

Why Won't Your Agent Eat? Discuss.

From the Great Minds Think Alike Dept. come two recent articles (both written by former colleagues) devoted to an age-old question: What Do Agents Want To Eat? 

Nicole LaPorte says they're thinking small. ("Eat Or Be Eaten," Los Angeles Times' West magazine, Aug. 19):

Indeed, in this decidedly un-go-go era, when agents are flying coach and text messaging has replaced drinks at the Peninsula, a three-hour, multicourse lunch lubricated with gallons of Perrier (midday martinis haven't been seen in Hollywood since "Wall Street") can seem, dare we say, excessive. "People are in and out in about an hour," says Pamela Gonyea, who recently took over as the Grill's lunch maitre d'.

Today's lunch often happens in places such as M Café de Chaya on Melrose Avenue, where the most expensive menu item is $14.95 (teriyaki rice bowl with fish). Dessert? Pinkberry is next door.

True, but frugality has never motivated an agent. The one-hour timeframe stems from the fact that a business lunch is intended as a streamlined portal in which you can meet and schmooze while inhaling low-fat protein. As for M Cafe, Chaya's gourmet vegan outpost, it's celebrity catnip; agents would flock there even if they served nothing but $100 wheatgrass shooters.

Monica Corcoran (who recently joined the LA Times) says the agents were only waiting for somewhere to eat ("Let's Do Lunch, Now That There's Somewhere To Do It," New York Times' Style section, July 22). After a great, if apocryphal, tale about agent Ed Limato coping with Fuddrucker's, she says:

..."Restaurants began wooing agencies before they even opened. General managers made the rounds by visiting the principals at agencies to introduce themselves and pitch their menus. The aisles at Craft are wide enough for table hopping, an extreme social sport in Hollywood, where agents tend to circulate with the intensity and purpose of bridal couples at a wedding.

In fact, Craft feels a lot like CAA itself: Impressive, expensive and a little uncomfortable.