The Other Critics

Gold Reviews Border Grill’s City Night in L.A. Times; Virbila Falls In Love With Puck’s ‘Genius’

A new day has dawned for The L.A. Times’ food coverage, but it might be hard to tell since Jonathan Gold’s first review finds him offering more of the same gusto for his old pals, Mary Sue and Susan, and Virbila is gushing over Wolfgang Puck. Wow, all that hoopla just to land back in the eighties…Anywhoo, Gold reviews the “City Night” celebration the Too Hot Tamales sprang on Downtown’s Border Grill last week. What does the story say? Not plunking down the scratch to breach the paper’s new paywall, we really have no clue. But we’re going to play Carmac and imagine a fairly loving nod to the two chefs’ past and present abilities to encapsulate how L.A. eats in a single bite. Or something like that. Verified subscribers can have a look today; the rest of us, tomorrow, when you nick one from the neighbors. [LAT]

Throwing out the word “genius,” S. Irene Virbila writes that The Hotel Bel-Air finally has “a serious restaurant with some seriously good food” now that Puck has taken over. While we personally didn’t appreciate the meuniere application to the dish, Virbila claims, “I’ve never had a better Dover sole.” Only the steak gets called “fussy,” a word we seem to use a lot while dining here, instead choosing to rave about the “tortelloni stuffed with hand-cut sweet peas,” dry-aged sirloin, and diver scallop carpaccio. At least we can all agree that Sherry Yard is still the number-one stunner, feeding everyone edible gold until we smile like Slick Rick. [LAT]

Gold Reviews Border Grill’s City Night in L.A. Times; Virbila Falls In