Saturday we dined at L'Orangerie in Los Angeles. As reported on the restaurant's website, Zagat's readers have the following to say about L'Orangerie:
"Strap on your suit, bring your big wallet" and prepare to be seduced by the "Versailles-like" , "classically grand ambiance" of this dinner-only West Hollywood "French cuisine mecca" "hidden behind a wall of stone and foliage; with perfectly presented" dishes (try the prix fixe menus) that will "amaze your taste buds", Riedel glasses and seriously "dedicated" staffers, no wonder surveyors "can't think of a better place for a special occasion."I am not to the manor born. With a modestly-lived childhood, my pleasure sensors don't often respond to things I did not experience as a child. Food is one example: based in large part on my plain childhood eating habits, today I eat to live, not the other way around.
Perhaps if my parents loved to cook, they'd have imparted a love for food to me. Perhaps if my parents took me out to nice restaurants, today I would appreciate great dining.
Whatever, while I am fortunate today to be able to experience some of the finer things in life, I don't always enjoy them. Don't cry for me, though. My food ennui keeps the weight off. And I did enjoy L'Orangerie.
Whenever I dine at a top restaurant, I challenge myself by ordering food I'd never eat otherwise. I've never been a fan of foie gras, but I loved the foie gras at L'Orangerie. I ate some cold lobster soup thing and, surprisingly for someone who doesn't eat lobster, enjoyed it. I would have gone all-out with the $130 per person eight-course tasting menu, but my wife was tired and didn't want to spend four hours eating. We instead went for the prime rib for two, carved tableside. Best prime rib ever -- beat Lawry's hands-down, although we missed the Lawry's Yorkshire pudding.
No visit to L'Orangerie would be complete without a celebrity sighting. Thank you, Rod Stewart, for putting on a suit and tie just like us schmoes and obliging us with your hallowed presence at a nearby table.
The damage: $275.49 without wine. They must've thought we broke a window or something.
I ate there once, a few years ago. We were there to celebrate my then girlfriend's sister's birthday. It has to be the worst meal I've had since living in California and it was, ironically, the most expensive by about 50-75%
No joke, I went through the drivethru of a Del Taco on the way home. Not for something "good" but for something satisfying and one helluva lot better on the yum:dollars scale.
I should have ordered "ze duck".
Posted by: sean | November 24, 2003 at 10:52 AM