Mr. Chow’s
For our final evening in LA I asked the concierge for something truly outstanding. He recommended Mr. Chow’s, a top-end Chinese restaurant that I’m heading back to next time I’m in town. The house car drove us over.
We asked the captain to take care of our food, and he essentially kept sending it until we begged him to stop: steak, crab, chicken, shrimp, fish, and on and on. The place was filled with big names—we were given a very nice table, and from our vantage point alone we saw Rob Reiner and his family a few feet away, and self-made billionaire David Geffen and his family or friends in the other corner
The maître d’ in fact offered a choice of tables, and treated every guest the same, with courtesy and good humor. There was no special treatment, no fawning—every patron was special. (As he watched my son with his crutch and my wife with her cane he suggested I should get a fife and we could be the revolutionary war symbol, which I thought was pretty clever for someone from England.)
I noticed an actress across the way whom I’ve seen on TV but couldn’t quite place. A bit later, to my shock, I found her glancing over several times, quite obviously. I’ve never been the kind of guy whom women strain to look at, although my son is, and I thought at first she was trying to look at him. Yet she established eye contact with me and did not break it. A few minutes later, another woman was glancing over her shoulder, again making eye contact with me.
I quickly considered three possibilities: One, I was a standout in a room of great looking people. (I was wearing jeans and a casual shirt.) Two, these Beverly Hills/Hollywood women had read Million Dollar Consulting and had recognized me. Three, I had somehow managed to get the Dungeness crab in my hair. Only number three seemed remotely feasible, and finding no food products on my head, I sheepishly asked my wife and son if I were hallucinating.
Jason set me straight. “The don’t recognize you,” he said, “so there’s a chance you could be a casting agent or more likely a producer whom they don’t know but would like to meet.”
“You’re joking!”
“No, they are simply pursuing all the angles in a restaurant where the movers and shakers routinely show up.”
And so I began to hum….
Hooray for Hollywood
That screwy, ballyhooey Hollywood
Where any office boy or young mechanic
Can be a panic, with just a good looking pan
Where any barmaid can be a star maid
If she dances with or without a fan
Hooray for Hollywood
Where you’re terrific, if you’re even good
Where anyone at all from TV’s Lassie
To Monroe’s chassis is equally understood
Go out and try your luck, you might be Donald Duck
Hooray for Hollywood
Hooray for Hollywood
That phony, super Coney Hollywood
They come from Chillicothes and Padukas
With their bazookas to get their names up in lights
All armed with photos from local rotos
With their hair in ribbons and legs in tights
Hooray for Hollywood
You may be homely in your neighborhood
But if you think that you can an actor
See Mr. Factor, he’d make a monkey look good
With a half an hour, you’ll look like Tyrone Power
Hooray for Hollywood
(Songwriters: WHITING, RICHARD / MERCER, JOHNNY)
Meanwhile, I’m writing and posting this from a Virgin America A320 on the way back to Boston, our train travels over. Virgin Atlantic is my favorite carrier to London, and Virgin Australia is a wonderful local flyer Down Under. The American version has just eight first class seats, excellent food, power outlets, footrests, and outstanding service. (The senior flight attendant is dressed so well you could take her to any top restaurant without any change of clothing whatsoever. In fact, she’s overdressed for Mr. Chow’s!)
© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.
