Monday with Musso & Frank

It had been seven years since my last visit to the oldest restaurant in Hollywood, Musso & Frank Grill. Would it disappoint? Had it been tarnished by the pandemic like so many other places that allowed their customer service and quality to slip in order to recoup the losses?



As far as the food and drink go, the answer is a resoundingly positive “no”; you can expect the same delicious food that patrons have been experiencing since it opened in 1919.



The atmosphere has not changed, either. You can still expect to see the historic murals, the phone booths where gossip columnists phoned in their stories, and the signature red leather booths.



This is where all the news was first broken:



The wedge salad was out of this world; just the right balance of iceberg lettuce and tasty toppings:



The Chicken Parmesan was tender and delicious; definitely one of the best I have ever had.



I tried the new signature desert, the Club 1919 Sundae, named after the year the restaurant was founded. It’s the Musso and Frank take on Bananas Foster, made with California ice cream. It’s all in the details.



Note the anniversary drink stirrer, celebrating the 100 year anniversary (well, technically 103 years, but the pandemic obviously screwed everything up).



The one disappointment had to do with the staff. Our waiter had been there for six years, but I can’t say that’s a positive thing. Perhaps Josh was having a bad night. He forgot to bring my cocktail; once reminded, he rushed off to get it and promptly brought it back without an apology. At the end of the meal (with no checking in after our dinners were served), he hastily dumped a complimentary dessert in front of me saying it was for forgetting my drink. While it was nice to have the free dessert, his lack of service during the meal was not customary for the Musso & Frank I experienced in the past. One other sour note came from General Manager, Andrea Scuto. I walked Melissa (aka “The Colonel”) to the restroom so she wouldn’t get lost. The previous time I was at Musso & Frank in 2015, I took pictures of the architectural details (as I so often do). The Manager on duty at the time came up to me and offered to give me a tour around while I took my photos and even explained many of the historic details that I would have missed had he not done so. That was not the case with Scuto. He told me in no uncertain terms that I should not be taking photos as it was not allowed. While I understand the policy (to protect certain guests from “paparazzi”), I am also aware that there are many ways to deliver the same message and his tone with me (a paying guest) was extremely rude and accusatory. Anyone with two eyes could see my camera was aimed at the top of the phone booth and nowhere near any patrons. As I continued to stand near the phone booth, waiting for Melissa to return from the restroom, he paced by a few times to make sure I wasn’t taking pictures, eyes glaring at my camera. Next thing I knew he was whispering to another Manager and not very subtly motioning towards me. As soon as Melissa returned, I walked over to the other Manager and let him know how rude Scuto had been. He was very apologetic and when we were finished our meal, checked in at our table to see how the meal was and then toured us around the restaurant, showing us some of the banquet rooms and discussing the history of the restaurant. THAT’S how you do customer service. Would I go back? Of course. The overall experience was very good; you can’t judge a place on two bad apples.

See more Musso & Frank photos at my main website.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

I had mixed feelings about seeing Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 magnum opus “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.” Set in 1969, it weaves the semi-fictional account of an actor in a downward career slump (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his best friend/stuntman (Brad Pitt) into the true story of the Manson murders, specifically of Sharon Tate and her friends. Knowing how brutal the murders were, I was not anxious to see those splashed on the big screen; however, Tarantino’s conversion of current Hollywood back into the 1969 version was intriguing to me, especially since I saw some of the façades that Barbara Ling and the production team so carefully recreated during a few visits of mine to Hollywood. Let me get my comments out of the way on that topic first.

Much attention was obviously spent on putting the façades back to 1969, recreating period wardrobe, picking the correct vintage autos, and choosing just the right film stock, lighting, and angles to put the viewer back into that era. For the most part it works and the team should be credited. Interviews I have seen show them patting themselves on the back for doing it all “old school” and not using CGI. While this is commendable, it really doesn’t matter to the majority of viewers who just want to be immersed into a well-made film. Nit-picky me was thrown out of that 1960’s world when I saw street signs and freeway signs that had not been changed; why go to the trouble of putting vintage brochures in a shop window (that probably can’t be seen) and then let street signs stay in the present era? I don’t think the viewer would have held a CGI effect against Tarrantino. That’s the end of my little rant. 

The first time I saw the movie, I found myself getting increasingly bored and restless as the plot continued on. I thought Brad Pitt was masterful in his restrained portrayal of a badass stuntman; Leonardo DiCaprio was a little bit more messy in his characterization of an actor who was on the verge of becoming a has-been; there was too much time spent on showing this rather than moving the plot along. That would be my major complaint; too many unnecessary subplots and too much time driving points home that could easily have been understood by an audience with less waste of film stock. 

It seemed like Tarantino had a difficult time letting go of the extraneous parts that had special meaning to him, but not necessarily important to the storyline. One somewhat uncomfortable sequence shows a fight between Pitt’s character and Bruce Lee (Mike Moh). Lee is portrayed as an egotistical jerk, and Tarantino included a long sequence to explain why stuntman Cliff Booth (Pitt) wasn’t having an easy time getting hired for a particular film because of the director (Kurt Russell) and his wife. Flashbacks of Booth’s stormy relationship with his own wife and the fight sequence with Lee are purely extraneous, and for fans of Bruce Lee, probably offensive.

Margot Robbie does an excellent job of channeling the luminous Sharon Tate. I enjoyed watching her scenes, which were obviously designed to give a sense of what a kind and caring person she was. This knowledge makes her senseless death even more tragic.

 

The actors playing the Manson gang members were chilling. I cannot give enough kudos to all of them. When Pitt’s character visited Spahn Ranch, I was on the edge of my seat during that entire sequence.

By the time the plot arrives at the point that I knew the Tate murder would be occurring, I was extremely uncomfortable. I even had my finger on the fast forward button. Without giving the plot of the movie away, all I can say is that this is where Tarantino shows his brilliance. It is one of the very few times that I could say the violence shown was cathartic. The last 15 or 20 minutes of the movie found me praising the film and actually wanting to watch it again, which I did. The second viewing was more enjoyable, as I was able to catch more production details and character nuances. The choices of what was shown made much more sense., too I still stand by my earlier comments about this film needing a good edit job to make it more compelling and less rambling. Overall, I’d give it a B+.

Seeing this film made me want to go back to LA/Hollywood and re-shoot some of these iconic locations:

See more Daveland vintage and contemporary Hollywood photos at my main website.