The Other Critics

Virbila Concurs with Culina Crudo Critique; Gold Gets Defeated in Pesto Battle

Culina salted Virbila's game
Culina salted Virbila’s game Photo: Hadley Tomicki

Sherry Irene Virbila reveals that she often wrote reviews to tango music in from The Twenties and Thirties. Maybe that’s why she’s revisiting Carlitos Gardel, which opened last century. She loves the Argentine asado-style meat orgy, but not the sides, and curiously only dispenses one-and-a-half stars to a restaurant she calls “one of the most welcoming…in town.” [L.A. Times]

Part-time Italian Jonathan Gold enters a pesto contest at Vincenti, fairly cocksure he can smoke his competition, then writes, “But like Ron Artest clanking one off the rim at the buzzer, I sprinkled in too much of the sheep cheese at the last second, and the sauce suddenly took on the rough-hewn resonance of Sardinia… not suave Genoese luxury.” [L.A. Weekly]

S. Irene Virbila totally agrees with us that Culina should watch the salt content in its crudo, but still calls the Four Seasons’ new restaurant “a definite step up for the hotel’s dining situation,” in an early look. [L.A. Times]

J. Gold would never not tell you to go to Thomas Keller’s French Laundry, but these days he gently warns “the point of a meal there is not quite about pleasure…you will probably find yourself thinking ‘Oh, how interesting’ far more often than you will lose yourself in the glory of the food.” He goes to Terra instead. [L.A. Weekly]

Though some dishes get too complex at this new South Bay restaurant that treasures simplicity, Merrill Shindler thinks “there’s enough on the menu at Four Daughters to keep me, and most anyone else, happy.” He especially loves the shrimp-topped BLT. [Daily Breeze]

Los Angeles visits Bar Bouchon and finds, “As at the bistro, each dish is a top-notch version of the classic.” [Los Angeles]

Virbila Concurs with Culina Crudo Critique; Gold Gets Defeated in Pesto Battle