Friday, July 27, 2007

Garden Box Service: Didn't Bowl Me Over!

Last night, I had a wonderful evening watching Sarah Chang play with the L.A. Phil at the Hollywood Bowl. I LOVE the Hollywood Bowl. I have been once before, with Emilia, to see Ben Folds open for John Mayer. It's amazing to be outside, especially at dusk, enjoying beautiful music in a beautiful setting. Last night, during the first piece by Brahms, the birds twittered during a pastoral-y part and it was just heartbreakingly beautiful. I often see the L.A. Phil at the Disney Concert Hall, and I always go alone because there are usually no takers for a classical show on a Saturday night. After seeing this beautiful concert, though (the other parts were Bruch and Schumann) my companions were eager to come with to the next DCH concert!!! The Bowl really is an ideal setting for the Phil.

We had the pleasure of using the firm's garden box, which is excellently located (I could see Sarah Chang's hair clip!) and fun and fancy feeling. We decided to order the three course meals offered by the Hollywood Bowl box service, catered by Patina. I also pre-ordered the Red Rock merlot and Korbel sparkling wine (for some reason, they were really lacking in quality champagne) for the table to drink in addition to a couple of bottles of Barefoot Cab and Chardonnay (both really decent for $5.99) that I brought in my bag.

The service was really good- these guys know what they are doing as far as getting three courses in and out of your box in an hour. They cleverly use good quality plastic plates along with real utensils and sweep through with plastic bags to clear each course. They also had handy ice buckets for our wines and plastic wine glasses and champagne flutes.

The food was just ordinary, though. I was expecting for the price (expensive) that it would be really good, like restaurant food or really nice catering. It was pretty good, but it was nothing special. I ordered the "Lento": "Belgian endive salad with baby arugula, Roquefort, grilled Asian pear, walnuts and aged sherry vinaigrette; Choice of citrus mojo-marinated pork loin chop with roasted plantain mash and grilled BBQ onions; Or oven-roasted salmon filet with lobster mashed potatoes, grilled white corn cobbette and chive oil; Sweet peach cobbler with vanilla creme anglaise". I got it with the salmon.

Sounds really fancy, right? But in fact, it was quite ordinary. The salad was okay but not great (the greens weren't super fresh). The salmon was huge and unremarkable. The hearty serving of mashed potatoes had no relationship to lobster except that they were pink- no lobster flavor or meat was discernible. The corn was just a little piece of corn on the cob, and reminded me of a school cafeteria for some reason. The dessert was sort of plain, canned-tasting peaches with oatmealy topping. Overall, okay, but for $39 and with the description on the menu, I expected more.

My companions got the other meals, "Adagio" and "Andante". (Cute names, no?) They also sounded a lot better on the menu than they looked and were probably not worth the mark-up. I noticed that many of the box "regulars" around us brought all of their own stuff. Some people in a box two down from us had a cardboard box with a handle that had a gourmet picnic in it, pre-made, which looked really good. Even though they were incredibly rude and ate it during Sarah Chang's performance (wait until intermission, fools!). I decided that all being said and done, if I had to use my own money, I would rather find or make a simple but lovely gourmet picnic and bring my own booze-- remembering to ask for one of their ice buckets for the white if possible. I am glad I tried the box dining though, just because I wanted to see what it was like and firm things are a great opportunity for such exploratory ventures.

Last time, for John Mayer, Emilia made some simple but delicious picnic dishes in her trademark style to go with sandwiches I picked up from Alcove on Hillhurst and brought to-go. She made a fabulous pasta salad with sundried tomatoes and fennel and caramelized onions, and a delicious fruit salad that I hope for your sake she someday posts the recipe for, both in little glad containers, one for each of us, with plastic cutlery (all very easy). She also brought a bag of delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies for dessert, and a bag of chips. Yes, all that AND a bag of chips! We were not allowed to bring our own wine*, but at least we had the fun of drinking a bottle from the Bowl's food shop out of a giant plastic cup. Classy. Em and I are going to see Rufus Wainwright sings Judy Garland (I know, it doesn't get much more fabulous than that) in September, and we plan to bring sushi and take the Red Line so we can wine to our hearts' content.

So, the three-course box experience was fun, but next time, I would definitely do the picnic thing. Besides, it's fun to plan and bring yummy picnic food. Of course, I hope I get to use the firm box again, because it was wonderful. But even without the box, the Bowl is too awesome to miss. If you are in L.A. and haven't gone in a while, get your butt over there! It's definitely part of the icing on living in this crazy town.

If you have picnic tips for the Bowl, please comment.

:-P

Hollywood Bowl box service:

Food: (2) Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Experience: (3) Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Overall: (2.5) Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

For an explanation of our rating system, CLICK HERE!

*- Correction! Earlier I thought that wine was allowed at the Mayer show, but it was not. You have to check the Hollywood Bowl site for specifics on what is allowed at which shows. I guess fans of this new fangled rock and roll music make b.y.o.b. a riskier proposition than for us sophisticated classical music fans ;-) Everybody knows how CARAZY those Mayer fans get. Woooo.

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