E Baldi Birthday

Last night I ventured into Beverly Hills for a birthday dinner at E Baldi. Now, I'm not one for the Malibu scene so I didn't know or care that this place is owned by the same family that has Georgio Baldi in Malibu. But, the waiter will point this out to you on several occasions to impress upon you that yes, they do know what they're doing. Which leads to the question, why do you need to let me know that you know what you're doing? Surely your Cannon Drive location and the prices on the menu allude that you know how to prepare food.

Ambiance.

Sparse. That's OK...minimalism works for me. However, the tables are very small and having a party of more than 4 is dinner suicide. We had 11.

Now, I didn't realise that our large party was a bad idea until we were hours into the meal. Here we are chatting and eating and what not and there are all these people gathered at the hostess station waiting for their table glaring at us. Nothing is better than having an agent and his team of minions glare at you for taking up a good portion of the restaurant. I just gave my best look to say "Hey buddy, I'm not in your business...your glare means nothing to me." So, that was amusing.

What wasn't amusing was their putting a party of 3 next to us that no longer allowed any movement from one side of the table to the other. We had to go around the ENTIRE restaurant any time we wanted to talk to someone at the opposite end of the table. Yeah, they crammed that many tables into that small room.

And I haven't even started on the noise.

Holy crap was it loud in there. I mean, we lost the father of the birthday honoree as well as the brother, sister-in-law and niece due to the noise. Thank doG this is L.A. and everyone, even those that live together, took separate cars, otherwise, this would have been a taxi-heavy evening.

It was loud.

Really loud.

Chiniose on Main loud.

Don't eat dinner there loud.

OK, so we've covered that its loud. Lets move onto the service.

OK, if I'm paying that much for my dinner, I want brilliance. I want stellar service and I want amazing food. I didn't get either. There was no follow-up on the drinks (wine glasses were left painfully empty), no bus boys to clear in a timely manner, no attention to detail, nothing. Yes, our waiter was charming with his Northern Italian accent and knowledge of the preparation of the food. But, for me, that's really not enough.

Food.

Now I understand why agents and actors love this place. The food is fine. Its expensive and tasty but you're not going to break your size 0 diet by insisting on your own appetizer and licking your plate after your entree. You're happy to split something and the portions are fair to small so you're really not breaking any rules here. Now granted, I'm tough to please on Italian food based on my background (Southern Italian from mom, Northern Italian from dad) but it is possible to do. Give me fresh ingredients and chef who knows what they're doing and I'm a happy pasta-eating camper. Give me food that's been sitting and chef who feels rushed and I'm not overly amused. Now, several people loved their food. And that's nice. I'm happy for them. Was it great? Nope.

So why is it becoming the new darling of Beverly Hills where restaurants die on a daily basis?

Heck if I know. I can tell you there were more agents and industry people in that one small restaurant than I've ever seen in one spot before. And remember, until recently I worked next to CAA's new Deathstar. So, that's really saying something. At one table, we had an actress politely waiting for not one, not two, but three agents for dinner. Now that I'm looking at IMDB I think my first identification of her was wrong. The others I'm quite sure of. We had a very pregnant wedding crasher with her exceedingly attractive girlfriends as well a Jack with a female friend.

So, if you need to industry gawk, here are the details:

E Baldi
375 N Canon Dr
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
(310) 248-2633