Off Vine Opening Again Soon

If you or your boss live in or around Los Angeles and you need a good restaurant to go to in Hollywood, don't forget that Off Vine will open again soon (likely around end of February, but check their website).

Need A New Place To Send Your Boss In Beverly Hills?

If you need a new place to send your boss or want to splurge on yourself, check out the newly opened Bouchon Bistro in Beverly Hills. It's French bistro food from famed chef Thomas Keller (who created the ultra famous and pricey French Laundry). Other locations for Bouchon exist in Vegas and Yountville (wine country near Napa).

Restaurant Tip Tuesday

If you're looking for a great lunch or dinner location for you or your boss, I just tried a new place that was pretty delish. It's been open about a year I think, so I didn't discover it, but Cecconi's Restaurant in West Hollywood has really great Italian food and isn't insanely expensive (your boss probably doesn't care, but you might). When I went recently, I had an incredible pasta with lobster and a light tomato sauce that I highly recommended. It's a bit trendy for my taste and at times is full of MAWs (model, actress, whatevers), but it's worth sucking that up for the food. Also, even with all of the fancy cars pulling into the valet, they weren't snotty and honored our reservation on time.

WHY OH WHY DID I MOVE TO THE VALLEY?

I will try to post at lunch tomorrow as well, but here's one quick tip right now in case I can't. By the way, I'm still trying to blog at least once every day, but these early weeks at the new gig are tiring me out. I only have a few minutes at lunch to do it because I'm trying to write my original tv spec at night.

I work and live in the valley. I'm not sorry because I love my place and I'm near lots of cool stuff and can get to the city easily, but one thing I can't take pleasure in because I live there is the fact that MOZZA delivers their pizza now! You can call them or order online. I kid you not, their pizza is some of the best I've ever tasted. I wish I lived nearby and could get it to come to my door. Heaven in a box - DELIVERED. If your office is near there and your boss is in a bad mood or has low blood sugar, be sure to order some. It would be great to order for a little office party as well. I'll be jealous, but I'll live vicariously through you.

If you know someone that loves Mario Batali's food and you've already given them all of his cookbooks, buy them the dvd and/or book from his recent PBS show On The Road Again that also features Gwenyth Paltrow. I can't even cook, but I loved it.

Austin Restaurant Ideas

If you or your boss is traveling to Austin anytime soon, you might want to check out this Austin restaurant list from Tasting Table (a daily e-mail about restaurants). Austin is a popular vacation destination these days, but also quite a few filmmakers live and make films there (Robert Rodriguez, etc.) and many tech and Hollywood types now attend the various parts of the SXSW festival because it includes movies and tech oriented events. Tasting Table also has daily e-mails for New York and Los Angeles, so you might want to check it out.

Quick Tip & More Later

Hi all. I'm really focusing hard on job search and writing today, but I didn't completely want to ignore the blog, so I have one little tip for you now and I might post again later today. One site worth check out so that you can find trendy new restaurants, hip hotels and good shopping is Hipguide. It's been around for a bit, but I like it. It covers a bunch of big metropolitan cities, so it can be helpful if you're local or even if you aren't. It can also come in handy if your boss is traveling somewhere new for business or pleasure or if you are actually taking a vacation. Check it out to see some of the places it covers.