Tmoney

Oh Papa

I permanently drove out to Los Angeles from Detroit over the course of the week leading up to Labor Day weekend 1997.  I remember pulling into Los Angeles County on the 10 and listening (over the Uhaul AM radio with my 1991 Honda Accord on a trailor in the back) to the Steelers and Cowboys open up the 1997 season. Kordell "Korndog" Stewart led the Steelers to a major ass whooping (the Cowboys won at Three Rivers, 37-7, Korndog went 13-28 through the air for 104 yards). 

Ever since that time, I have scoured all over town trying all sorts of restarants in every nook and cranny of the city.  However, for some reason, over the past 10 years, I had never made it to potentially LA's best Greek restaurant, Papa Christos.

Last Saturday, my family was down at the Natural History Museum at USC and we needed some lunch. It seemed as good as time as any to try out the famous Papa Christos.

Papa Christos is a combination Greek market/deli/restaurant with both inside and "garden" seating.  Customers line up to order at the counter (sometimes the line gets long) and get a number for tableside delivery.  A team of waiters subsequently wisk out your goodies.  The fare is classic Greek, but not on the high-end.  The range is more Greek grill - gyros sandwiches, chicken and souvlaki kebabs, lamb chops, dolmas, served with greek salad and pitas. Papa C's also features greek wines and beers if you want to sample the mediterranean fare.  Thursday is the big night, with real live belly dancers and wine tastings.

Los Angeles is certainly not the king of Greek food, not even close.  But this is good stuff. I like lamb and I had the souvlaki kebabs over hot fresh pita bread.  And don't forget the greek pastries for desert, they make their own baklava which is damn tasty.  Beyond the food, PC's has the feel of an old time (it's been open since 1948) east coast ethnic deli dive.  The people are authenticly nice, but with just enough crust. If I lived closer, I would be here every week.

Papa Christos
2771 W. Pico Blvd. (NE Corner of Pico and Normandie)
(323)-737-2970.

Reservations needed on Thursday, but not the rest of the week.

There is ample secure parking in the back off Normandie.

Related links:

Larchmont Chronicle

Robert Sinskey Vineyards

I drink a lot of wine, I mean A LOT. A friend of mine gave me a bottle of 2001 Robert Sinskey Vandal Vineyard Pinot Noir and I stashed it away not thinking much of it. For some reason, I didn't have a high opinion of Robert Sinskey Vineyards (RSV), not that I ever had any of their wines. As I read the label, I learned that RSV is an organic wine made via sustainable agricultural practices. So I went to their site and learned about the committment to sustainable farming and that it is one of the few certified organic wines. If you know wine, you will know there are very few organic wines.

Vandal Vineyards is one of six organic vineyards at RSV. The wine is a cool climate Pinot made from the Pommard Clone. The 2001 I had is very Burgundian in style. It is medium ruby red in color. Dark cherry fruits on the palate, very clean, good minerality and earth. A very balanced Pinot, not what you would expect from Napa. Oh and it is organic. It ain't cheap, but it is very well made. Go give it a try.

Adventures on the Wine Route: A Wine Buyer's Tour of France

If you are into wine, or just learning to enjoy it, this is a book you will enjoy. Follow one of the pioneering importers of french wines through his early trips to France in the 1980's. The stories of the unique producers flow seemlessly as the pages turn.

Rustic Canyon Winebar

There just ain't many real good restaurants west of the 405. Rustic Canyon reminds me of a neighborhood-version of Tom Colicchio's Craft and now I go every other week. Clean presentation with a focus on fresh ingredients. The menu changes every month, but the stalwarts like the Moroccan Salad and Roasted Chicken stick around. The problem is you can't get a reservation for weeks in the small, former Chinese restaurant on Wilshire. The wine by the glass list is solid, but I wish it would change up a little more often. They keep the 3 large community tables open for walk-ins, so give it a try.

Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business

I love dining in NYC, and I really love Danny Meyer restaurants. Danny's new book is an autobiographical story on how he grew his empire, but it also weaves in business and management lessons. Most of the nuggets can be applied to any business. This is a fun read for anyone in business and/or into dining.

Wine web 1.5 is better than 2.0

Techcrunch posted on the launch of Winelog and initiated a good conversation on the wine web 2.0 and Corkd.com. I have been both in the wine business and the tech business (and I drink way too much wine) in my career.  Wine is the perfect topic for a social service and I have been thinking about it for a while now.  I am glad to see a bunch of good looking services launch. 

However, there is one key missing component of these services - a standard database of products.  Wine is unique in that there are literally hundreds of thousands of wines. Many have defined subtleties such as apellation and vineyard designations. Furthermore, you also have a new wine come out every year, so multiple vintages of the same wine.  The result is that if you don't have a very structured database, it is very hard to search, discover, and comment on  the millions of wines in a consistent way.  Without database rigor, these services will fail, or at least only serve the most casual consumer (one that might not care what that the 2003 is much different or better than the 2004 for instance).

What people may not realize is that there already exists a very robust and strong wine web service with all these features and more. It's called Cellartracker.com.  Cellartracker is a little closer to web 1.5 (for those who care about that), but it is damn good.  Eric Levine has built a solid service on the back of structured, detailed database. There are overhundreds of thousands of wines in Eric's system, and more importantly, over 2 million user bottles and 100,000 user generated reviews.  This service is the lifeblood of over 15,000 users (like me) who manage their wine purchases, inventory, and consumption. My cellar is can be found here.

I hope sites like Corkd and Winelog will be successful. However, my prediction is that they won't ever be able to get to the scale and depth of offering that Cellartracker has achieved. If Eric can continue to improve the service and add more of a "people lens" for person to person community, Cellartracker will be the dominant wine community on the web for some time to come.

SoCal is Here!

Five years ago, local investors always debated about the local ecosystem and the long term process it would take to transform the vast and diverse Los Angeles entrepreneurial economy.   I joined in the debate and periodically complained about the lack of local start-up talent and culture.   Over lunch on Thursday with another local VC, it hit me.  Southern California has arrived.

For the past century, Los Angles has been the epicenter for entertainment media including film, TV, and music.  During industrialization, Southern California became the hedquarters of numerous defense companies such as Hughes, Raytheon, Rockwell and Litton.  These companies employed large numbers of knowledge workers in engineering and science and also funded research in the fields of communications and device innovation at institutes such as UCLA, Caltech, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USC, UCSB, UCSD, Harvey Mudd College, and UCI.  As a result, very talented scientists collected here and the area subsequently spawned numerous leading companies in communications, networking and semi-conductors.  The result - Broadcom, Qualcomm, Conexant (and Skyworks), Qlogic, Emulex, Vitesse, AMCC, DirecTV, Ortel/Lucent, Titan, and Western Digital to name just a few.

Now, that we have arrived at the convergence of media and technology, Southern California is positioned to create the next wave of leading technology companies.

You have to look no further than the recent M&A news.  On Monday, News Corp. announced the $580 million acquisition of Intermix Media (MIX), including its crown jewel Myspace.com.    It didn't get much more local for me - my partner Bill Woodward was on the board, Myspace is about 50 yards from my office, and I knew the company quite well.

This was only the most recent of the local "run" - Scripps buying Shopzilla for $525 million, Experian buying Lowermybills.com for $330 million, and eBay buying Rent.com for $400 million, all in the past 7 months.  Add to that, the recent IPOs of Jamdat and Fastclick, as well as the numerous other media and internet success stories - Yahoo buying Overture and Launch.com, Autobytel, the IACI empire including Citysearch, HSN, et al., Earthlink, ValueClick/Commission Junction, and the Idealab family - Netzero/United Online, eToys, Cooking.com, Carsdirect/Internet Brands, et al.    Don't forget the numerous interactive game companies such as Activision, THQ, Take Two, the former Vivendi/Blizzard, and EA Studios.

As the internet becomes mass media, and as digital technology collides with entertainment, Southern California is in a position to capitalize.  We don't need to debate any longer the merits of the talent or culture, SoCal will prosper over the next 20 years.

June wine musings

Here is just a smattering of wines I have had over the past several weeks worthy of another purchase.

Tarius Pinot Noir Pisoni Vineyard 2001 - Pisoni says it all.  Big, big, big, but nice balance.   Paired it with a steak at Lincoln.   You can't miss with any of the fruit from Pisoni.  Not a bad deal either at $35.99 from The Winehouse.

Rock Rabbitt Sauvignon Blanc Central Coast 2004 - You just can't beat this quaffable white for $7.99.  Fruit forward for a sauvignon blanc, but nice and clean on the finish.  My favorite white of the season. Easily findable at Costco or most of the larger wine shops.

Hitching Post Syrah Santa Barbara County 2002 - I am a rhone grape fanatic and I have always held a romantic place in my heart for The Hitching Post restaurant in Solvang.  Now that Sideways has made the outpost famous, I picked up the latest syrah.  Just what you would expect, big clean fruit with enough stamina to keep you interested. 

Pagor Tempranillo 2002 - Ed Pagor makes one of california's only wines from Tempranillo from his Rolling Hills home.  He has been hand-delivering it around SoCal since 1997 in his beat-up station wagon. It is a timeless red wine value around town.  I was actually surprised just how forward the medium-bodied 2002 showed.  One of my all-time favorites at $7.99.

Broadley Pinot Noir Willamette Valley 2003 - First of all, it is pronounced WIL-LAMB-ET. If you like big style pinot, as I obviously do, I think Broadley is one of the best values out of Oregon.  The non-vineyard designated wine highlighted here can be had for $19.99.  If you can find the Estate for a few bucks more, you will be very, very happy.

Other ready to drinks in the stainless steel cellar - Cellier des Dauphins Cote du Phone (cool bottle), Kris Pinot Grigio, Longoria Santa Rita Pinot, Greenock Creek Cab, and lots of un-oaked Chablis style chardonnay.

Cheers!

Where's the Mr. Beef?

Just got back from a wedding in Chicago. I have not been to the Midway for almost ten years.  I really enjoy the blue collar immigrant food in Chicago, it reminds me of my own hometown, Pittsburgh. 

One of the most enjoyable visits of the trip - the venerable Mr. Beef. 

Mr. Beef serves one of the best examples of the italian beef sandwich - a cross between a french dip and cheesesteak - thin sliced beef piled high on soft, dipped roll, topped with sweet or hot peppers.  mmmmmmmmm!

Make sure you try when in Chitown.

Steelers on 'roids?

With several Pittsburgh Steelers from the 70's and 80's - Mike Webster, David Little, Justin Strzelczyk, and now Terry Long - recently passing away, the media is quick to jump on the steroids story.  Former lineman Steve Courson didn't help the accusations with his testimony.    However, the truth should be highlighted.

First, Terry Long was in financial problems and likely died of suicide.  David Little died of heart problems.    Justin Strzelczyk just melted down.

Mike Webster indeed crumbled under his steroid history, a truly tragic story.

However, steroids were not just part of the Steelers, but part of the entire NFL during the 70's and 80's...and maybe the 90's and today.  Unfortunately, and sadly, the recent Steeler deaths are coincedental.  But when Sports are slow in June, the media want to create a thread of connection, when there is none at all.