Los Angeles – I sat in the bar, alone, with my head swiveling around as if on autopilot during a tennis match. Sitting alone at a bar is modus operandi for me. Want to pick out the guys who travel too much for a living? We’re the ones at the end of the bar watching ESPN.
But here at Mr. Chow there are no TVs. Still, I was here with some other people also in desperate need of a life. Like me, they weren’t hard to find.
FLASH!!! A blinding light went off behind me. I turned around. Kiefer Sutherland just walked in.
FLASH!!! I swiveled around. This time I really felt I was at a tennis match. Venus and Serena Williams just walked out.
“It can get really crazy,” said Ricardo Amorim, Mr. Chow’s maitre d’, who said NBA star Kevin Garnett was in an upstairs private room priced at $75 a person. “I’ve seen like 25-30 people (out front). From (Robert) De Niro coming in. J.Lo coming in.”
You’ve heard of restaurants to see and be seen? Mr. Chow is on the A list for A-list celebrities. It’s in the heart of Beverly Hills on Camden Drive, one block off Rodeo Drive where you can buy a pair of men’s socks for the same amount as the daily rate of your rental car.
At Mr. Chow, the set menu costs nearly as much as the car itself.
But food is only part of the reason people flock to Mr. Chow. It’s part of L.A.’s celebrity triangle. Eat lunch at Ivy over on Robertson Boulevard, have dinner at Mr. Chow then drinks at Koi in West Hollywood.
Mr. Chow doesn’t even pretend to hide it. Every dinner guest receives a slick, eight-paneled plastic folder. Pull it open and fanning in front of you are 1,294 celebrities who’ve entered the doors. It lists everyone in Hollywood. Everyone. Really. Name someone. Anyone. He or she is on there.
The regular patrons don’t even look up anymore when a flash goes off outside. Sutherland stood behind me at the bar dressed as if going to Starbucks in a gray long-sleeve T-shirt, blue jeans and pointed boots. He was very nice, joking with strangers and chatting with some fellow Canadians he’d have dinner with later.
I wanted to ask why he frequents a restaurant where he must fight through photographers, but I saw him beat the crap out of a terrorist on “24” and decided to ask Amorim instead.
“They come for the food, the atmosphere,” he said. “It’s existed over 30 years, this restaurant. We got one in New York. Another just opened in Tribeca. So people who live in New York they come here and feel at home.”
The first Mr. Chow opened in London in 1968 and became a regular haunt for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Like vultures to carrion, then came the photographers.
This is a feeding ground for paparazzi. I called one, a guy named Steve Kondiles who did so well he’s now retired in Scottsdale. A regular outside Mr. Chow, he said the expected rate for the first pictures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s baby would go for about $500,000.
“The average picture of Paris Hilton is $200, maybe,” said Kondiles, who grew up in Hollywood. “But if Paris Hilton falls down and gets up with a bloody nose, that $200 turns into a $20,000 shot, maybe more.”
At Mr. Chow, the paparazzi work almost as a pack. I’d say a pack of wolves but I happen to like wildlife. Tom Cruise walks in, a photographer gets on his cellphone and suddenly the sidewalk outside has a dozen cameras and camcorders. There’s an easy tolerance between the paparazzi and Mr. Chow management.
Legally, management can do nothing about photographers on a public sidewalk. Just don’t block the doorway.
“I can’t say there has ever been an ugly incident,” Kondiles said. “Celebrities know if they go to Mr. Chow they’ll get their picture taken. Usually nothing happens. Some celebrities choose to sneak out the back.”
That’s where I was, being the Z-list celebrity that I am. I had eaten at Mr. Chow, which specializes in Beijing cooking, before the last Rose Bowl and found the food horribly overrated. Maybe it was the dish. I returned last Wednesday before the Pacific-10 Conference football media day and again wondered how I’d sneak this onto my expense account without getting assigned Mullen High tennis.
The thing about Mr. Chow is if you have to ask how much the food is you probably can’t afford it. Also, you’ll have to ask. There are no menus. My waiter merely told me what was on the fixed menu – for $54.
I had shrimp cakes, about a half-dozen little dumplings that were very good and not greasy as dumplings usually are. He also recommended the venison and spinach. I told him that I didn’t recall hearing about deer running around Tiananmen Square. His smile disappeared and he brought back a tiny silver bowl with some very tasty, meaty venison pieces in a subtle bed of spinach with a bowl of white rice and a mushroom medley.
A regular next to me recommended the seaweed and candied walnuts, an interesting combination that mixed the walnuts with grainy, cooked sea greens.
With three glasses of $9 pinot noir, my bill was $87.69. I walked out, again hungry, to find Sutherland signing autographs, posing for pictures and generally showing the patience of a nursery school teacher. David Childress, 42, stood nearby selling fuzzy lighted balls, hoping celebs would bring their kids.
I asked him who’s the most uncooperative celebrity. He said Bruce Willis.
“He hasn’t always been like that and the reason why I say is when he was married to Demi Moore he was humbler,” he said. “He was nicer, he’d give you the time of day.”
I looked at the time of day. It was late. I left, longing for ESPN.
Staff writer John Henderson covers sports and writes about the food he eats on the road. He can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
