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WAN-Q — Wan-Q was a terrific Chinese restaurant located on Pico Boulevard, just east of Robertson, in the building that now houses another terrific Chinese restaurant called Fu's Palace.  Unlike Wan-Q, Fu's Palace is not a dark place full of tropical decor and little streams and waterfalls that run through the room.  I took some of my first dates to Wan-Q because it seemed to be that kind of place, but its main clientele was local Jewish families.

If you were Jewish in the sixties in Los Angeles, it seemed almost mandatory that your family have a favorite Chinese restaurant.  In that area, loyalties were divided between Wan-Q and a place a few blocks east on Pico named Kowloon, which is also now long gone.  There were other Chinese eateries along that stretch of Pico but somehow, even local newspaper reporters sensed the great Wan-Q/Kowloon rivalry and wrote of it.  We were Wan-Q people but once, just to be fair-minded, we dined at Kowloon and confirmed our hunch that it was inferior.

The waiters at Wan-Q were great and they really did fit the Great Chinese Waiter Stereotype of all looking alike...but you could tell them apart by the loud Hawaiian-style shirts they wore.  There was one who thought the funniest thing in the world was to ask, when a family ordered something with pork in it, "Are you Joosh?"  That was how he pronounced "Jewish."

Wan-Q was the first place I ever had Chinese Food and to this day, my concept of the right way to prepare certain dishes is rooted in how they were prepared there.  It was a sad day when they went out of business, not only for my family and for the proprietors of Wan-Q but also for whoever owned that building.  It proceeded to house a veritable United Nations of different failed restaurants (Mexican, Polynesian, Jamaican, etc.) before finally, after a decade or so, reverting to its birthright as a Chinese eatery.  I used to drive by and marvel at how each new tenant adapted some of the exterior decor of the previous resident.  The odd roof that's there now and the split telephone poles nailed to the sides of the building are, I believe, leftovers from the Polynesian period.  They didn't make a lot of sense then, either.

ANDRE'S OF BEVERLY HILLS — Andre's was a chic and popular (but overpriced) restaurant located on Wilshire Boulevard in the building that's now the Porterhouse Bistro.  It's another structure that went through a lot of failed dining enterprises before one of them finally clicked and seemed permanent.

The appeal of Andre's must have been the attentive, obsequious service because the few times I dined there, that's the main thing I noticed.  It sure wasn't the food, which was Sizzler quality at about four times the price.  The menu was an odd, multi-national aggregate of American, French and Italian and I usually had a steak with a side of unimpressive spaghetti.

I have a theory as to what closed Andre's.  Located in a shopping center about two miles away — and still there at the corner of Fairfax and 3rd Street — was and is a less fancy Andre's, owned by the same folks who owned the fancy Andre's.  This one is a small Italian cafeteria that does a fabulous business selling very good pasta and pizza at rock bottom prices.  If you want a cheap meal in not-plush surroundings, hurry thine backside over to the Town and Country mall across from Farmer's Market.  Andre's is located in a little courtyard a few doors to the left of the Whole Foods Market.  It's one of those places where there's almost always a line.

That Andre's was popular back when the Andre's on Wilshire was up and operating, and local restaurant critics couldn't resist comparing them.  At one, you got fast service, shabby decor and great food for very little money.  At the other, you got slow service, fine decor and so-so food for a lot more money.  Every year or so, some writer in the L.A. Times felt compelled to ask why the three-dollar plate of pasta at the cheap Andre's was better than the twelve-dollar plate of pasta at the fancy one.  That kind of buzz must have harmed the one on Wilshire to some extent.

The only other memory I have of the Beverly Hills Andre's was one time my family was there, dining with some wealthy friends who were paying.  We were waiting for the valet to bring us our car for a fee roughly equal to the cost of a complete lasagna dinner at the other Andre's.  Suddenly, about six limousines converged on the place, and official-looking men jumped out and began clearing the way for the passenger from one.  It was Robert Kennedy.  I waved to him and he waved back, and I regretted that I didn't have the opportunity to warn him that he was going to the wrong Andre's.

THE CAPTAIN'S TABLE — Located at the end of Restaurant Row — on La Cienega near 3rd Street — The Captain's Table had a glorious history as one of the city's best places to eat fish.  Alas, by the time I dined there in the early seventies, it had become a rather mediocre and overpriced establishment that sold you a lobster with the same grandeur and price tag of Tiffany's delivering your new diamond tiara.  The decor had that "men's club" feel with a maritime flavor and chairs that had uneven legs so they made you seasick.  I don't think that was deliberate.

Apparently, competition did the place in.  It was not far from the Smith Brothers' Fish Shanty, which was a much better seafood restaurant, and it was a few blocks from Alan Hale's Lobster Barrel.  Some people apparently got confused and went to The Captain's Table thinking they were going to get to meet the Skipper.  The last year or so of its existence, I lived one block from the place and never ventured in.  My friends and I would walk right past it to get to the Fish Shanty.

The main thing I recall about it is that at some point in the mid-seventies, a group of local Star Trek fans decided they wanted to meet William Shatner and take him to dinner.  The Captain's Table seemed like the appropriate place to sup with Captain Kirk so they all pledged the necessary funds and bombarded Shatner — at every conceivable address — with invites to dine there with them.  For months, they could get no response and the invitations grew ever more militant.  I knew one of the Trekkers involved in the plan and she was beginning to lose her love for Mr. Shatner due to him not extending them even the courtesy of a reply.

Finally, as the story was told to me, some publicist for the star called the ringleader and said, in effect, "Knock it off with all these invitations or we'll call the police and report you all as stalkers.  Shatner's not going to dine with you anywhere and if he did, he especially wouldn't eat at The Captain's Table.  He hates that restaurant and people are always trying to drag him to it."  Two days after I heard this, I noticed The Captain's Table was out of business and the building was being sprayed with psychedelic colors, long after they were fashionable, and transformed into a discotheque, long after anyone was going to them.  It was like the place was so ashamed at being rejected by William Shatner that it had turned to drugs.

ALAN HALE'S LOBSTER BARREL — Farther North on Restaurant Row, in a building that now houses something called The Shark Bar, there was a seafood restaurant owned at least in part by "Skipper" Alan Hale from the TV series, Gilligan's Island.  I believe The Lobster Barrel was a small chain in nearby cities at the time and that Hale arranged to open one on at 826 N. La Cienega Boulevard with his name and face plastered all over it.  Unless acting work kept him away, he was always there to greet people, show them to their table and pose for snapshots.  At each place setting, there was a large color postcard bearing a portrait of the Skipper.  If you looked at all like a first-timer, he would seat you and then, without being asked, autograph the postcard to you.  He also sold (or sometimes gave away) skipper's hats like the one he was always wearing.

I only ate there once and was a bit overpowered by Mr. Hale's teddy bear friendliness.  He called everyone "Little Buddy" and seemed a bit too happy to have us there.  Still, you had to admire his spirit.  The place had been open for some time before our visit and he didn't seem tired of all the jokes about Ginger and Mary Ann washing dishes, and was the Professor in the kitchen making the clam chowder and did you have to be Thurston Howell III to afford the full steak-'n'-lobster combo?  I was kind of hoping they'd have something set up where every half-hour or so, one of the interior palm trees would drop a coconut on his head...but no such luck.

His restaurant was open for fifteen years and then when business slumped, he shut it down and started a travel agency which he ran until his death in 1990.  (Would you book a tour through the man who ran the Minnow aground?)  About the time the Lobster Barrel closed, Sonny Bono opened a trattoria just around the corner.  I guess starting a restaurant in that neighborhood is what you're supposed to do when you're on CBS, your show gets cancelled and your former partner goes on to other projects without you.

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