Sunday, September 24, 2017

CECI N'EST PAS

Four of us went for Saturday lunch at Pizzeria Mozza – the fairly fancy yet in the end slightly less expensive than you were fearing place in LA, that has the names of Nancy Silverton, Joe Bastianich and Mario Batali attached to it.  Gotta be impressed by a man who wears a scarf of sausages:


Best thing we had was “fried potatoes with ceci and herbs”  - ceci are chickpeas – I didn’t known that.


The Mozza “business model” involves cramming a lot of people into a very tight space which means that you inevitably become aware on the people on adjacent tables, in this case one of them was a cheery, well-fed, youngish couple.  The female half was, let’s say, outgoing and she asked how our food was and we said it was very good and then she said “Oh I love your accent.”
Then in one of those “Hey, I’m not entirely uncool” moments I realized that our party of four consisted of two men – one English, one German, and two women - one American, one Japanese, so it wasn’t clear whose accent she was referring to – turned out to be the German guy.  You don’t get that very often.


By then the pizza had arrived “Fennel Sausage, Panna, Mozzarella, Red Onions & Scallions” and after a while the youngish woman next door said to one of the women on our table, “May I say you’re just so beautiful.  Sorry if I embarrass you but that’s the kind of person I am, if I think something I just have to say it.”
Well, at some point over dessert she and her man got into a bitter argument that seemed in some way to be triggered by the food, though no doubt deeper currents were obviously at work.  And she stormed out leaving the guy with the remains of two desserts and the bill.

It was still only mid-afternoon; there was a lot of Saturday still to get through.

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