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To Live and Dine in LA
Sep. 17th, 2025 09:00 amL.A. Trade Show journal #2
Burbank · Tue, 16 Sep 2025. 7:30pm
My flight down to LA this afternoon was uneventful. We did leave late as I predicted. It's funny how I can look at a few simple facts in the public record and predict such things with more accuracy— or perhaps more honesty— than the airline itself. Anyway, once we started taxiing I nodded off to sleep and then slept for most of the flight. That was surprising as I never used to be able to sleep, at all, while flying, let alone on a flight in the middle of the afternoon.
Landing at Burbank airport instead of LAX provided exactly what I expected it to. I mean, aside from the novelty of exiting the plane onto the tarmac. And enjoying a beautiful, mostly not-smoggy view of the San Gabriel Mountains just north of us as I did so. Tiny, outdated, hole-in-the-wall Burbank airport is fast. I walked into the terminal at gate three and didn't have far to go to get out to the curb to catch an Uber.
My first stop this evening has not been my hotel downtown but rather dinner with a colleague, Sandi. She suggested Smoke House in Burbank. It was a short ride from the airport— though with afternoon traffic and surge pricing the fare was almost $40. 🥵 (Sandi later said she could've picked me up on her drive over there. I told her I could've tipped her $40. 🤣)
I'd looked up the Smoke House online when Sandi suggested it last week. From their website it looks like a modern, concept oriented restaurant. Y'know, the kind of place that serves a messy food that used to be cheap— i.e., barbecue ribs— but does so in a pretentious, upscale environment with a bunch of microbrews on tap at the bar... and two-thirds of them are IPAs.
Well, I was wrong. Smoke House is not a 2020s era concept restaurant repackaging old fashioned food. It is a genuine old school steakhouse that's been there for decades. It's all 1950s inside, with dark wood paneling and overstuffed red vinyl booths. Black-and-white photos of movie stars and producers line the walls. This is a place where movers and shakers in film & TV have been coming to make deals over martinis for decades.
Was I impressed by any of that? No. But standing beneath a portrait of Walt Disney in one of his impeccably tailored dark suits starting glancing down at me with his typical half-sneer— I mean, he even had the courtesy to stub out his cigarette before this photo was taken— I did suddenly feel underdressed. As I arrived a few minutes before Sandi and had my suitcase with me I gave serious consideration to dodging into the men's room and changing from shorts and sandals into trousers, black leather shoes, and a sports coat.
Meeting at 4:30 for dinner was a bit early. Sandi and I agreed to go at a leisurely pace so we'd be hungry by the time our entrees arrived. We started with chatting up the waiter since the place was dead at 4:30, then had a couple of drinks, ordered a small appetizer to share, then finally our mains— we both chose the prime rib, though she wanted hers well done 😣 and settled for medium-well when the waiter politely told her "No" 🤣— and finally dessert.
It's weird going out to a restaurant with a woman who enjoys all the same stuff I do (except for that well-done nonsense) and can put it away. Man, if Sandi were younger, and we were both single, I might ask her out on a date. Except for that well-done nonsense. Red flag right there. 🤣
Update: The adventure continues in A Very Tiny LA Hotel Room!
Burbank · Tue, 16 Sep 2025. 7:30pm
My flight down to LA this afternoon was uneventful. We did leave late as I predicted. It's funny how I can look at a few simple facts in the public record and predict such things with more accuracy— or perhaps more honesty— than the airline itself. Anyway, once we started taxiing I nodded off to sleep and then slept for most of the flight. That was surprising as I never used to be able to sleep, at all, while flying, let alone on a flight in the middle of the afternoon.
Landing at Burbank airport instead of LAX provided exactly what I expected it to. I mean, aside from the novelty of exiting the plane onto the tarmac. And enjoying a beautiful, mostly not-smoggy view of the San Gabriel Mountains just north of us as I did so. Tiny, outdated, hole-in-the-wall Burbank airport is fast. I walked into the terminal at gate three and didn't have far to go to get out to the curb to catch an Uber.
My first stop this evening has not been my hotel downtown but rather dinner with a colleague, Sandi. She suggested Smoke House in Burbank. It was a short ride from the airport— though with afternoon traffic and surge pricing the fare was almost $40. 🥵 (Sandi later said she could've picked me up on her drive over there. I told her I could've tipped her $40. 🤣)
I'd looked up the Smoke House online when Sandi suggested it last week. From their website it looks like a modern, concept oriented restaurant. Y'know, the kind of place that serves a messy food that used to be cheap— i.e., barbecue ribs— but does so in a pretentious, upscale environment with a bunch of microbrews on tap at the bar... and two-thirds of them are IPAs.
Well, I was wrong. Smoke House is not a 2020s era concept restaurant repackaging old fashioned food. It is a genuine old school steakhouse that's been there for decades. It's all 1950s inside, with dark wood paneling and overstuffed red vinyl booths. Black-and-white photos of movie stars and producers line the walls. This is a place where movers and shakers in film & TV have been coming to make deals over martinis for decades.
Was I impressed by any of that? No. But standing beneath a portrait of Walt Disney in one of his impeccably tailored dark suits starting glancing down at me with his typical half-sneer— I mean, he even had the courtesy to stub out his cigarette before this photo was taken— I did suddenly feel underdressed. As I arrived a few minutes before Sandi and had my suitcase with me I gave serious consideration to dodging into the men's room and changing from shorts and sandals into trousers, black leather shoes, and a sports coat.
Meeting at 4:30 for dinner was a bit early. Sandi and I agreed to go at a leisurely pace so we'd be hungry by the time our entrees arrived. We started with chatting up the waiter since the place was dead at 4:30, then had a couple of drinks, ordered a small appetizer to share, then finally our mains— we both chose the prime rib, though she wanted hers well done 😣 and settled for medium-well when the waiter politely told her "No" 🤣— and finally dessert.
It's weird going out to a restaurant with a woman who enjoys all the same stuff I do (except for that well-done nonsense) and can put it away. Man, if Sandi were younger, and we were both single, I might ask her out on a date. Except for that well-done nonsense. Red flag right there. 🤣
Update: The adventure continues in A Very Tiny LA Hotel Room!
