Helaine and I went to Los Angeles for dinner last night. It’s around 45 minutes away on a good night, which last night was. We were meeting Evan Astrowski and his wife Ana at the Stocking Frame, downtown.
You don’t hear too much about Downtown Los Angeles, because it empties out after business hours. There’s been a recent resurgence of nicer restaurants and nightlife, but there’s still a long way to go. Most of LA’s nightlife is far removed.
Evan and I worked together just after he left college. He was a producer at Inside Space on SciFi, which I hosted for a few seasons. Now he’s a movie producer with a bunch of features under his belt.
As with so much else here in California, it’s ‘piece work.’ Each film is separate, then you look for you next production.
Ana is an animator. As we ate an ad for some recent work of hers, Disney’s Planes, flashed by on the TV at the bar.
The Stocking Frame is large and comfy. They encourage sharing, so we ordered a few appetizers, then a few entrees. The food was hot, good and spicy.
Unfortunately, none of us liked the dessert, Dark Cacao and Burnt Orange Tart. It is their only dessert. Maybe it was the oddball taste of Rosemary Creme? It was a let down after a tasty meal.
We were surprised the place wasn’t very crowded on a Saturday night. Downtown’s emptiness? Maybe it just hasn’t caught on yet? Time, tuly, will tell.
Oh… one more thing. Just in case anyone from the Stocking Frame reads this, your website has a problem.
I understand what you’re doing, trying to have the site replicate the look of your menu. Unfortunately, all your pages are images of text, not actual text. That means Google, Bing and the others can’t easily see what you’ve written. It’s why your search engine placement, even when searching for your name, is terrible.
I can’t be the first one to tell you this.
