While I, and most other food critics consider chains as obvious no-nos, the list also includes restaurants on the top of tall buildings, near a body of water and with  few rare exceptions in hotels.

You know the reasons. Chains never have a staff, front or back with the passion or motivation required for great food. Water, or high building locations almost always depend upon the view instead of the food to please diners. Hotel restaurants are a combination of both. Rarely is there any passion in a hotel restaurant and it generally depends upon its convenience for the guest rather than the quality of the food to fill its dining room.

The Ritz Carlton in Chicago and San Francisco changed that approach many years ago. The Culeto hotel remodel and development group in San Francisco followed suit by recruiting or developing celebrity chefs when reopening their properties. Names like Puck, Masa, Ogden, Serrano and Dankow became commonplace in the Bay area but in no other cities.

Think about it. In both New York and Los Angeles there is not a single hotel restaurant that one could consider a true destination dining spot. Perhaps, just perhaps the Peninsula in Beverly Hills. Jean George and Alain Ducasse in New York are great restaurants that just happen to be in hotels rather than being hotel restaurants.

The city of Las Vegas’ idea of hotel haute dining is clearly a conceived repetition of their very successful fantasy and fakery policy that they use with concrete and neon.  With one exception, Picasso at the Bellagio, the other “fine cuisine” rooms depend upon deception with impersonations of famous chef’s in the same way that the myriad of mediocre impersonator and magic shows offer illusions of the real thing in buildings that are also doing impersonations. It’s actually an amazing feat of consistent bad taste (get it?) executed at high levels.      

So what are we doing reviewing a restaurant in a sort of commercial hotel…. in Newbury Park no less??

For the last few years, the Palm Garden and its assortment of predecessors have aggressively tried to promote Eric’s as a Conejo destination restaurant. They did it with various individual attractive and value oriented dining propositions such as New England Shore Dinners and wine dinners occasionally enhanced by entertainment.  Many readers asked how come we didn’t do a review.

But since the kitchen had continual turnover and the most recent (and obnoxious) chef seemed more dedicated to riding his bike rather than creating stimulating food we thought it was not a place to be taken seriously. This conclusion was reinforced when that bike riding chef left. He became a food supply salesman. That covered his level of dedication and passion.

The adjacent more casual room features an extremely interesting contemporary waterfall and a high style movable fabric covering that opens for Alfresco dining in pleasant weather. There is also a permanent small outside patio as well as attractive banquet rooms for large business or social events.

So what about the food? Well, that’s what attracted our interest. You see, we heard that Robin Nishizaki had returned to the county and was at Eric’s stoves since December. He was trained at the Pasadena Institute of Culinary Arts. and was given his chance to spread his wings as the executive chef at Le Café in Westlake. He turned it into a true destination restaurant that received excellent reviews from us, and others.

In an unfortunate personality clash, he left Le Café, and trekked to Las Vegas where he toiled for two years under the guidance of Thomas (French Laundry) Keller’s brother. The last year he guided their Vegas Steak House venture. He learned a lot about the current red meat rage.

But in our traditional manner we still waited three months before visiting Eric’s to give Nishizaki a chance to put his creative imprint on the restaurant’s prosaic menu. However it turned out that we may have made a mistake. When we recently did visit Eric’s, the menu had not changed. It seemed, at the time, that we had not waited long enough.

Our friends, in an ironic touch of serendipity opted for two different red meats. One chose a perfectly served rare hefty cut of  Prime Rib and the other selected a medium rare Center Cut Sirloin . The apparent quality of the meats became clear when they were identified as 100% Certified Angus Beef.  It turned out that Nishizaki’s Keller Steakhouse experience had placed an imprint. We did not realize that at the time.

The food and service was uniformly wonderful. It was then that we learned that Nishizaki was not even cooking that night. That, in fact was a good sign as we learned later.  The rest of the menu features the “Usual Suspects” including Pastas, Pizzas, Small and Large Plates. Eric’s is currently offering a very special short  menu that includes all of the above. It is remarkably well priced.

It was a refrain of the famed Mario Batali line, which is “Locate the best ingredients you can find and then do the least damage possible”.  It clearly seemed to be working, since our meal had been fine without Nishizaki at the stoves.

He is working on a new menu, which should bring his creativity to the fore. He hopes to have an esoteric but wide ranging selection from the intriguing food cultures of the world as seen on many fine restaurant menus today. There will be secondary emphasis on the “Tapas” style small plates that have been the recent hot trend.

However, his red meat experiences in Las Vegas should also enable him to serve that special dining group. Something for every one without making it too complicated.

We did make a mistake and visit too early. But it turned out fine.  Thus we will be looking for his new menu. When it is in place we will advise you in our “Frankly Noted Feature” .

Meanwhile Nishizaki has made enough of an early imprint for you to make a visit with the current well- executed menu still in place.  He clearly has the passion, the dedication and the vision. Since we were involved in Nishizaki’s career from inception, it will be interesting to see how this all comes out.

Eric’s Restaurant and Bar at the Palm Garden Hotel  
395 North Ventu Road, Thousand Oaks  (Actually)  805-716- 4100  Easy Free Parking 

Most Credit Cards

Open for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner every day.

Frankly Noted - Gossip Around The Conejo

Here's the latest on  closings, openings- and rumors too. 

Latest to fall victim to the " If it ain't broke, don't fix it" proverb (although it did take some time to break it.) is the former casual star of the North Ranch Plaza, Cafe Sienna. The very difficult  owner who still operates Jack's Deli had benefited for a number of years from the talents of super chef Derek Ashworth at Sienna.

In fact Ashworth had created such a following that the above mentioned owner embarked on an ill- fated expansion. He along with a close relative screwed up every aspect of this remodel. He then blamed it all on Ashworth who had remained because of promised rewards.  Ashworth left when the promises were not kept and instead, he was abused and held responsible for actions beyond his control.  Contrary to other recent events, justice has prevailed and the real culprit got what he deserved.  

In a similar, he should have known better situation, the owner chef at Pauls decided to give up on his small Studio City clone of the successful Cafe Bizou ( he had cooked there) and  take  over the number one burial grounds of restaurants  in Ventura County. We are referring of course to that ill-fated location on Townsgate adjacent to the Hyatt. In spite of the $2 corkage and other Cafe Bizou ploys, Paul's has not come close to the volume needed to pay the enormous rent that the long term  landlord seems able to hypnotically impose upon a revolving door of restaurateurs.  One wonders what the owner of the property thinks since at least 3 other restaurants with successful other locations  have gone in and out. 

However, one must give Paul credit for fighting. He has a big band on Monday night ( Ironically, the landlord is one of the musicians.) He has had a wonderful singer, Nancy Osborne on Saturday and is currently offering a special coupon for during the week dining. Maybe the landlord will take pity. 

The 2087 story, however, is different from the story at Paul's in that it is another  example of arrogance and self destruction that rates with the sad Sienna story. Thus, we keep getting questions about what actually happened with the 2087 location. 

For reasons that elude us a high-ranked city employee indicated that 2087 closed-months ago- because of parking issues with the city. Maybe. But  the obvious reason to me is that it was a poorly and arrogantly managed operation that had never made any money and the two angel investors decided that they would put no more money into a black hole. 

We have been given information that the property is either  being offered for sale at $3 million or perhaps for rental at $25,000 per month. With the Caruso center and restaurants opening in the Civic Plaza, one would wonder who would take that risk. Ask Paul about what happens when your rent is $25,000 a month and you have to do $4 million a year just to break even. 

Let's face it, 2087 couldn't cut it even though it had the appeal of being just a short walk across to those big events at the Plaza .

Riviera, the latest Tomasso Barletta enterprise has been  playing to sellout business in Calabasas most nights. He is  drawing heavily  from the entire South of Ventura Blvd self acclaimed foodie crowd from Encino to Woodland HIlls. Bluntly, there is not a restaurant in the entire S.F. valley with the decor and menu that is offered. In fact they were so overwhelmed at the start near the end of last year that service suffered. But it seems that with a lot of hard work Barletta and his team is getting it all under control. 

The Rendezvous in Newbury Park may now be moving into the 21st Century but under a different and perhaps more provocative name. Finally!!!  The restaurant has been around for about 3 decades and basically has never changed with the times. That  was OK for the first 13 years or so when it was the only upscale place in town before the advent of Tuscany, Mandevilla, Marcello's,  Le Cafe, Cafe Provencal, Rustico, Leila's,  P6, Alessio's, Paul's, Cafe 14  and others.

But the ownership never really seemed to care or be aware of what was happening in the industry and continued catering  to the same geriatric clientele with same type of 30-40 year old menu.  That also just about sunk the floundering  Bocaccio's until a third wave of management took that place over. The customer base was dieing off in both places. Walkers and canes were the main means of transportation 

John Gress, who was formerly the manager at Le Cafe and some  well known Westside spots is midway in the process of taking over with a soon to be, totally new menu that will appeal to the people that actually dine out often. He will also now be open for lunch at newly named "Tryst" which somehow seems more stimulating than the old Rendezvous.

John has the chops and will probably feature seafood, heavy on the crustaceans while leaning strongly on the new wave of Asian Fusion exotic food. He will surely also feature some heavy duty wine tasting evenings. One also  hopes that John has the resources to do some serious renovating. The restaurant needs it badly.

A French restaurateur that has kept up with the times is Serge Bonnet.  On the spur of the moment, we decided to have dinner at Cafe Provencal the other night and stumbled into their midweek tasting menu with 3 different wines served during the 5 course meal. ($37.50) His new young chef, Steve Monnier  has credentials from L' Orangerie and some 2-3 starred spots in France and it shows. Every small tasting plate was a stunner, ranging from a scallop ravioli starter followed by poached onaga, then to a wonderful cauliflower soup, braised duck and a fanciful dark chocolate dessert. The three wines were well-chosen and glasses were kept full.

A comparable tasting and wine menu in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and especially now in high roller Las Vegas would be about $100 a person.  It is astounding.