Kiss the Cilantro for Me

There are thousands of restaurants in L.A., including a few five-stars and an abundance of others whose collations require ketchup poured over them before the food is considered edible. Even the custard pudding needs help.

I eat mostly at little Italian places on the corner, where a nameless red house wine is served in chipped glasses and one suspects the pasta may have been an uneaten portion off someone else’s plate.

I got used to chowing down like that in Oakland, where a food establishment is considered gourmet if nothing on the plate moves. Members of the Oakland A’s still dine at such eateries, which results in a pathological condition that obviously impedes athletic performance.

I mention this to stress that my background does not include the kind of training that would prepare me to write about food. I either like what I eat or I don’t, whether it is foie de veau prepared by Wolfgang Puck or chili over eggs by Mama Consuela.

Which is why I was somewhat surprised to receive a letter from Carlos Haro, owner of Venice’s Casablanca restaurant, that began, “Dear Mr. Martinez. As a food and dining expert, you. . . .�

It was an invitation to judge a new gourmet dish Carlos had created. Since I had never been asked to discuss anything I ate, I said to my wife, “I smell a column.� She said, “Poor Carlos.�

It was a new experience. We found ourselves among people who could actually tell the difference between a clam and an oyster. There were restaurant critics not only from L.A., but from Mexico and Japan.

They nibbled at their food and then smacked their lips ever so slightly, as though throwing baby kisses to the air. Then they’d look off to the middle distance, savoring the subtle tones of tangy sauces.

“Isn’t that beautiful?� I said to Cinelli, watching them baby-kiss, then either nod in approval or make those squinty little faces food experts make when they aren’t sure. “They’re such cute little buggers.�

“You’ve learned something new,� Cinelli said. “Now you can baby-kiss after your Big Macs.�

Carlos’ new creation was something called an enchiLaCa. It’s meant as kind of a hip Mexican joke, see, like the “La� stands for L.A. and the “Ca� means California. Hence, enchiLaCa.

It’s called that, Carlos explained, because L.A. people like to try new things, and also some enchiLaCas are filled with vegetables, which L.A. people like very much.

At least that’s what I think he said. Carlos has been up from Mexico only a few years, and doesn’t speak good English.

And since I don’t speak Spanish at all, there was something of a communication problem.

For instance, it took five minutes for us to work out that “angreliants� meant ingredients, as in they are composed of very selected angreliants.

It took even longer to learn one of the enchiLaCas was filled with chayote. It is a tropical vine off of which grows a grotesque squash-like thing.

“Is good,� Carlos explained, “but skin is look ugly.�

“If you didn’t drink martinis,� Cinelli whispered, “you’d know what he’s saying. Look at the food experts, they’re only sipping a little champagne. It keeps their taste buds happy, but sober.�

Casablanca’s decor is fashioned after Rick’s Place in The Famous Movie of the same name, although its specialty is Mexican food with angreliants. A star of the evening was 75-year-old Dan Seymour, one of the last of the actors who was in “Casablanca.�

Dan is a big-bellied man who played the Arab guard at Rick’s. He tells terrific stories about Bogart and the others, some of which last longer than the movie itself.

One of the stories was about Ingrid Bergman riding a camel, or maybe it was a giraffe. Dan began telling the story during the soup and was still telling it when the food critics were baby-kissing the dessert.

We were at the same table with David Westheimer, an owlish little Texan who wrote “Von Ryan’s Express� and “My Sweet Charlie,� among other best sellers.

I guess he’s something of a gourmet, which is why he was invited. He said the food was terrific, they didn’t have things like that in Houston.

You can bet your royalties on that. I’ve been to Houston and know for a fact that many of their chefs were trained in Oakland.

The food experts gave the enchiLaCas high marks. You could hear their taste buds singing vivacissimo in three languages as they left.

I said to Cinelli as she drove us home, “I really liked that stuff.�

“Good,� she said, “that will no doubt appear in subsequent ads. ‘I really liked that stuff’--Al Martinez, Gourmet-in-Training.’ It’s a shame you don’t baby-kiss.�

I’m working on it.