Dear Friends and Family,

        If it wasn't called Detroit, you might call it Wobegon, Michigan. My hometown was in extremis long before the economy soured. The whiplash of recession and unemployment has been especially brutal. So I almost whooped with joy when I read that General Motors would pay $4000 or more in profit-sharing bonuses to each of its 48,000 assembly line workers.

        The $189 million earmarked for the hourly crew is more than double the record payment of $1775 they got in 1999 when the company was riding a boom in SUV's and pickup trucks. To think that just two years ago you and I had to bail out the company and we still own 25%.

        Next, the urge to honor RoboCop struck the city. It seems that a handful of Detroiters decided it would build local pride to erect a statue of the cyborg that saved the day in the 1987 science-fiction film shot there. Like the Rocky sculpture in Philadelphia. Given the desperate needs of the Motor City, the mayor was not moved. So local boosters set up DetroitNeedsRoboCop.com and in six days $50,000 was raised to build a seven-foot tall iron replica of the crime-fighting hero. Buoyed by their success, the young Internet activists hope the city will be inspired to find new ways to tackle bigger problems.

   
        When chef-owner John Fraser of three-star Dovetail announced he would open What Happens When on a shoestring, with a new design every month and then close it in September, it sounded definitely pop-uppy to me. "Don't call it a pop up," he protested. "This is about taking chances and growth, pushing the limits and boundaries of what a restaurant can be," he insisted.

        With his designer, a graphic artist, and a composer friend sharing the risk, and a small pot of construction funds from backers on Kickstart.com, he launched the 64 seat spot in Soho, spiffily dressed in black and white. What's more important than a dining out revolution to eaters like you and me is what's coming out of the kitchen. What we're eating is pure Fraser, sophisticated and mostly remarkable, unusual assemblages on every plate that I cannot imagine coming from any other chef. Will you want to go once a month just to witness the design evolution? Maybe. For details, click here.

      
        I'm not always game for jokester-chef David Burke's whimsies. Angry lobster served on a bed of nails turned me off. And bubble gum cheesecake suggested our palates existed in separate realities. But his swordfish chop and salmon pastrami were inspired. Surely letting him loose to play with sports bar comfort food was sometime a great notion. So I couldn't wait to claim a spot at Bowlmor's new Stadium Grill.

        I'd read raves about Burke's revved-up nachos that day in Times Dining. I doubted we'd even get a table after that salute. So what a surprise. No nachos. No crowd. There were more plasma screens streaming testosterone than people watching.

        I'm filled with high hope discovering the small, warmed pretzel roll, one for each of us, though I'm not as keen on the mustard-butter as my tablemates. And the eccentricity of a few fried brie croquettes thrown in cannot spoil a smackingly well-dressed Caesar with enough big crunchy romaine heart leaves for all. It's David Burke after all. You can eat while you bowl too. It was only later I realized we'd eaten our fried grapes in the hallowed halls of what once was the NYTimes tower. I imagined Clifton Daniel's ghost in its bespoke suit roaming the lanes and Craig Claiborne wrinkling his nose over the fried brie croquettes.

        I wasn't going to miss Wolfgang Puck doing high-style Chinese at WP24, atop the downtown Ritz Carlton, never mind a downpour. It seemed to me pretty cheeky of a white boy from Austria to dare chive crystal dumplings. But I had tasted his Peking duck stuffed into steamed buns at last year's Silver Spoons feast for Citymeals. It was so good I had trouble looking Shun Lee's Michael Tong straight in the eye as I put away my third bun.

        Like any gourmand with errands in Hong Kong and Singapore, Puck has eaten great Chinese food, but it may be his partner, executive chef Lee Hefter's obsession with Asian cooking that's behind the brilliance. It's a ridiculously long walk through the bar-lounge to the darkened dining room, with black perforated tubes of sparkle overhead and its thrilling 24TH floor view of what has become hip, chic, hyper-cultural downtown Los Angeles.

        Being with the author of the city's venerable Jay Weston's Restaurant Newsletter doesn't hurt. No menus for us. Weston and Hefter are buddies. Wolf's brother Klaus uncorks a fizzy Austrian white and the seduction begins: a parade of dim sum, nice enough, good, and very good, the last, a big fat tremulous scallop escorting a shrimp sui mai dumpling in ginger-garlic crab sauce.

        Foie gras bao? Sweet caramelized chunks arrive bursting from the classic white bun. I take a bite and my head explodes. The wild mushroom and king crab hot and sour soup is a perfect example of Hefter deciding that mere perfect authenticity isn't good enough. This hot and sour is tangy with vinegar, but sweet, too, from fresh water chestnuts, islands of prawn wontons and fried ginger bits.

        Unable to get the crab he'd have in Asia, Hefter serves Singapore-style chili prawns instead, in a puddle of fresh crab, fried garlic, chili, scallions and pickled ginger. Giant prawns, perfectly cooked.

        "Shall we bring out the duck?" Brother Klaus asks.

        "Shouldn't we taste one more dish first?" I repond. "Who knows when I'll be back In L.A. again?" Not too cool. Out come two pounds of "Angry" red Szechuan lobster -- promptly uncorseted from its shell -- A lush, impeccably cooked creature in a slick of sauce, with black bean "dust," hot, but not fiery. I dare not touch a stir fry of slow cooked Kobe beef cheeks because I am so focused on that duck. Not merely the few morsels I expected, but the whole bird, just for the two of us, divided into large triangles of crispy, defatted skin on triangles of flesh, rather dryish, alas, to stuff into buns with the traditional chive, cucumber and Hoisin.

        Though I know better, I have to finish spicy chicken chow fun, thinking how the Road Food Warrior would relish those marvelous noodles. He would ignore the Lop Cheung sausage fried rice because he knows when he's had enough. But I do not.  

        The 23 year-old pastry chef Sally Camacho came out to pay homage to Weston -- the chef de cuisine is a woman too, Sara Johannes. A quartet of desserts follows, including a bruléed frozen passion fruit mousse, gossamer panna cotta and an ode to Chez Point's stunning gateau Marjolaine - only a third as many layers, but sensational. For the public, WP24 offers three courses for $80, four for $110. Our outrageous indulgence might have required me to leave behind my jewelry. I'll never know. The house refused to give Weston a bill.  

        Well, perhaps a blushing Little Neck resembles a baby's ear. And the powerful brininess of a cherrystone forces the aesthete to look beyond mere good looks. But let's face it, a razor clam unleashed from its long narrow shell, so like an old fashioned straight razor, looks a lot like a worm. And that has discouraged even adventurous eaters. 

***   

Invitation from Daniel and Me    

        When Daniel says come in blue jeans, he's thinking of a casual Sunday dinner with just a few friends, 150 or so, gathered for what has become this passionate chef's generous tradition to help feed the city's frail homebound elderly. It's the Michelin four-star son of Lyon's annual benefit for Citymeals-on-Wheels: "Burgundy, Bordeaux, Black Truffles and Blue Jeans," at Restaurant Daniel on Sunday, March 6.

        We all dress down, more or less. There's a silent auction with Champagne and hors d'oeuvre to start And a noisy auction at the end. Last year I recall sockless men in loafers bidding for one-of-a-kind dream travel packages challenged by women in blue jeans and major diamonds. Each year Boulud's chefs are joined by celebrated toques. This year he has invited Gerald Passédat of Marseille's Le Petit Nice to add a taste of the sea. I'll be there and would love to see you there too. Only a few seats are left. I mean it, just a handful. Call 212 687 1290. I find it fitting when delicious excess is marshaled to fight hunger.

Photos of scallop and crystal shrimp dumpling, the Angry Lobster and the Peking duck from WP24 in Los Angeles may not be used without permission of Gael Greene.    

              
Fork Play copyright Gael Greene 2011.