Before I left Boston for LA we had the hottest days of the summer. While my roommate and friends were complaining of exhaustion and void of any energy, I was charged; laying carpet, cooking, cleaning and designing my t-shirts. That is the weather that my body is supposed to be in, it must be in my Mediterranean genes. Moist heat is glorious to me.

So here is another little amusing story involving faulty memory. To make sure the full effect is administered I must give you the history. I hooked up with this guy a while back when I was still living in Boston full time. It was fine, no fireworks, bells or trombones, but decent. Well I had seen him upon my returning here off and on and I said hi to him every time. Every time I said hi I was met with a smug response that led to me to believe he was a dick; typical stereo type Boston Mofo.

I was not going to back down and I kept saying hello to him and kept getting the same response. Fine. Whateva! Then I met some co-workers out, an old friend had returned from NYC and was working back with all of us at Aquitaine, so the evening was very sentimental since it was the first time I had seen him since he was back. As I walked in to the bar who was my friend sitting with? You got it….the MOFO. I became quite cocky and confrontational. When we were introduced, he acting as if he never met me and I responded with “Good to see you again” “Again? Have we met?”

This cannot be real, is he serious? But he was. I then moved over next to him and began to tell him how we met. His smug look was replaced with a blank stare. It was then that I realized that this was not the man I had slept with. I told him that I thought we had been together and he said that it wasn’t so because he would have surely remembered. Good answer. After ordering another beer and a couple of nervous laughs, I shook it off and asked him for his card.

Yesterday marked the end of the first of two weeks that make up “Restaurant Week 2006.” I have a love hate relationship with it. This year because we had so much fun last year and the years prior we decided to add another week.

What is really is a chance for us and others to showcase our stuff so to speak. We offer two dishes for the entrées and also offer a choice of two first courses. Mousse Au Chocolate is the only dessert option; quick, easy, f$!@#%g good and easy to make in batches in 20. This wherein lies my love, volume. Volume is the key to surviving a $40 check average. From 5:30 to about 9 we are steady and fully seated. Turn and Burn is what we say, “get em in get em out.”

Having a limited menu really helps this along. The time required to deliberate over one of two first and main courses usually ends in somebody taking one and the other person taking the other; it is the only logical way to go. Having the dessert already ordered eliminates 10 minutes at least from the turn time. After the Mousse is on the table long enough for the guests to be completely enveloped in chocolate ecstasy, the check is down and I am asking for valet tickets.

I have the ability to turn tables very quickly without sacrificing level of service or coming across as pushy; it’s a skill. However, there is only so much you can do. There are those times when the guest has the upper hand and will not budge hence, my hate. The car is outside, there are no water glasses in front of them, the silverware is resting on the side station behind them ready for the next seating and the next scheduled party is actually standing behind them, but they do not notice. Instead they pick at breadcrumbs and ignore any and everything around them. This will kill you. This did kill me, luckily it was Thursday and I had Friday and Saturday off.

There was a party of 4 that was 50 minutes late. That is one full turn on 2 deuces that I missed, not to mention throwing Don’s carefully calculated floor plan into Code Red. They were fully aware of the mistake and apologized to Don and to me when they sat. Don whispered in my ear as I approached them that I had to have them out in 48 minutes. I was confident in my ability and confident that they would move along fast enough for us to recover from their costly mistake, well you would think!

They chose to stray from the fixed price menu and ordered from our limited regular menu. 15 minutes lost. They also ordered a bottle of wine, normally this is good for check averages, but during times like these all corners are cut and there is no time for savoring a bottle of Medoc. I began to accept my defeat.

I cleared the dinner plates after continuous harassment of one of the female patrons over a small dice of Filet. Surveying the table early on I knew that these two girls were sisters that inexplicably had some sort of social arrangement with the two guys who reminded me very well of…. well… “TARDS”. They were corny, flirting sloppily while trying to get these girls drunk enough to justify hanging out with them. The whole thing was very nauseating to witness.

At one point during dessert and the second bottle of wine I caught a glimpse of what looked like an attempt to read of the girls’ palms. He stared intently and interestingly into her hand while she glared into the other direction looking very stoned and fixed on the floral arrangement that rested on the breaker wall in front of her. I dropped the check directly in front of his flow of cosmic garble. 20 minutes later I saw him talking at the same girl in front of the restroom. I asked him if he had a valet ticket rather sternly and waited until he fussed in all 5 pockets before he found it; he asked me,

“Are you kicking me out?” (sad chuckle)

“Well sort of, yeah. We are running pretty tight up there now” I said it a tone that was supposed to be a bit punishing. I think it worked because as soon as he returned the TARDS both produced a credit card that was processed before they took their next breath.

I never recovered from that little foil, but I did go out that night and met somebody, that I thought I had known before, but as it was made clear to me, I was sadly, and embarrassingly wrong.