My friends are foodies. Many of us follow blogs and twitter accounts of "celebrity chefs" and popular restaurants and get email updates from numerous resources about up and coming restaurants as well as special events. Yes, this is why the terrorists hate us.
Back in April 2010 my friend Sarah had made reservations for her, me, and Jessica to go to Ludo Bites http://www.ludobites.com/ Ludo Bites is a pop-up restaurant that is the brain child of celebrity chef/super French hottie Ludo Lefebvre. He basically comandeers a kitchen for a couple of weeks at a time and borrows a restuarant and serves his yummy goodness to throngs of adoring foodie fans. This incarnation was in Culver City at Akasha http://www.akasharestaurant.com/ It was to be a "fried chicken night" but was also a Top Chef Masters Viewing and Ludo Birthday Party.
Our reservation was for 9:30pm and when we got there everything was in full swing. It was wall-to-wall people and everyone looked fed and happy. Turns out the dinner was a $40 All-you-can-eat buffet (sort of). For $40 all of the side dishes and desserts were AYCE, but the special Ludo Chicken was not. Your purchase entitled you to 3 succulent, ginormous fried chicken chunks (I would say balls, but they weren't chicken testicles and I didn't want to confuse you).
Being a connoisseur of all things fried and all things "side" I happily dug in and filled my plate. Even though you were limited to 3 pieces of chicken they were so huge it didn't matter. Jess, Sarah and I ate and chatted and people watched and enjoyed ourselves tremendously. Once we finished eating Jess & I noted that we did not finish our chicken. Now I am not a cheap person, nor am I am huge leftover person, but when I pay $40 for some chicken, I get my money's worth. Jess had said 'I wish I could take my piece home to Tony (her boyfriend), but it's a buffet and that's totally a no-no". Sarah then chimed in with "Well, the sides are the buffet part, so I think it is fine if you take just the chicken". I agreed, and passed her my leftover piece to take to Tony as well. Very discreetly and under the cover of many giggles (of both joy and embarrassment) Jess stealthly wrapped up the 2 giant chicken balls and placed them in her purse at a hummingbird warped speed.
Sidenote: Jess & I agree on almost EVERYTHING. Fashion, Food, Movies, Books. You name it and we are 99.9% certain to agree about it. When we acknowledged that the chicken should go in the purse, we both were absolutely shamed about it, but Asians and Jews are not wasteful people, so it had to be done.
After a little more talking we realized that the restaurant had pretty much emptied out and we should bail. We got up and slowly started making our way towards the front. Just then, Ludo appeared in all of his super Frechie Chef Hotness and was shaking hands and thanking some guests. As he passed by us, I just politely said "Thank you so much, we had a wonderful time."
Much to all of our surprises, he stopped, turned around and came to talk to us. This freaked us out on 2 levels. 1) He is all hot and famous and French and 2) Jess had a purse full of chicken. It felt like a giant flashing arrow was over our head pointing down at her purse.
As much as we would have loved to wax poetic about how extraordinary the evening was with the man of the hour, Jess & I were ready to hightail it out of there, but Sarah was not one to miss out on the opportunity to engage the scrumptious Ludo in a little pleasant convo.
As Jess & I slowly inched from the door we made smiles at Ludo and had a completely tacit conversation conveying the urgency of leaving, Sarah was chatting. Then Ludo asked " Did you really like zeee chickeeeen?" To which Sarah replied "Oh yes, it was delicious. In fact we liked it so much she has some in her purse."
It was at this point that Jess & I DIED. Just completely collapsed on the floor in a big heaping pile of humiliation. Oh, no, that was just my personal Ally McBeal-esque hallucination that I wished had happened. Instead, we just froze. Jess, turned GHOST WHITE. I just made horrible nervous uncomfortable shame giggle-like noises. Jess what shaking her head like "I have no idea what she is talking about. Clearly she's delusional." Jess was staring at me with death ray intensity. The silent communication between Jess and I went something like this:
Jess: Holy sh*t! Did she just say what I think she just said?
Me: Uh, yeah. Ohmygod! Ohmygod! OHMYGOD!
Jess: I want to kill myself.
Me: There a is a plate glass window behind me we can jump through if that works you?
Jess: Does she hate me or something?
Me: Maybe if we close our eyes and think real hard we can reverse the space time continuum?
All the while, Ludo is just chatting away with Sarah like nothing. The next thing we heard was Sarah saying "It's for her boyfriend". Ludo then asked "Do zhou need more?" To which Sarah replied "Well, he is a big guy".
That is when our "world got flipped turned upside down." Next thing we know, Ludo gently takes Jess by the arm (who is looking at me like, please don't let him take me) and leads her to the kitchen. Sarah & I followed like helpless lemmings. Ludo then grabs a large stryofoam container and filled it with 10 more chicken balls (in my Jew-math mind that is $130 worth of chicken). All the while Jess is pleading with him, "Thank you so much, but this really isn't necessay." But Ludo insisted.
He handed her the container of chicken and while kindly wagging his index finger inches in front of her face said "Now you make sure heat up in oven. No microwaves. You mussst respect! You Must Reeeeespect Zeeee Chicken!"
Jess just nodded and looked at me with eyes that said "Get me the f*ck out of here." We thanked him again and took off leaving 3 girl-shaped vapor clouds in our wake.
ADDENDUM
A few nights later, Sarah and I recounted the story to our friends on our Bar Trivia team. They insisted we name our team that night "Respect the Chicken" We came in 2nd place that night.
Sarah also told the story in a contest on a foodie website (with considerably less shame references) and won free tickets to the Taste of Beverly Hills. She took Jess & I as her guests where we ate and drank til our hearts content. Sarah also saw Ludo and his beatiful wife and approached them. Apparently they had read the story Sarah had entered and thought it was hysterical.
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| This is what delicious shame looks like |
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