DOING PINWHEELS
Cheebo
By Arty Nelson
It's hard to know when enough is enough, and, quite frankly, it's a question I typically reserve for the lessers to explore. Me, I'm in the business of too much. I'm into finding the limits. The outer reaches of gastrointestinal acceptability. I mean, if I'm not doing that, then what's the point of all this? It's just the way it is. It's what a galoot signs up for when he vows to take half-good to the bitter and beautiful end.
This week's adventure took us to a controversial place: Cheebo on Sunset. A place that some have loved and lost in, and where others have only sacrificed. I happen to enjoy the place. I'd eaten lunch there several times, but never had I dared to darken the doorstep at the dining hour. No, this was a mission I had yet to accept, due at least in part to the fact that my wife doesn't care for the place. So I recruited my friend Joe, an editor at the enemy paper and all-around keeper of the most vicious and brutal flames.
The thing that's great about Cheebo is it has that still-in-my-first-five-years-of-living-in-L.A. vibe about it. It makes me want to drop 20 and blow the dust off those headshots, but, as they say, don't get me going about that. The place is a little crowded and, yes, even lively. The girls were quite hot and the guys were all working relatively good hairstyles. The music - well, honestly, I can't remember it, but I do remember thinking that it was very of the moment. Cheebo also has some good outside dining possibilities, but since I'm not that young anymore and, really more than anything, super soft from too many years of being out west, the notion of dining anywhere where it might be a little chill-chill is absolutely a no-no at this point in my life. But enough of that ambience crap; I'm starting to make myself sick.
So there I was, sitting next to the impossible Joe, when I made my entrée selection, something known heretofore as the Pinwheel: flank steak rolled with proscuitto, and provolone wrapped around in the layers. Served with some kind of fava bean, plus the cabbage and kale I ordered as sides. The meat was not bad and, as I was chewing, I reflected back on the highs and lows of a life that, thus far, has defied ambition in almost unspeakably delicious ways. Or, maybe more truthfully, a life that's soared to the middle based on a kind of unerring and slightly misplaced ambition. That's right, I said it, I've wanted all the right things for all the wrong people. The dreamer's version of too much too early. Singing songs about the southland in a language that most of the locals couldn't give a shit about. But what did it matter, really? I was sitting in a cozy, vaguely world- cuisine-y restaurant, and I was eating some kind of a bizarre beef dish that at once felt like an Italian delicacy, and something with a hint of some unspoken voodoo culture that I would only know for as long as I sat at that counter waiting for the despicable Joe to get his cookie platter.
Let's face it, folks, dining isn't always easy. Things come up and feelings get hurt, but that doesn't mean that the three top industry girls don't find you sort of intriguing when they glance over at your balding skull. At least that's what it seemed like as I was still reeling from the effects of my succulent platter of rolled beef and veggie sides.
I know, it's a lot to take in without the promise of much in return, but why shouldn't a food column be a kind of funhouse mirror of life? How much closer to anything can this kind of hogwash get, really? Go to the place, Cheebo. It's worth a try. It might be for you, and, then again, you might feel like my wife and have to count to a thousand not to look back in anger. But I will say this: For $14.95, that Pinwheel will fill you with red meat in a good way. And isn't that so much of what any of us are always looking for? A sated moment with a loose cannon like Joe, who you explain to people is an old friend just to cover all the bases. It's a treacherous game, I tell you. One that everyone should play with a measured degree of enthusiasm. Ciao.
Published: 02/12/2004
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