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Nation's Restaurant News, Dec 23, 1996 by Richard Martin

As 1996 winds down to a close, I thought I'd share a few personal picks and pans, bouquets and brickbats, kudos and criticisms, huzzahs and humbugs, hugs and shrugs - you get the idea - inspired by events and experience of the year gone by

Thumbs up to the creative financing scheme of a gutsy father-and-son team of restaurateurs in Bakers-field, Calif. In June they notched first-year sales of $1.2 million of their 65-seat Uricchio's Trattoria, which has become one of that city's dining hot spots. To complete the capitalization of their start-up last year, patriarch Nick Uricchio and his son, Steve, tapped their 34 credit cards for maximum cash advances totaling $150,000. Veterans of restaurants in Beverly Hills, Calif., the Uricchios brought confidence, sophistication and business savvy to the venture, for which their unsuspecting financiers must be thankful.

Thumbs down to all the poorly trained buspersons and hovering servers who moved in to clear away my plate while I was still eating, sometimes just as l'd lifted a forkful to my mouth. Ditto to those coffee refillers who upset my cream-and-sugar balance midcup.

Thumbs up to what might be called "room-meal replacement" at the Kea Lani Hotel in Wailea, Hawaii. Recognizing changes in our gustatory lifestyles, the luxurious, all-suites-and-villas resort on Maui offers worthy alternatives to room-service dining, for vacationers who occasionally might like selecting their own packaged-to-go comestibles from displays in the hotel's stylish Italian deli-cafe. Those items can be carried, perhaps with a baked-to-order brick-oven pizza, back to one's private lanai for a customized repast. In-suite refrigerators and microwaves are among a full complement of amenities, including CD and video laserdisc players.

Thumbs up to Carl's Jr. for introducing a chili-cheese burger with onions and really good, thick, meaty chili. Not that the chain's other burgers aren't just fine, but with a little customizing of the chili item - adding tomato, pickle and mustard - one could obtain a reasonable facsimile of the signature dish of Tommy's World Famous Hamburgers, a 50-year-old institution in Los Angel.

Thumbs down to the Carl's Jr. chain for yanking the short-lived chili burger. Blame really goes to those customers who, I'm told. failed to order the test item in sufficient numbers.

Thumbs up to those cookbook publishers who again included beautifully, composed, technically superior color food photography in their tomes, conveying a more palpable sense of the chef-authors' artistry. Among recent examples are handsome books by San Francisco chef-owners Hubert Keller and Reed Hearon and others by Honolulu-based Roy Yamaguchi and L.A.'s Joachim Splichal. For years it seemed that art-work work inside many chefs' cookbooks was limited to sketches or a few monochromatic pix.

Thumbs down to the breathy kitchen hand - and his supervisors and trainers - at an outlet of a grilled-chicken chain. Prepping for the next shift, the worker was observed methodically blowing into single-portion plastic bag., to open them so they could be filled with tortillas. And a downward digit to all the restaurant cashiers who habitually lick their fingertips to peel off bills, forcing me to pocket their salivary residues.

Thumbs up to California's apparent trend toward simplicity in upscale dining, with fewer over-the-top "architectural" presentations and waning concerns about a chefs celebrity status. Diners seemed less likely to boast, "I was at [this-or-that new place] last night" and more inclined to report, "I ate a super steak [or whatever] last night." As an unfortunate consequence, there seemed to be less attention paid to the relative dearth of interesting, new restaurants this year in Los Angeles, such as 2424 Pico and JiRaffe.

Thumbs up to improved quick-service operations geared to maturing Baby Boomers. A good example is the quality-food orientation of a home-meal-replacement concept like Los Angeles-based Koo Koo Roo. Such KKR specialties as hand-carved roasted turkey and plenty of fresh vegetables cooked in small batches - asparagus, baked yams and artichokes, for instance - lessened the guilt of parents opting for mealtime convenience.

Thumbs down to a few city councils in Southern California, for making chain developers paranoid about the possible spread of construction moratoriums and building bans targeting drive-thrus. Some of the municipalities, concerns are legitimate, prompted by incidences of squawk-box ordering noise at late-night drive-thrus near apartment buildings. But cities, kneejerk worries about litter and traffic congestion seemed overblown. Encroachment-wary franchisees, however, must be applauding the nascent trend toward building restrictions.

Thumbs up to the erudite readers of Nation's Restaurant News and this regional "report." On behalf of my fellow columnists, I wish a happy new year to all!