Lakers 108, Mavs 104, OT - The Laker's season just keeps getting sweeter. This time, it was all Kobe Bryant -- who managed to score even when triple-teamed. End result? 52 points, including 22 in the 4th quarter and 8 in OT. It was the first game between the refurbished Laker's (Pau Gasol had 17 points and 14 rebounds) and the refurbished Mavs (Jason Kidd had 15 points and 11 assists). The win keeps Los......

So I'm at the Cheesecake Factory in the Sherman Oaks Galleria one night - you know how that goes - and my dinner companion and I decide to order some appetizers, even though the Cheesecake Factory practices the most horrible crimes of unhealthily-large-portion-sizes ever committed upon humanity. I want something light to start, so I tell the waiter: "I'll have the bruschetta, please." "One order of the bru-SHET-a?" "Um, yes. And I want the......

LAist has been giving a lot of love recently to the many fine eating establishments that exist all over the basin. No matter what type of cuisine you like, there’s a long list of restaurants that can meet the grade. However, there’s also been a noticeable lack of Orange County representation in these reviews. True, 95% of the non-five-star restaurants in OC are chains not worthy of being reviewed, unless you want to debate......

Columnist Art Buchwald passed away peacefully on Thursday at the age of 81. He was best known as a political satirist who helped keep the Washington establishment in check. Though, as he observed, "If you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough, they will make you a member of it." Buchwald left his mark locally, too. He was a USC alumni and made the school proud when he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982.......

We'll confess, Studio City's Asanebo was not our Plan A for sushi eating. Our visit to this small, strip-mall sushi spot located in the middle of the Valley's boulevard of sushi bars happened on the fly, a Plan B that was put into action when Plan A failed miserably. What was Plan A, you might ask? Well, we'd been plotting a trip to Hollywood's Sushi Ike for ages, only to discover that they'd opted......

And so, The Cheesecake Factory went forth and begat a child, The Grand Lux Cafe, and the child blossomed in LA at the base of the shopper's temple, The Beverly Center. And the hungry masses flocked to her tables and dined on enormous portions of inventive food. And two heathens had a leisurely late Saturday lunch one spring weekend, bestowing (reluctant) praise to the gods of pseudo-luxury dining. We were starving. We'd wandered the......

We know you've been clamoring for more dish about The Grove, and a recent afternoon outing left us right in the middle of that strange and beautiful place, with a hunger for a light lunch and an eye on all the eye candy. We strode past the big restaurants with their enormous patios full of pretty people paying too much for sandwiches, and our eyebrows rose in a mix of disgust and curiosity as......

We here at LAist know that without tourists, well, Los Angeles would be a city with far fewer Cheesecake Factory restaurants. But the nameless, camera-toting visitors to our city have their own opinions and thoughts about the City of Angels. This is just one of those opinions, as overheard at the Lucky Strike bowling alley at the Hollywood & Highland complex. Him: So, what do you think of Los Angeles? Her: Seems sort of......

There's nothing like a chain restaurant to get the juices flowing. In reality, LAist finds comfort in knowing that if we see a chain restaurant somewhere (no fast food joints, people) that we can probably get the exact taste we want just by ordering a signature dish we've had at another location of same said restaurant. I mean, isn't that what a chain restaurant is all about -- the same dining experience no matter......

Madame Wu’s had probably the best location of any restaurant in the Grove – right next to the movie theater, right by the garage – and it had a great balcony for ogling/spitting on the pedestrians below. (You know it was tempting.) But there was a reason it was also typically the easiest restaurant to get into. The food was, well, not very good. Alas, a sign in front of Madame Wu’s announces that......

If you're on a blind date, one of the best ways to judge your companion is to observe how he or she is treating the waiter. If they're sniping at every tiny delay in service, demanding Sprite refills every five seconds and sending their food back multiple times for imaginary inadequacies, odds are that's how they're going to be treating you in a few months. So run. It's a sad fact of life in......