Pinot Grill, Downtown Los Angeles

If you're going to Los Angeles, pack your bags...your grocery bags that is. You will be hungry before you reach your destination. On a recent weekend jaunt to L.A. my co-horts Jennifer and Jennifer (yes) thought it would be nice to have dinner before seeing 9 to 5: The Musical and have a nice affordable dinner out beforehand. The show started at 8pm, we had to travel 15miles, that's 15 miles, so we left at 5:30, allowing plenty of time to get there, and find a reasonable dining locale. Our first mistake was not leaving at 2pm to travel, once again, only 15 miles from the hotel to the theatre. Our second mistake was not packing a picnic lunch for the incredible journey on which we were about to embark. Literally, it took 90 minutes to go, again, I must repeat the distance, because it's so insane, 15 miles. On a Saturday!!! SATURDAY!! I think we devoured all the crumbs in the car before we arrived. Okay, side bar, you're probably wondering why we were so hungry, we just drove from Northern California. Back to the story, at this point in time, there are only two places close enough for us to be seated and eat, both right there at the theatre. I don't remember the name of the once place we walked into, but we didn't have time to take out a loan for soup, so we went back upstairs to the Pinot Grill.
We were seated right away. If there hadn't been gale force winds, the setting would have been great, outside near a fountain, under the stars of the warm Los Angeles night. Our server was both nice and entertaining. The server assistants were friendly and nice to look at. I ordered a Cosmo. The smallest, most expensive Cosmo I've ever had. It was $13 (with Grey Goose) and came in one of those half-size martini glasses. I wanted to ask if I could have the other half with dinner. Next we had to decide what to eat. We should have known by all the $17 hamburgers being served that that was our best bet. Jennifer, not to be confused with Jennifer (hee hee) ordered a bowl of soup, for like, $10, since she didn't get an overpriced half-size cocktail. She said it was good, but not $10 good. Jennifer and I ordered the skirt steak, the $27 skirt steak, key word, skirt steak...$27...other Jennifer ordered the $25 salmon. When the server assistant brought our skirt steaks out and called it a hamburger, for which he apologized, stating he's been serving hamburgers all day, that should have been our second clue. Frankly, the food was just not worth the price, $7.99 would have been more appropriate. The skirt steak was overcooked and somewhat tough and Jennifer said her salmon was just okay. That was honestly the most overpriced, overcooked, worst meal I have ever had. A Lyon's or Denny's should open down there, they'd very well! Until then, my recommendation: unless you give yourself a good half day lead, don't eat at Pinot Grill, do pack a lunch and a flask.