Stinking Rose: A Pictoral Essay

Americas - USA West Los Angeles
8

[quote=“ElsieDee, post:7, topic:5113”]
CH mods or admins, per normal, chose not to do anything.
[/quote]The other thing the mods didn’t do was stop you guys from going on a ridiculously off-topic tangent, which was a good thing (highly amusing) and one of the things I miss about CH. Some of the threads would start, stop, start back up and go on for years collecting new posters along the way… sigh. This was a great post @ElsieDee. Thanks! But who the hell is this Sergio already?

P.S. I’m a cat scaring snorter too.

1 Like
9

I love how all the pics have a pink tinge. Nothing says high-class romance like a bordello.

8 Likes
10

The pan of roasted garlic and bread is no joke…we used to love starting a meal with that dish…and then be too stuffed to eat anything else. I

3 Likes
11

Someone entered the thread and legit said steak at The Outback was the best steak they ever had… holy shit, that tops even the Stinking Rose oddity!

If it really was a relationship management company, it is insane that they couldn’t put more effort into it. If I was paying a company to make me look amazing online I would sue them for putting that little effort in. Paying a random person to just produce real reviews signed with their name would hardly have cost anything.

1 Like
12

The Keith Gilabert relationship management theory was just that, a theory. He could have just as easily been a bot. There were all kinds of weirdos on Chowhound. The only people that were consistently kicked off were overtly spammy or glaring trolls.

1 Like
13

??? I guess you might have missed the other half of the running joke (two different jokes/two different restaurants/many threads between CH and here—somehow they got combined)…Sergio is the chef @ Mariscos Chente (he’s moved around various family-owned Mexican seafood restaurants)

3 Likes
14

Pan roasted garlic smeared on bread does seem delicious.

2 Likes
15

Hi @TheCookie,

Actually that statement is only partially true. Earlier it was like that (more open), but CH became a very unforgiving, militant board when they were sold and when changes started coming and they ignored feedback.

4 Likes
16

@TheCookie I think we go off-topic on fun tangents frequently enough over here…and @ipsedixit and the rest of the community rolls along with us on the ride. Being on FTC has been a lot of fun…even when we may disagree to disagree with each other. CH was increasingly less fun over time.

5 Likes
17

@TheCookie It’s really simple, but super addicting…and filling. Now that we talk about it, I may need to drop on by when I find myself in that neighborhood next.

2 Likes
18

The Stinking Rose needs to be celebrated.

It may very well have been the seed that was sowed (right in front of the Chowhound Moderators), and which ultimately germinated into FTC.

Anyone who doesn’t get the Stinking Rose probably also doesn’t understand the spirit of the community here.

2 Likes
19

I actually find it far easier to believe that theory than that someone ate at CUT and then had the filet at the Stinking Rose and actually found it far superior to anything at CUT, or anywhere else in all of LA.

1 Like
20

Have you been to the original one in SF . I wondered how they compared . I walked past the one in the city plenty of times and never went in . Just figured it was kind of like Bucca di Beppo . Not that there is anything wrong with that . To many other restaraunts to choose from .

1 Like
21

Okay. I can’t respond to everyone. So here it is. No dig on FTC. I love it and am here to stay. My main problem with CH was the technical difficulties; then long time posters that I came to like and follow started leaving. I wasn’t there long enough to experience the b.s. you guys did. A Chowhounder - I don’t know who - found a way to slip me the info for this board. Here I am. But there is no harm in reminiscing about the fun parts of CH. It is one of the things I like about FTC; you can be free to discuss other forums.

Hah! @LAgirl. I was kidding… kind of. I’ve seen other posts about Sergio and caught on to the Where’s Waldo aspect. Thanks! You cleared things up for me… a bit :confused:. But it doesn’t matter; I don’t need to know everything. I just like this thread and reading you longtime chowhounders having fun with each other. It’s what attracted me there and inspired me to come here in the first place.

[quote=“ipsedixit, post:18, topic:5113”]
Anyone who doesn’t get the Stinking Rose probably also doesn’t understand the spirit of the community here.
[/quote]You had me until you got to this part. So once again… Go F yourself.

Happy Garlic & Steak Eating!

22

I tried the Stinking Rose in SF once soon after they opened. Tourist trap. I think you could eat better at Buca di Beppo.

23

Hi @TheCookie,

I’ll try and recount the legend of Sergio to the best of my memory (other FTCers who remember, please chime in if I didn’t remember right! ;))…

Chef Sergio Penuelas and his wife Maria Penuelas founded a little, delicious hole-in-the-wall eatery focusing on Sinaloan cuisine, called Mariscos Chente. It was noteworthy not only for the great food, but that it was on the Westside. Legit, delicious, authentic Sinaloan food that was convenient for many on the Westside. :slight_smile:

He ended up having marital issues and got divorced, and I think before things were totally split up, he was cooking less and less at Chente, then not at all. His replacement wasn’t as good, so people would chime in (there was an open kitchen so you could see in), if “Sergio was cooking” that day or not.

If he wasn’t, that was the reason the food wasn’t as good.

He moved on to his father-in-law’s(?) restaurant in Inglewood IIRC, so that was good news… except we found out he wasn’t there full-time. :frowning: So people showing up also had to see “if Sergio was cooking that day.” If he wasn’t, it seemed like the food wasn’t as good.

He moved on to another restaurant (I think his father-in-law owned 2 or 3 restaurants), and also wasn’t there full-time.

So it just turned from serious inquiry “is Sergio cooking that day?” to a running joke of if we go to a restaurant that people are reporting was good, but we had a bad experience, then “maybe Sergio wasn’t cooking that day?” :stuck_out_tongue: (even though clearly Sergio Penuelas isn’t at all of those other restaurants we’re going to), LOL. :slight_smile:

I think that’s generally it, but the veterans might remember more about this than I do. :slight_smile:

8 Likes
24

Ahhh!!! Okay. I get it! Thanks for taking the time to break it down!

2 Likes
25

I didn’t know about the family issues, but @westsidegal is a deep and serious fan of Sergio’s cooking, and she once posted (I think) how she actually would ahead of time to make sure that Sergio was cooking. And I think, once we was cooking at Mariscos Chente irregularly, she somehow tracked him down to the other places where he was cooking.

And then the CH mods told her that she couldn’t post anymore about Mariscos Chente/Sergio b/c she seemed to have a personal relationship w/ him that would impair her objectivity. And we all know what happened after that…

As far as the Keith Gilabert thing goes, he used to actually put his name IN the title of the thread (which I think @ElsieDee alluded to). It took me one or two initial readings to figure out that “Keith Gilabert” wasn’t an EATERY but (supposedly) a PERSON. And he’d post like 5 reviews immediately and sequentially, so you’d go to CH and see “KEITH GILABERT REVIEWS _____” as the first 5 subjects. I personally thought he was a little addled in the mind, but who knows. So the Stinking Rose review was one AFTER he was encouraged to stop putting his name in the topic (so it was actually an improvement!).

1 Like
26

What @paranoidgarliclover said.

Ithink it was @westsidegal who first coined the phrase about calling ahead to make sure Sergio was cooking that day.

I think, though I could be mistaken, she was one of the first champions for the restaurant and Sergio’s skills in the kitchen.

I also think - and hopefully she’ll correct me if I’m wrong - CH determined (wrongly!) she had some connection to the restaurant and asked her not to post about it/recommend it any longer.

5 Likes
27

I had the Sergio thing explained to me before, but I thought it was a metaphor. I can’t believe the guy is also real!

3 Likes