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You just gotta love Todd’s. Surviving for six years in the gastronomic wasteland known as Monochrome…uh…er…Greenspu…uh…ah…we mean GREEN Valley — a “town” of $400,000 homes and $40,000 cars where no one wants to spend more than $40 for dinner.
Congrats to Sage for getting top billing in today’s Media Gallery at The Daily Beast, featuring the hottest new restaurants in America.
To square this circle, we at ELV suggest you click on the link above, then click on the link at The Daily Beast back to Eating Las Vegas.
That way, you will fully appreciate the supercalifragilisticexpealidocious nature of this monumental occurrence in the blogosphere.
ELV note: Mike Steinberger, the SLATE wine correspondent, is one of our favorite wine writers. This article details additional accusations (and implicates additional scoundrels) in the wine auction scandals that were first brought to light in the book “The Billionaire’s Vinegar.” We at ELV have a hard time getting worked up over these things, as we think the insufferable, mega-rich, ego-driven, label-conscious, status-obsessed, a-holes who seek out, demand, and drive up the prices on famous wines are easy and understandable prey for the con-men who dupe them. In other words, it’s a fair fight and they all get what they deserve.
What’s in the Bottle?
An investigation into the startling fraud accusations that have upended the fine wine world.
By Mike Steinberger
Posted Monday, June 14, 2010, at 3:36 PM ET
Daniel Oliveros and Jeff Sokolin were known as the “sexy boys” because they often described the wines they sold as “sexy juice.” Oliveros and Sokolin ran Royal Wine Merchants, a Manhattan retailer that was, until a few years ago, one of the biggest players in the fine wine market. They lived as lavishly as their wealthy customers—staying in swank hotels, often hiring limousines, and routinely opening thousands of dollars’ worth of rare wines. Oliveros’ marriage to porn star Savanna Samson added to the aura and the intrigue. But what really set the sexy boys apart was their seemingly limitless stock of legendary old ! wines, many of them in supersize bottles—quantities and formats that no one else could get their hands on. They bombarded clients with faxes touting their latest finds: multiple bottles of 1961 Latour à Pomerol (“Kinky Juice!”), magnums of 1945 Mouton Rothschild (“our latest sexy purchase”), a double magnum of 1949 Cheval Blanc (“Perfect condition. Better than 1947!!! Trust me!!!”). It seemed too good to be true. Apparently, it was.