Citizen Smith | dinner

Or: They're a little 'rosebud' in their decorating, wouldn't ya say?

I think the food is of a Spanish flair. At least the music was. So I'll go with that.

Citizen Smith, which offers food of a Spanish flair, is located between Sunset and Santa Monica Blvd, off Cahuenga, and it's a little off the beaten path. It's lost amongst parking garages and a few record stores, t-shirt stores and I suppose what should smack of a hipster scene, except everyone wandering around has obviously gotten lost on their way to either Amoeba Music (best thing in LA!) or the Hollywood & Highland complex (worst intersection in LA!).

We rolled in for an early dinner after "Wicked" and were seated right away, despite the fact that we made up less than half of our dinner party. I liked that. Places in Hollywood try to nab your cash-money by "preparing your table" and offering you a perch at the bar far too often these days. Two drinks and forty dollars later, you wish you never came. Well, that is not the case chez Citizen Smith. Perhaps that's because their drink menu was out of date. It was scrawled on their blackboard wall in huge writing that called out, "Drink me, baby," what with names like "Skinny Bitch" and "Screaming Orgasm" (I think I also saw "Blow Job," so obviously, this place hates women...or loves them), but the menu was all wrong. Apparently, they were waiting for an artist to come along and re-write the new drinks. Who got fired, I wondered; the original artist or the original bartender?

Given the eclectic decoration in this place, I figured it was the artist. The walls varied between exposed brick and deep wood, the rafters boasted the usual Hollywood decorating scheme of exposed air conditioning vents and ceiling beams, and the artwork, which hung from said beams was a random assortment of...exposed foreigners smiling for various photographers. It was all very weird. Different. Unique. I kinda liked it. Kinda didn't get it. Kinda like the movie CITIZEN KANE.

The food, on the other hand, was only okay. They had nachos, they had pizza, they had burgers...so I was confused, as noted above, about what country, exactly, the restaurant was attempting to celebrate. But the Mexi-Spanish items did outweigh the others.

I had a shrimp salad that, sadly, only welcomed four, small grilled shrimp amongst its spinach leaves. My friend Lovejoy had the nachos which, sadly, were overcome by monstrous amounts of pico de gallo. My other friend Country had a burger which, sadly, still was not as good as KooKooRoo's (like, seriously? who knew?), but the desserts we all shared were pretty nice. No more sadness. You can't get sad at dessert time. Especially not when that dessert is a marzipan ice cream cake, complete with a birthday candle.

Now, I probably won't go back to Citizen Smith any time soon--it's kind of in the middle of nowhere, the food wasn't that grand (note the sadness), and I don't have any coupons--but I imagine I'll drop its name to others every now and again, because I find that people don't know about it. Is it new? Don't think so, it's on opentable. So could it still be destined for future greatness? I know other citizens that have been, after time. So we'll wait it out.

CITIZEN SMITH
in five: 3/5
eat me, baby: http://www.citizensmith.com/