Restaurateur Chris Muradyan, 27, thought it would be neat for his new Mexican restaurant and bar to offer an over-the-top item. And if a famous actor walks in one day and ordered it, he wouldn’t mind the publicity. So, when he opened Te’Kila last week, he made sure that the Hollywood Boulevard eatery had a decidedly pricey burrito.
The restaurant’s $100 burrito includes lobster and prime steak marinated in tequila. To top it off, the burrito comes with a shot of high-end tequila. Alas, no starlets have come to sample the expensive fare, but he is hoping the restaurant sells a couple a week.
The burrito, created with seasonal ingredients, is the creation of chef Sevan Azarian, former private chef to Adam Sandler. While Muradyan doesn’t know what seasonal ingredients will inspire Azarian next, he knows what would be in his dream burrito: “I would have foie gras with some truffles; I’d keep lobster and do some caviar sprinkled on top of it.”
‘Supergingery’
Want to learn to make ginger ale?
Just watch an online video featuring Tracy Hepler, co-founder of Your Daily Thread, an L.A. website that provides some 3,000 Angelenos with daily e-mail tips on how to lead an environmentally friendly lifestyle.
Hepler, 26, started last month, filming do-it-yourself videos for online TV network ThreadBanger. One of her first episodes featured homemade ginger ale.
“The beauty of when you make it yourself is that you can add more of what you want,” Hepler said. “I love the taste of ginger, so I make mine supergingery.”
Hepler launched Your Daily Thread, which began as a hobby, last year with longtime friend Lauren Johanson. Hepler works full time on the site, which sells advertisements, and is also funded by investments from family and friends.
Hepler said she’s enjoyed filming the how-to videos thus far – her next one is on how to make handbags out of recycled fabric – but she hasn’t quite become used to the idea of seeing herself on web TV.
“It’s kind of weird,” Hepler said. “But at the end of the day, you have to take yourself out of the equation and not be judgmental and think you look bad at a certain angle. You just have to do it.”
Emmy by Proxy
In her previous career as a documentary producer, entertainment attorney Alla Savranskaia traveled to Jerusalem and Siberia, but never got to go to the Emmys. This month, she’ll finally attend the Creative Arts Emmys with one of her firm’s clients – her husband, Dana Berry, whose National Geographic special “Alien Earths” has been nominated for outstanding animated program.
Savranskaia met Berry, an animator, 10 years ago when she was working on a documentary that needed animation. Once they married and had a child, she decided she couldn’t travel “to the corners of the Earth” anymore, and enrolled at UCLA law school. She’s been an associate at Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger LLP in Century City for two years, representing other documentary filmmakers including Robert Kenner, the Academy Award-nominated director of “Food Inc.” Berry became one of the firm’s clients as well.
Savranskaia said “Alien Earths” is more of a documentary, though it uses animation to explore solar systems outside of this galaxy. The 46-year-old attorney said that grandma and grandpa would be babysitting come Emmy night and that, no, she doesn’t know what she’s going to wear yet.
“I never had an Emmy nomination, but it’s exciting that someone in the family does now,” she said. “This is technically the second film he’s ever made. He’s a newbie.”
Staff reporters Daniel Miller, Alexa Hyland and Alfred Lee contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].
