Butte on FoodStation...

Piyaugh caught that the FoodStation segment about the restaurants in our area was going to air this afternoon, so he called everyone in between the lunch and dinner rushes to air it on a big TV in the main dining room. There was a lot of buzz around, since the FoodStation crew had been there for like six hours and it had been such a fun night. We thought back on all the great moments: the tower of champagne glasses being filled from a single magnum, the flaming caciocavallo, Eden doing an impromptu belly dance between tables 6 and 21, FoodStation producers doing shots at the bar with the dishwashers...

Pretty soon the segment had begun and we all went silent, not wanting to miss a moment. Their big "FoodStation...Special!" title flashed, and some chirpy narrator started to chirp about the "hidden gems of the San Francisco Bay Area!" We saw shots of Concepción, Osasha, Trio, all the local cultural-fusion guys that Piyaugh is always making snide comments about. Then it came! A quick shot of our sign, "Butte," which immediately cut to the interior of another restaurant. It was kind of off-putting, but we knew there'd be more, so we sat tight.

The segment, which ran fifteen minutes, didn't feature a single second more of Butte. Our hopes were up right until the credits ran, at which point we hoped there'd be one of those Ferris Bueller-type things that runs during or after the credits. Nope, the production company logo flashed and then they were on to "The Secret Life of JuJuBees" or some crap. Piyaugh stood there like a lawn jockey with a remote. His cell phone rang. He answered with a grave, "Ciao Signore Del Vecchio," (Butte's principal investor) then listened for a second and hung up. He turned and plodded down into the basement without so much as looking at us.

I don't want to say that Piyaugh probably got shot and driven around in a trunk and then dumped in the marshlands under the Dumbarton, but Mr. Del Vecchio brought in a new executive chef that very same night and the menu is apparently being redesigned as more "traditional." If I see Piyaugh in front of Starbucks with a broken arm and a cup of pencils, I'm not going to buy one, but it'll be nice to see that he's at least alive.