Early Father's Day dinner at Vitello's.

Never been there before.

When I saw this on the menu...

...I couldn't resist. The waitress looked at me funny when I ordered it. But if they don't want anyone to order it, why is it still there on the menu? It's on a little paper insert of specials, so it would be easy to replace. I thought about ordering it as the "Fusilli e Minestra alla Scott Peterson," but in retrospect I'm glad I didn't. That would have been totally immature.

When the waitress brought the order, she said, "Who had the Fusilli e Minestra?" and I indicated that was me. Still, as she set it down, she said, "Better known as the Robert Blake." She said Blake's name loudly enough that people at the next table murmured excitedly--"Ooh, Robert Blake"--and craned their necks to see the plate. I almost regretted ordering it, but as soon as I tasted it I was glad I did. I do love me my spinach.

Halfway through the meal something happened that made me drop my jaw. At the next table I heard this THUMPING sound--thwack! thwack! thwack! I looked over, and the busboy was thwapping the booth seats with a towel to clean them off. I guess it's the most efficient way to clean off any crumbs that might be on the seats and get the table turned around quickly.

Here's the thing: If this is standard policy at Vitello's (and I did see it happen two more times at other tables), there is no freakin' way a busboy could have missed a gun sitting there on the seat. He would thwack the hell out of it. Robert Blake's alibi for the murder of Bonny Lee Bakley is that while she was being shot to death outside he was in Vitello's retrieving a handgun (not used the murder) that he had accidentally left in a booth.

Maybe Vitello's instituted this thwack-the-booth policy as a result of the service staff's possible failure to notice a .38-caliber revolver in the booth they were cleaning, but I kind of doubt it.

Anyway, Vitello's is an excellent and reasonably priced restaurant, with friendly proprietors and a lovely atmosphere, and it doesn't deserve to be associated with a notorious murder for all time. So, if you're in L.A., you should go there, give them some business, help them through this difficult time.

I recommend the Robert Blake.