REAL ESTATE PROMOTION BRINGS OUT COOKIE-LOOS

Real estate agencies sometimes send out little cards or letters to people they don’t know announcing that they’ve just sold a property at such-and-such an address--right near you , if you catch their meaning--and wondering if you might not like to let them try their luck with your place as well. One such agency is Fred Sands Realtors, which adds that it is “the largest one-owner real estate firm in California.”

But Sands goes a step further: Each announcement of a nearby sale is accompanied by, yes, a recipe. Chicken with garlic and Italian parsley a la Wolfgang Puck, for instance, or sauteed mushrooms as they might be served at Michael’s. Old house-hawking lore holds that one way to encourage a potential buyer is to have something homey and reassuring-smelling baking in the oven when the place is shown. Maybe that’s what Sands has in mind--”List your place with us and have some of the mascarpone risotto from Primi on the stove when we show it and we’ll turn it over in a day-and-a-half!” or some such thing. Me, I’m keeping the recipes, but that’s about it for now. Of course, if they ever send out the dope on something really useful--the hot sauce at Carl’s Dirty Rice, say-- then I might list my house with them.

THE BIG BEEF: The chairman and CEO of that little fast-food outfit called McDonald’s recently told a trade convention that a new outpost of his company has opened once every 17 hours somewhere in the world, on the average, over the past decade. The current count? Nine thousand . . . no, wait . . . What time is it? . . . make that 9,001!

WHAT? MORE RESTAURANTS?: Harper’s Livery is new in Pasadena, in a converted 1904-vintage livery stable, serving fresh seafood, pasta, veal and “gourmet pizza,” among other things. . . . The Hot Wings Cafe has taken off, on Melrose in Hollywood, with such “East Coast Taste Treats” as Philly-style steak sandwiches, Richmond-style hot ham and cheese on a French roll and, of course, Buffalo-style chicken wings. . . . Joe Donohue, formerly of the Epicurean Express and Joey D’s, has opened Gourmet Gourmet in Tarzana, a combination dining room and take-out counter. . . . Johnnies New York Pizza, of Malibu, has opened a branch in Marina del Rey. . . .

Le Bouvier’s Saloon is scheduled to open this month on the site of the old Saloon in Beverly Hills, under the ownership of actress Jo Anne Meredith (also known as Jo Anne Le Bouvier). Daniel Darand, formerly of Annabel’s in San Francisco, will be the chef. . . . A branch of La Maison du Caviar, the fish-egg paradise on the Place de la Madeleine in Paris, will set up shop on Beverly Drive, also in Beverly Hills, later this summer. . . . The Picolo Restaurant, on West Pico south of Beverly Hills, which has been in business for 35 years, now has new owners--Abdul Megji and his sons Zul, Nash and Moez, also the proprietors of the Fish Kitchen in Santa Monica and three other Southland restaurants. The Picolo will become the No. 22 Fish Kitchen as of late July. . . .

Meanwhile, in out-of-town news, entertainer Bill Cosby has bought into Enrico’s on Broadway in San Francisco’s North Beach area. (The restaurant, recently closed by the IRS for non-payment of taxes, had been the property of Enrico Banducci, once boss of the Hungry i, where Cosby and just about everybody else performed in earlier days; the popular TV star has, in effect, bailed his old employer out). . . . And Paul Prudhomme, the best-known Louisianan pop-culture icon since Johnny B. Goode, has announced that he will open a second restaurant, to be called the Louisiana Grocery and Feed Co. (a name, incidentally, that has franchise written all over it) and to be located in the Jackson Brewery marketplace, down the Mississippi, down in New Orleans.

DINING OUT: The community of Monrovia is celebrating its centennial this year. Local restaurants are getting into the act, offering all manner of special menus and prices, with Noda (actually in neighboring Arcadia), the Monrovian, Thai Palace, Round Table Pizza and Black Angus kicking off the festivities this month. Call the restaurants for more details, or the Monrovia Centennial Committee, at (818) 357-3797. . . . And the Seventh Street Bistro in downtown L.A. has started a series of big-deal prix-fixe dinners. Cost is $100 per person (including wines), reservations are limited to 20 “connoisseurs” (it says here) per event, and dinners are held every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. . . .