The Los Angeles Times gets it right in calling out a restaurant that gets just about everything wrong. The fact that Gladstone's, the seafood institution on PCH in Malibu, will still be licensed to print money despite a scathing review, greedy and ambivalent owners and across-the-board bad food is exactly the kind of screw-you to the public that the Wreckoning simply can't ignore.

There's a special delight I take when a restaurant critic lambastes a terrible restaurant for being terrible. The big papers don't do it often enough, always finding something positive to say in the wake of a dismal meal much like a dutiful mother offering words of encouragement moments after watching her child face-plant off a balance beam or kick a soccer ball into his own goal to lose a match. Perhaps this is because newspapers aren't technically in the business of putting people out of business (even though theater critics do it all the time). But here in the blog world I feel no such pressure to be diplomatic. Professional? Certainly. Funny? Professionally. But kind? Not when you have the audacity to charge $75 for an iced seafood tower featuring flaccid, off-tasting shrimp floating carelessly in melted ice water, smoked salmon (huh?) that has browned and dried at the edges and poached mussels drowning in what is obviously bottled Italian dressing.

Should I pull punches? Not when your restaurant seats between 1500 and 3000 people a day, had a revenue of $14.5 million last year and still you serve Alaskan king crab legs (at $46.95 for a pound and a half) that have the taste and texture of rope. Am I being unfair? Not when your restaurant, located on prime beachfront property, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week and still you feel the need to renovate and expand to pack in more people. Your patio is lined with tables and not one gets an umbrella--in Los Angeles, the anvil of the sun. Do you care even the slightest bit about your customers? Shame on you Gladstone's.

Shame on any restaurant that is known more for its doggy bags (intricately wrapped foil creations in the shapes of swans, mermaids and other swimmy things) than for what's inside of them. As Leslie Brenner's excellent, spleening review points out, it's because of what's inside those bags that the need to put an artful spin on the mass exodus of uneaten food arose in the first place. And what exactly are so many people carting away from this barnacled bastion of greed? Side dishes, most likely. Huge clumps of mashed potatoes and cole slaw that get thumped clumsily down on plates to satisfy appetites that the overpriced, ill-conceived and frankly, scary seafood dishes couldn't satisfy. I'm sure a lot of the seafood gets taken home as well; we Americans like to feel we're getting our money's worth (even when we know we're not), but something tells me that a lot of the Parmesan salmon and overly-breaded crabcakes get tossed into the kitchen trash back at home, their foil mermaids still in tact. We Americans might value a buck in these difficult times, but we value our health even more.

"And for the gentleman, I think the bunny..."

The flair and precision with which these take-home item are wrapped up says plenty about the staff, as does Brenner's waiter steering the patrons away from the most abominable dishes. "Frankly, they're the worst crabcakes I've had, anywhere," he whispered to the critic's husband so as not to be overheard. Clearly, the servers know how bad the food is. It stands to obvious reason that complaints from customers, the glimmering flocks of swans and mermaids that leave the premises nightly and the mounds of food that goes back to the kitchen half-eaten or barely picked at by customers who had no interest in bringing terrible food back to their cars (and perhaps, God forbid, forgetting it until morning, as I've done countless times) would have all trickled back up the ladder to management and then the owners. But these crystal-clear signs that the food is bad have fallen on blind, or worse, indifferent, eyes.

Of course it's quite a show watching 27-year veteran Miguel Carillo whip up a mermaid. That little bit of artistry is just about the only thing he or any of his fellow staffers have any direct control over. They know the food blows. There's just nothing they can do about it, except warn you ahead of time and dress it up pretty when you take it home. The swans are pure distraction, nothing more.

In ordering the Gladstone's clambake, Ms Brenner encountered a crab leg afflicted with freezer burn, which not only confirms the management's cost-cutting laziness in depending on frozen food for a seafood restaurant, but is testament to sub-standard work on the part of the kitchen staff. Freezer burn is tough to miss and easy to avoid. That dismal clambake, by the way, costs $95, but you're only told that if you ask. Surprise!

It's a curious thing: when people visit the water's edge, whether lake, river or ocean, there's an expectation that seafood is the only logical dining option. When they get there, inevitably, there's a seafood restaurant waiting for them, almost always a terrible one. I've never understood this. Sure, you're looking out at the waves, thinking about all the sea creatures lurking out there in the blue, but so what? Do people really believe that better seafood can be found in Malibu or Hermosa Beach than, say, Monterey Park or Beverly Hills? Does the food court at the zoo serve panda or roasted cheetah? Here's a newsflash: the tiger prawns and yellowtail on the specials board were not rolled off the docks outside the kitchen (if there even is a dock) and dropped into the sauté pan. Chances are, your lobster dinner came from one of two places: the fish market downtown, or a distribution warehouse near the airport. In fact, you're more likely to find fresh seafood at a restaurant near those places than at one that trucks it all the way out to the Boo.

I've blissfully gotten my friends to let go of the pipedream that Gladstone's is anything but a dingy tourist trap serving cafeteria-level food at three-star prices. Ms Brenner paid over $500 before tip for herself and four guests. I did my time there, in my 20s, before something in me snapped and I said, "no more." The last time I ate there was Sunday brunch two years ago, at the urging of a friend who lives in Santa Monica. Because it was his birthday, I didn't protest. Turns out I didn't have to. The food did the talking. A leopard shark never changes its spots. And, Gladstone's, amazingly, is still packing them in.

Gladstone's Malibu. Located on Pacific Coast Highway. Just keep driving until you're blinded by the glare of two dozen gold-foiled mermaids flapping about the valet stand. Best Dish: any bottled beer. Worst dish: Gladstone's original seafood molcajete, an inexplicable cauldron of scallops, shrimp, lobster tail, panela cheese, bell peppers, onions, cactus, ranchero sauce and I have to stop because just writing this makes me want to hurl.