Los Angeles Exports Fury Over Whale Sushi To Northwest

The feisty crew behind Oscar-winning documentary The Cove celebrated their victory last week by getting a Santa Monica sushi palace in hot water for selling the meat of endangered whales. Now, a restaurant chain in the Pacific Northwest is wrongly suffering a Typhoon! (exclamation theirs) of bad press as well.

People have besieged the winners of Typhoon! Restaurants with complaints about serving the exotic dish. Problem is, they don't! But sharing a name with the parent company of Hump (the Santa Monica eatery in trouble) has made for stormy waters. LA Weekly's Dennis Romero has the scoop:

"Typhoon! Restaurants issued a press release this week titled "IT WASN'T US!!!" and explaining that it has nothing to do with the Typhoon Restaurant, Inc. charged in a federal case for serving an endangered species against U.S. law at its eatery called The Hump. In fact, the Oregon- and Washington-based Typhoon! chain (note the exclamation mark) states that it only serves Thai food and that slicing up whale would be offensive to Thais."

So, redirect your indignation at Hump. Meanwhile, I will try to work up the nerve to watch The Cove after seeing the horrifying 5-second clip played at the Oscars.