Orso The West Coast branch of New York’s Orso has fully embraced Southern California’s resemblance to the Italian countryside; the high-walled garden bursts with Mediterranean plants and grasses. The wood-paneled interior has its own rustic, candlelit romantic allure — and a cozy bar. If, for some reason, celebrities enhance your appetite, you can often spot a film star of some ilk on the Orso premises. To our mind, the fresh Italian cooking — grilled trout with cockles, seasonal risottos — is incentive enough. 8706 W. Third St., L.A., (310) 274-7144. Lunch and dinner daily 11:45 a.m.–11 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. Entrées $18–$27. Italian. MH I
Westwood/West L.A./Century City
Indo Café The cooking here is sort of an intelligently gentrified, Muslim-accented greatest-hits version of pan-Indonesian cuisine, with curries of all sorts. Mellow Javanese-style chicken soup is slightly soured with lemon grass. Martabak telur, a scramble of meat, eggs and herbs, is a terrific sort of Indonesian borek, an exotically spiced version of something you’d expect to find at a North African restaurant. And Indo Café may be the only Southland restaurant to serve the fried mashed-potato fritter called perkedel that is pretty good on its own, but which almost explodes with flavor when you daub it with a bit of Indo Café’s fiery chile condiments. 10428 W. National Blvd., W.L.A., (310) 815-1290. Open Mon.–Thurs. 11:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m., Fri.–Sun. 11:30 a.m.–10 p.m. for lunch and dinner. No alcohol. Street parking. Indonesian. JG HL
ACB?Torafuku Devoted to the Japanese cult of perfect rice, Torafuku is the first American outpost of a small Tokyo-based chain. Rice is the focus of Torafuku’s expensive, luxurious izakaya menu: at the center of set meals, accompanied only by miso soup and pickles; topped with fried prawns or marinated tuna; or as tou-ban-yaki, seared in a superheated clay bowl with bits of seaweed, tiny dried sardines and a lightly poached egg. 10914 Pico Blvd., W.L.A., (310) 470-0014. Lunch Mon.–Sat. noon–2:30 p.m.; dinner Mon.–Thurs. 6–10 p.m., Fri.–Sat. 6–10:30 p.m., Sun. 5–10 p.m. Beer, wine and sake. Valet and street parking. AE, MC, V. Prix fixe starts at $80, set dinners $38, bento lunches $8.50–$12, à la carte meals vary, takeout $55. Traditional Japanese. JG ILM
Beverly Hills and vicinity
ADC?The Lodge Restaurant magnate Adolfo Suaya is the dark prince of the anti-chef wing of the local restaurant scene, the evil one behind half the velvet-rope joints in town. Yet I love the Lodge for its double-fisted Tanqueray martinis, for the thick-cut pepper bacon put out like peanuts at the bar, for the big chunks of blue cheese in the house chopped salad. The $75 porterhouse-for-two starts to seem not only possible but desirable in the heat of the Lodge moment, and if you do the math, it is one of the least costly items on the menu. But the potatoes are not just baked, but salt baked, crunchy skinned, accompanied by enough condiments to crank the vibe from Ornish all the way up to Atkins with just a few dips of the fork. 14 N. La Cienega Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 854-0024. Open nightly 5 p.m.–1 a.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. California Steak House. JG JNK
Santa Monica/Brentwood
Chez Mimi Chez Mimi is surely the loveliest patio dining spot around, where the vine-entwined gateway alone makes it hard to remember you’re in California and not some gentrified country stable yard in southern France. Inside, in charming low-ceilinged rooms that, if we didn’t know better, we might assume were built for our far shorter 18th-century ancestors, fires snap on cold nights and Mimi herself checks in on her customers. Try the excellent bouillabaisse and the rich, soothing cassoulet. 246 26th St., Santa Monica, (310) 393-0558. Lunch Tues.–Fri. 11:30 a.m.–3 p.m., Sat. 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Dinner Sun.-Thurs. 5:30–9:30 p.m., Fri.–Sat. 5:30–10 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, D, DC, MC, V. $9–$29. French. MH IL
The Shack The Shack is a manly place, a place that hosts Jaegergirl promotions, a place where a man can watch the Lakers and drink a Rusty Nail. The Shack is also an archetypal beach hamburger dive, the kind of vaguely nautical-looking place where most of the clientele seem to treat the food as something to soak up the beer: cheesesteaks, chiliburgers, fries. The basic unit of exchange at The Shack is something called the Shack Burger, a quarter-pound of charred ground beef and a Louisiana sausage crammed together in a bun. The Shack Burger seems repellent on the surface, and it will seem repellent an hour after you eat one, but like your favorite punk rock song, a Shack Burger is three minutes of pure greatness, all grease and smoke and snap. 2518 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 449-1171; 185 Culver Blvd., Playa del Rey, (310) 823-6222. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Lunch for two, food only, $9-$14. Full bar. AE, D, V. American. JG GNL
Culver City/Venice ?and vicinity
AC?Ford’s Filling Station Ford’s, whose chef-owner is Benjamin Ford, formerly of the restaurant Chadwick, is a bar that happens to have ambitious, organic food as opposed to a restaurant that happens to have a bar attached, a gastropub where you can enjoy pretty decent cooking while being bounced around like a pachinko ball. If you manage to power your way to a barstool or to an actual table, you will find most of the usual Los Angeles gastropub classics. If you like the fried Ipswich clams at Jar, you will probably like Ford’s rudely indelicate version. There is a hamburger tricked out with blue cheese and an onion compote, the requisite butter-lettuce salad with bacon, and a decent selection of cheeses and meats, some of them procured from Armandino Batali in Seattle, to help down the wine. And there’s butterscotch pudding for dessert. 9531 Culver Blvd., Culver City, (310) 202-1470. Mon.–Fri. 11 a.m.–11 p.m., Sat. 4–11 p.m. Full bar. Parking at city lot around the corner. AE, MC, V. California Contemporary. JG I
