LASORDA’S: SOME HITS, SOME ERRORS

I’m with two hungry guys, the Woodward and Bernstein of the fitness world, ready for some hunky Marina del Rey ribs. These guys (call them Bob and Carl) are famished and dying to sit down and order “the works.” But en route to the perky receptionist, we’re stopped cold in the vestibule by a bunch of photographs. I mean, there are zillions of pictures of this guy, surrounded by celebrities. Everything’s black and white and framed in wood--except for one giant color portrait decked out in a green frame. And on it, this guy has written “To Everyone: Welcome and enjoy the food and the service.” And this guy, who is with, hey, no less than the President and Mrs. R., Lee Iacocca, Robin Williams, Jimmy Stewart, Don Rickles and Danny Kaye, has signed it “Your Friend.”

“Boy, this guy’s got a lot of ego,” Bob pipes up. “Yeah,” Carl says, “and a lot of friends.” I want to count the pictures but the boys pull me along. “You’ll be here for two days,” Carl warns; “let’s eat.”

There are two dining rooms at Tommy Lasorda’s (one airy and overlooking the marina, the other dark and decorator barn-like with banker-green walls) and each is packed with pictures of the high-living Dodger manager. (The third room, a saloon with a big stone fireplace, stays open late and has images of Tommy with Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio and a ton of other ballplayers I didn’t recognize.) Enormous platters of linguine and mega-slabs of ribs keep passing by. “Well,” Bob says, eyeballing the menu, “I guess this isn’t the night to become a vegetarian.” Nope. Lasorda’s serves some of Tommy L’s favorite he-man foods.

If this is the world of a gourmand (with athlete-sized portions for all of his “friends”), it is also the domain of one who swears he has never cooked a meal in his entire life. A great deal of this lusty and hearty-looking food is absolutely generic in taste. A gorgeous appetizer of swirling green, yellow and red peppers reminds Bob of church-supper salads his mother dressed with cheap oil back in the Midwest. I concur. “Here we have exhibit A,” Carl says, pulling apart one of the heavily breaded K-Jun popcorn shrimp; “it looks like a Nautilus shell lined with a gooey substance, very crisp and very spicy to camouflage the gummy shrimp. How’s your soup?” The pasta faggioli, “Tommy’s mother’s recipe” must have lost something in translation. Surely Mama Lasorda’s mess of pottage didn’t taste like Mama Campbell’s recipe. And the cheesy baked-potato chowder is simply a merger between good cubed potato and cheese-like glue.

But here comes the waiter with the next course (and a welcome bib). Portions are for Paul Bunyan-Lasorda types. Bob and Carl are still hungry, waiting for something meaningful to eat. And it’s a home run! If only Howard Cosell were here. The linguine with big pink luscious shrimp and a gloss of cream is even better than it looks. The springy scallops in a light tomato broth taste sweet and real. My baby-back ribs flash the word “tangy” over my head. I can even excuse those pale French fries. (Carl and I come back for lunch another day, devour splendid barbecued chicken, good fresh coleslaw, bony but tasty beef ribs and street-wise sausages and peppers whorled into another fine linguine.)

Before dessert is served, I take a little stroll, count five pictures of Frank Sinatra with T.L., fill out a blank to win two tickets to a Dodger home game and listen to the sportscast piped into the restroom.

Lasorda once told a banquet that “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.” If we’d ordered the mud pie as an appetizer, we wouldn’t have had room for another thing. My jock companions put themselves in a chocolate coma, swearing they’d work out double the next day. The guys weren’t kidding when they asked if this plate (which looked like the Titanic going down: a brick bulkhead of buttered Oreos, a sea of chocolate ice cream, and waves of whipped cream) could be put in a doggie bag. Our extraordinarily sweet waitress actually said she’d give it a try. We had already vetoed the vast slice of Jack Daniels whiskey walnut pie, memorable only as sweet mucilage. Lasorda’s apple tart, marring the great man’s name, is no more than an apple-flavored glue.

Dear Mr. Lasorda, Bob and Carl enjoyed the carbo-loading and asked me to pass a suggestion on to you: How about a guided audio tour of the pictures--like at the County Museum of Art--and another lottery box so one lucky patron could be photographed with you and hang, for a month, on the Reagan and Jack Kemp wall? (P.S. Did you really polish off a plate of linguine and clams made for six?)

Tommy Lasorda’s Ribs and Pasta, 14130 Marquesas Way, Marina del Rey. (213) 827-5330. Open Monday-Friday for lunch, Saturday and Sunday for brunch, daily for dinner. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards. Dinner for two (food only): $25-$50. Pregame dinner: 4:30-6:30 p.m. $8.45 per person.