LOBSTER FOR LESS : <i> Live--From Maine--For Under $20</i>

One of my early memories, growing up in New England, is of the time when my grandfather accidentally dropped a feisty lobster on the floor as he was conveying it to the stove. The beast landed on its feet and charged toward my mother, who leaped up on the kitchen counter. I ran for the safety of the stairs and clung to the banister, praying the monster couldn’t climb steps. But my grandfather immediately rescued us. Capturing the lobster, he plunged it head first into the large pot of boiling water on the stove, firmly clamping the lid down on top.

No lobster dinner since has been quite so exciting, though I always experience a mixed thrill of triumph and anguish every time I thrust a lobster into a pot of hot water. There is no way around this: A lobster must be alive when cooked or it’s not safe to eat.

And that is why the “Maine lobster,” trapped only off the Northern Atlantic coast, was once such a delicacy outside of New England. Restaurants in other parts of the country had to charge prohibitive prices for the few lobsters they managed to have specially flown in for dinner.

But in this age of easy air freight, things are different. These days, lobsters by the hundreds are packed on ice, flown to Los Angeles the same day they’re caught and plunked into salt-water tanks. Lobster is still a wonderful luxury, but it is not necessarily expensive.

Lobster dinners at the following places include a whole, boiled lobster weighing 1 to 1 pounds, which is the usual one-person size for New Englanders. Accompaniments are fairly traditional: fries or potatoes or rice, corn on the cob and/or vegetables. To begin the meal, there is usually a choice of salad or clam chowder. And although most of these bargain lobsters do not come equipped with atmosphere (and several of the seafood restaurants I visited are little more than markets with tables), I recommend eating them there rather than getting them to go; lobsters that are kept warm or reheated may become waterlogged, overcooked or tough.

Venice’s Lobster Connection is barely more than a shop with a few tables on one side, almost as an afterthought. The store was recently purchased by the three young, tanned and blue-eyed brothers who do the selling and cooking. Their dinner price was the best; the steak fries, corn and coleslaw were fine, and the lobsters tasted as if they’d been boiled in a nice herbed broth before being presented with bodies cleaned out and tails slit. The claw situation was a bit strange, though; the lobsters we got had one claw attached and one random unmatched claw thrown in. All in all, we ended up one claw shy. So it might be a good idea to specify whole, two-clawed lobsters when you order.

The Lobster Connection, 2201 Lincoln Blvd., Venice, (213) 822-4062. Open Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Sunday 11 a.m.-7 p.m. MasterCard and Visa. Lobster dinner, $13.99.

Seafood Village on Melrose Avenue is another storefront-turned-restaurant. It has now expanded from the original seafood salesroom into two full-scale dining rooms. Vinyl-coated tables sit on patterned carpeting, and the walls are filled with harbor-side murals or bright tile. Green plants and a row of vivid neon signs complete the decor. This restaurant has a real neighborhood feel, and it is generally packed with people.

Even their dinner salad was wonderfully colorful: slices of bright red sweet pepper, shredded purple cabbage, orange carrot match sticks and crumbled white feta cheese were liberally strewn across iceberg lettuce, cucumber slices, celery and sprouts. The clam chowder tasted more like cream of celery, and the green beans and okra arrived overdone. These are mere quibbles. The main point is that the lobster and fries were both very nice.

Seafood Village, 5732 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 463-8090. Open daily 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Diners Club, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Lobster dinner, $15.95.

Seafood Emporium in Woodland Hills also appears to have grown out of a market, expanding onto a covered terrace right on Ventura Boulevard. This was lively and noisy during one late Friday night dinner. But the food was fine. After all the usual accompaniments, I found the lobster was the best I had anywhere: sweet and cooked until tender but not chewy.

Seafood Emporium, 19762 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills, (818) 347-4350. Open daily, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. MasterCard and Visa accepted. No alcohol. Lobster is market price ($10.99 per pound at time of review), plus $1 per pound for cooking, plus $3 for the dinner; this worked out to $16 for a 1-pound lobster dinner.

Pelican’s Nest in Santa Monica is not a market. One of a chain of six Pelican restaurants in the Los Angeles area, it is the only one offering lobster dinners at this bargain price. Comfortably unpretentious, with sawdust on the floor, the restaurant has a heated patio for dining. Inside, it is decorated with tropical fish tanks, salvaged nautical items like winches and anchors, and various lamps and candleholders.

There was a choice of salad or white or red chowder to start; there was nothing remarkable about these. Then bibs were ceremoniously offered and we were served perfectly-cooked little lobsters with salted butter. The vegetable consisted of chunks of summer squash, which were undoubtedly fresh yet bitter. And our fries became decidedly soggy in the drained lobster liquid on our plates. But eating lobster is always a wonderfully messy business, and these were very good.

Pelican’s Nest, 1717 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica, (213) 451-0808. Open daily, 4-9:30 p.m. All major credit cards accepted. $16 for 1-pound lobster dinner.

The Boston Half Shell has been on Wilshire near Vermont for 15 years. I had a very fine lobster but was otherwise unimpressed by the restaurant. The hostess was unfriendly, I was seated next to the clattering busboy station and my food was brought so quickly that I had only a few spoonfuls of chowder before my lobster arrived. But the lobster was fine, and the fries thin and very fresh.

The Boston Half Shell, 3435 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 487-0177. Open Monday-Saturday 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.; Sunday 4 p.m.-10 p.m. All major credit cards accepted. 1-pound lobster dinner, $15.95.

My worst experience was at one of the more venerable seafood restaurants: The Lobster House (formerly Castagnola’s) in Santa Barbara. Castagnola’s Lobster House, which was established in 1949, has had two owners since it was sold by the original family in 1983. You still go through a cafeteria-like line to order, but then the hot food is brought right to your table.

You can choose to sit outside along the busy sidewalk, across the street from the seashore, or you can opt for the dim interior, with its captain’s chairs and nautical decor.

Dinner here began with chowder that tasted primarily of celery. Then came good corn and new potatoes, an unexpected bonus. It was the lobster itself that was the problem: Mine tasted as if it had been cooked earlier in the day, and its texture had definitely suffered.

Lobster House, 15 E. Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara, (805) 965-1174. Open Sunday-Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 11:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m.. American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Lobster dinner, $19.95.