You Can Take It With You : Picnics you don’t have to pack

Once upon a time picnics were fun. You simply stuck a slew of sandwiches into a bag, threw in a couple of carrot sticks, a handful of hard-boiled eggs and a bunch of brownies and went off to find some ants.

Then gourmania struck. Suddenly picnics became as competitive as dinner parties; nobody wanted to be caught in the wilderness without the appropriate grub. Urban picnics were even more ridiculous; people could be seen trudging up to the Hollywood Bowl with enough for an army of foodies. There they were, under the stars, discussing the fine points of foie gras.

Restaurants contributed to this madness. Suddenly they were all packing up their food to go, providing major meals in plastic cartons. These days it’s a rare restaurant that isn’t itching to offer moveable food, and now that summer is approaching my desk will become buried beneath a blizzard of press releases promising the perfect picnic basket.

But do you really want to head outdoors clutching containers full of duck a l’orange? I don’t. I’m tired of soggy salads, I don’t want anymore portable pates, and if I am offered one more cold chicken leg I think I’ll scream.

It’s time to rethink the picnic. This does not necessarily mean going back to basics. All sorts of restaurants offer all sorts of dishes that are perfect picnic fare--and many of them do not even know it. Not one of the following restaurants thinks of what it cooks as alfresco food, but each provided what I consider a perfect picnic.

ANTIPASTO ALFRESCO: I looked out the window and shivered; it was one of those cold gray Sundays that seem more appropriate to San Francisco than to Los Angeles. The picnic, I knew, would be off.

“That’s the end of $45 worth of food,” I said morosely, looking at the platter of food I had picked up at Angeli the day before. “It will never last another day.”

Five days later I was eating my words--and still eating the antipasto I had picked up for the picnic. It got better as time passed--even the pansies that decorated the dish survived for days.

Antipasto really is the perfect picnic food. And Angeli’s party platter, intended as hors d’oeuvres for 15, makes an abundant picnic for six.

Packed into a portable plastic tray, the platter was enormous. Mounded in the middle was a rice salad surrounded by a pinwheel of colorful marinated vegetables. Bright garlicky carrots glistened next to slick roasted peppers and shiny green beens. Pungent mushrooms nestled against thickly sliced salami; cauliflower was set off by big black olives. Large slices of creamy baked ricotta provided a cool contrast to the spicy vegetables. Throw in a few loaves of Angeli’s chewy bread, add a few of the restaurant’s delicious biscotti and a little fruit, and you end up with a pretty perfect picnic.

Angeli, 7274 Melrose Ave . , Los Angeles, (213) 936-9086. Antipasto platter, $45. Biscotti, $5 per order of 4.

SUSHI SAFARI: It was noon in a small sushi bar in Little Tokyo. The man standing at the door wanted sushi to go. “When are you going to eat it?” asked the sushi chef. “Four o’clock,” replied the man at the door. The chef shook his head decisively. “It won’t be any good by then,” he said. The man pleaded, but the chef would not be moved. “Go someplace else,” he said. “I won’t sell you my sushi.” The man walked out empty-handed.

And yet all over Japan sushi is considered the perfect portable food. Supermarkets and sushi shops routinely sell sushi to go, and every Japanese station boasts a stand selling sushi to take on the train. The Japanese know that the sushi must be eaten quickly, but no sushi shop is without pretty boxes to pack up its wares.

On this side of the Pacific, nobody packages more seductive sushi than Katsu. The boxes are not as beautiful as the restaurant’s handmade plates, but they are so attractively packed that just opening them up is a treat. The restaurant also makes ordering easy: the person who answered the phone when I called asked me to name the fish in English. “I don’t speak Japanese,” he said when I asked for uni.

The restaurant sends along good-quality soy sauce and attractive chopsticks, so that all you need to pack are some small cups in which to mix the soy sauce and wasabi, and something simple for dessert.

You’ll discover the advantages of this particular picnic both coming and going: It is the least bulky food you can possibly pack, so you won’t have to carry more than a few flat boxes. And when the picnic’s over, there is nothing to bring home.

Katsu, 1972 Hillhurst Ave . , Los Angeles, (213) 665-1891. Sushi will cost at least $20 per person.

PEKING PICNIC: I’m the sort of person who often finds herself standing at the refrigerator at 2 in the morning eating leftover Chinese food. And I have been known to take cold moo shu pork on a picnic. Still, I realize that many people are more sensible than this, and I’m not going to suggest that you create a picnic out of day-old Chinese food.

I am, however, about to suggest a picnic of carefully chosen items from a Chinese menu. Most Chinese restaurants offer a number of dishes that are intended to be eaten at room temperature; anybody who likes Chinese food (and who doesn’t?) would be thrilled to find himself sitting outdoors munching on a bowl of cold spicy noodles.

The last Chinese picnic I partook of came from Mandarette. I am addicted to the curried chicken turnovers, and I find that they are perfectly delicious at room temperature. The menu has a number of salads that don’t get soggy: I especially like the gingered poached green beans and the garlicked cucumbers. The pungent cold noodles are perfect picnic fare (if you aren’t planning on eating early, you might ask them to pack the sauce separately). Roast duck travels well, and I’ve discovered that fried rice tastes as good cold as it does hot.

You can find good picnic dishes at almost any Chinese restaurant, but Mandarette has one advantage: If you want more than fortune cookies for dessert, the restaurant can provide it.

Mandarette, 8386 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles. (213) 655-6115. Expect to spend a minimum of $15 a person. CAKE WALK: Speaking of dessert. . . . Some people can’t wait until it’s time to eat it. If you are one of them, you’ll be glad to know about a new bakery in Pasadena.

I’m not suggesting that you take nothing but sweets to your outdoor feast. The Old Town Bakery does make a few things that you can eat without feeling guilty. Their savory rolls--brioche filled with ham and cheese--seem designed for picnics. They also bake an olive-swirl bread that is abundantly sprinkled with whole kalamata olives; a loaf of this bread and a hunk of cheese would make any olive addict swoon.

But dessert is the main thing here. Proprietor Amy Pressman supplies many restaurants, hotels and caterers, and you may have run into her incredibly decadent almond rocca cake or her three-layer chocolate raspberry mousse cake somewhere before. (You aren’t likely to forget them.) Her pies are wonderful, but they don’t travel well. Still, you could easily take the zippy gingerbread, the rich sour cream coffee cake, the brownies, the date bars or the cookies off to your picnic. Then again, you may just take one look at the cases filled with cakes and decide to have your picnic right there in the shop.

Old Town Bakery, 166 W . Colorado Blvd. , Pasadena, (818) 792-7943. Brioche filled with ham and cheese, $1.75 each; olive bread, $4.50; cakes and pies about $3 a slice.