You Can Eat the Atmosphere

In the United States, the cheaper something is, the better it’s likely to taste. West-Coast black mussels are invariably fresher than green ones flown from New Zealand; in-season squashes are nicer than October asparagus from Peru. The least expensive restaurants tend to be those closest to home cooking--a $4.50 bowl of posole at a dive is almost always preferable to a $13 bowl on Melrose. In certain types of restaurants, Latin-American and Chinese, quality is usually inversely proportionate to price.

But with steaks you get what you pay for--the excellence of the raw material is even more important than the care taken in cooking it. The Grill’s $27.50 sirloin may be three times better than the Pantry’s $9 job; the dinky, profoundly aged steak at Michael’s in Santa Monica costs nearly as much per ounce as pure silver, and is probably worth it. The Niemann-Schell ranch in the Bay Area produces what is by far the best beef in the state of California, but charges so much for it that the priciest L.A. restaurants can’t afford to put it on their menus. Good steak costs.

So good steakhouses pass along the $15-plus per pound they pay for Prime meat wholesale, becoming as basically unaffordable as Pacific Dining Car or the Palm. (Taylor’s, an excellent, old-fashioned steakhouse near Downtown, charges somewhat lower prices for Prime steak becausethey dry-age the meat themselves.) Other good steakhouses use less expensive grades, but make up for it with low prices, strong old-fashioneds and plenty of atmosphere. Among L.A. steakhouses, none are more atmospheric than the Arsenal and the Sherman Room.

The Arsenal is your basic restaurant from the Twilight Zone, with medieval weaponry mounted on the walls, mortar shells hanging from the ceiling and a queer, Heironymous Bosch-like mural of crockery and anteaters painted behind the bar. Nailed to the wall above each red-leatherette booth is the Arsenal’s drink menu, which includes such delights as coffee spiked with tequila and Swiss cherry liqueur--at the Arsenal, evidence of your mortality seems always close at hand.

You order a surf ‘n’ turf platter by asking for “undecided.” The only waitress, 25-year Arsenal veteran Mary Brady, is known to all as the Warden. And I’ve seen a tableful of thirtysomething Peaks Freaks here attempting to tie cherry stems into knots with their tongues.

It’s somebody’s birthday tonight. The Arsenal’s ancient jukebox lurches into a Bing Crosby-ish recording of “Happy Birthday,” and the Warden emerges from the kitchen carrying a flaming cocktail that both glows a lurid red and drips gobbets of blue flame down the side of the glass. The honoree, who looks as if he’s been drinking since noon, slouches further down into his seat and stares slackly into space.

“It’s for you,” his wife says, beaming.

“Like a big birthday candle,” the Warden adds.

The man scratches himself, burps softly and blows out his drink. Everybody in the dining room applauds.

The menu here is exactly what you expect--meat, foil-wrapped potatoes with goopy cheese sauce, and garlic bread--and though it can take half an hour to attract the Warden’s attention, a chilled plate of salad is in front of you 30 seconds after you order.

The big event seems to be chateaubriand for two, the most expensive thing on the menu. When it’s ready, two honks sound from the kitchen and the Warden marches down the aisle followed by a busboy carrying a card table. (The procession wouldn’t attract any more attention if Madonna were carrying the meat.) The busboy sets it down, flicks on a dim, plastic coach-lamp attached to the table, and carves the charred tube of steak into eight thick slices, transferring them to two plates. He flicks off the light.

“That was wuhhhn -der- foool ,” the Warden says.

But really, the steak isn’t nearly as good as the show.

Consider a New York steak, which has a little more flavor, or perhaps just a whole lot of bar-brand Scotch.

The Sherman Room is a little more like a regular steakhouse-bar, the kind you’d expect to find in Idaho or Kansas City, with sporting prints, dad’s-den paneling and a wait that can stretch more than an hour on weekend nights. A flagstone fireplace flickers with the cold light of a mechanical log; a blurry etching on the mirror behind the bar makes you feel as if you’ve bolted four martinis before you’ve even touched a drop. The attractions here are the prices, which are absurdly low--steaks cost less than $10; steak and lobster less than $15--and the friendly waitresses, who seem to have been working there since Century City was a bean field. Plus, the restaurant is 21-and-over, a joint for grown-ups.

To be truthful, the lobster here isn’t the tastiest. The filet steaks seem a bit like wet cardboard. But the beer is cold, a New York steak ordered rare comes rare, and the garlic toast is pleasantly sodden. For dessert, there’s that fudgy ice-cream concoction called mud pie.

“Here, let grandma do it,” our waitress said one night as she leaned over the table and extracted a stubborn lobster tail from its shell. (Previously she had refilled our water glasses half a dozen times, poured beer every time the level in a glass got a little low, passed out extra napkins in case we wanted them, emptied the ashtray an average of three times per cigarette, served the steaks and brought us bowls of delicious, smoky lentil soup.)

“Those things can be tricky,” she said.

The Arsenal, 12012 W. Pico Blvd., West Los Angeles, (213) 479-9782. Open Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Full bar. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $18-$25.

The Sherman Room, 16916 Sherman Way, Van Nuys, (818) 881-9363. Open for dinner Tuesday-Saturday. Full bar. Cash only. Dinner for two, food only, $15-$28.