From the Turf to the Table : Hollywood Park: The Goose Girl is back in the infield, chicken is on the menu, and how about those Asian crab cakes?

“I’ll be on the radio,” Bob Creelman mutters to his secretary as he strides out of his office. He sure will. The walkie-talkie in his pocket is rasping and squawking already.

Hollywood Park has the largest seating capacity of any racetrack in the world--10 acres under roof, as Creelman likes to put it--and walkie-talkies are the staff’s natural means of communication. Creelman, general manager of Epicurean Inc., the track’s food service company, is in charge of five restaurants and 56 concession stands. Lots of people need to talk to him.

Particularly now, because the track is in the midst of major changes. As of Feb. 4, the Hollywood Park Operating Co. has had a new chairman, R. D. Hubbard, who has promised sweeping changes in the track’s operations in the hope of winning back the race fans who had become alienated under the regime of his predecessor, Marje Everett.

A lot of Everett’s unpopularity was due to her changes in track facilities. Some of the lakes in the infield--which had given Hollywood Park its sobriquet “The Track of Lakes and Flowers”--were taken out for concession stands (“which never flew,” says Creelman), and the Goose Girl who had paddled around the lakes was eliminated. A new five-story premium seating facility, the Pavilion of the Stars, was added south of the Clubhouse, and the finish line was moved for the viewing convenience of Pavilion seat holders--to the disgruntlement of Clubhouse and Grandstand patrons.

As Creelman talks about the changes effected by the new regime, he often prefaces some remark with the words, “Now, I don’t want to get into Marje.” But he will mildly note, “As you can see from here, the Pavilion is a straight structure, but at this point the track curves. From a sight-line standpoint, it could have been done better.”

The new regime has gone to great lengths to undo many of Everett’s innovations. The infield concession stands are down; it promises to restore the lakes and the Goose Girl. The finish line has been moved back, and only the first two floors of the Pavilion will be used, and only on weekends. The other floors will be reserved for off-season inter-track betting, as when the Derby or the Preakness is simulcast to Hollywood Park. Patrons are being inundated with questionnaires on how they’d like the track improved.

The food operations have their own bad reputation to overcome. The previous regime introduced the Food Fair, a collection of stands purporting to represent international cuisine (e.g. Polish sausage). Otherwise, changes tended to be downgrades. At the hot dog stands, the condiment pumps were removed, and catsup and mustard became available only in little plastic packets. The pumps are now back.

Creelman, half the time speaking into his spluttering walkie-talkie, is heading for the Clubhouse section ($7 admission) to inspect progress on a bar formerly known as Margaritaville and now being redesigned as the Hollywood Bar & Lounge. The place has been stripped down to the wall studs--one wall remains, with the words “Leave Wall” scrawled on it--and architect Gary Lamb is chatting eagerly about the new plans: live music, photos of movie stars associated with the track on the walls and the tables; hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, happy-hour buffet.

And lots of windows for a view of the saddling paddock--the new administration is big on windows. “And upstairs in the Clubhouse Restaurant,” Lamb says, “we can build outdoor patio seating with an even better view.”

“The best view of the paddock is from the kitchen upstairs,” says executive chef Michael Northern, pointing it out on the plans. “You’re going to want to chew into that.” A chef’s gesture of self-sacrifice.

From the future Hollywood Bar, Creelman heads past the amusingly named Study Hall--a handicapping room dedicated to those intense, private researches whose text is the Daily Racing Form. His path turns north toward the Food Fair, located on the other side of a hand-stamp inspector in the general admission Grandstand section. Here chef Northern had already begun making changes last year, under an agreement with Levy Restaurants of Chicago, a food concession specialist that services Cubs Stadium, Sears Tower, Disney World and other Eastern venues.

“I couldn’t believe it when I came,” says Northern, a 16-year veteran with Levy. “Chicken wasn’t on the menu upstairs in any form. Now there’s a chicken burger in the burger stands, and up in the Clubhouse and the Turf Club there’s a chicken breast sandwich, a chicken pot pie, chicken salad, chicken tostada.”

And here in the Food Fair, not one but two chicken wing stands: one for barbecue wings, the other for Buffalo and teriyaki. The Food Fair has its own chicken salad too.

“The racetrack crowd is a smoking, drinking, meat-eating crowd generally,” says Creelman, “but we’re putting in some health things, trying to modernize.” So the casserole stand also sells Cobb salad and fruit salad. There’s a chow mein burger, which is exactly what it sounds like, and even a Cajun food stand featuring chicken-andouille jambalaya.

“And in the (members-only) Turf Club,” adds chef Northern, “for specials we’re not doing beef stroganoff on noodles, which would be the old-time racetrack idea of upper cuisine, but things like Asian crab cakes with peanut dipping sauce.”

Creelman’s trail has led to the mezzanine level of the general-admission Grandstand. As well as having access to the Food Fair on the main level, the Grandstand has its own hot dog stands, newly featuring a jumbo model which Creelman says is from the same maker as the Dodger Dog (Hollywood Park steams its dogs). On the subject of Dodger Stadium’s hot dog experimentation, he comments, with an air of weary experience, “There’s one rule in this business: When you have a grilled hot dog, you never mess with it.”

At the mezzanine transition between the Grandstand and the Clubhouse, a big deli sandwich station sells to both sides. “We’ve gotten rid of the meat-cutting machines here,” Creelman points out. “The meat is hand-carved now, in the racetrack tradition.” The sandwiches themselves are in the deli tradition: ham, turkey, corned beef, roast beef and so on, in quarter-pound and half-pound sizes.

On the Clubhouse side, the same carved sandwiches are available either for carry-out, or in a dining room that has gotten the new regime’s window treatment--the old wooden shutters are gone, revealing a panorama of palm trees. It’s a more relaxed environment with reserved seating and waiters.

Creelman catches sight of a hand-scrawled sign at one of the Clubhouse bars: Service Next Section. He snatches it up and tosses it into a trash can. “No hand signs,” he quietly reminds an abashed barmaid.

Up on the third floor, the Clubhouse Restaurant has been opened to anybody who pays the Clubhouse section’s $7 tariff. The restaurant shares its kitchen with the private Turf Club and features most of the Turf Club’s menu; also, you can make reservations for seating as at a restaurant. The wine list is fairly sophisticated for a sports facility: Jordan Cabernet, Wild Horse Merlot, Kalin Chardonnay.

The menu is mostly salads and sandwiches, plus omelets and a fish of the day, understandable choices considering that the Clubhouse Restaurant and the Turf Club are by nature meant for daytime dining. Much of it is a far cry from deli sandwiches, to say nothing of hot dogs: Somewhat mushy but honestly crab-flavored crab cakes with a very attractive chile pepper mayonnaise. Crab meat Rangoon (crisp fried crab won tons with mango-butter sauce). A pretty flavorful rib-eye steak sandwich topped with crisp fried onion. A “Toll House Sundae,” oddly named, since the vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup are mounted on a chocolate brownie, but a genuine old-fashioned soda fountain treat.

Creelman is proud of the carrot cake Hollywood Park’s extensive bakery makes, and it doesn’t taste like every other carrot cake in town. That’s not all to the good; it has an odd, oily aroma. Many of the other baked goods are very appealing, though. And the rich bread pudding is made from yesterday’s doughnuts, rather than yesterday’s bread.

The Turf Club, needless to say, is the most elegant of these dining areas (“restaurants,” in Creelman’s terminology). Members sit in comfortable race-viewing seats with screens at each table showing current odds. Waiters in tuxedoes pad noiselessly around.

Although both sides of the third floor (Clubhouse and Turf Club combined seat 3,000) can order the same things, only the Turf Club gets Chinese dishes such as cashew chicken in a meaty soy gravy and specials such as the Asian crab cakes Michael Northern had mentioned.

Generally, the higher the floor you’re on, the better the quality of the food. But the Press Box is about as high as anything here, and the menu there seems to be essentially hot dogs and chocolate cake. Maybe not everything has been upgraded.

RATING DODGER STADIUM: H39 Johnathan Gold on the steamed and the grilled.