SEQUELS : Jeez, If We’d Known You Were Going to Take It All So Seriously . . .

Just when we thought it was safe to go back into L.A. restaurants, the reaction poured in to the June 30 “Power Eating” story in Sunday Calendar. And, uh, what a reaction it was!

Century City entertainment attorney Howard Weitzman thought we overlooked Orsini’s, which he says gets a sizable Culver City and Fox crowd (including Peter Guber, Roger Birnbaum, Harris Katleman, Irwin Winkler, John Davis and, of course, Weitzman).

Others piped up that Nate ‘n Al’s (especially Saturday breakfasts), Primi (weekday lunches), Hotel Bel Air (weekday breakfasts) and the Regent Beverly Wilshire main dining room (all those InterTalent, United Talent and William Morris agents in the immediate area) could have been mentioned.

Yes, Musso and Frank’s is as faithfully patronized as ever. But we defend our omission of the Ivy on the grounds that the place is too pretty and the food too good to be anything but a social eatery. And word has it that the Palm’s maitre d’, Gigi DelMaestro, apologized to “Mobsters” producer Steve Roth for not mentioning that Roth always gets the restaurant’s No. 1 table (first table, right-hand side) whenever he walks through the door.

Finally, the award for overreacting goes hands down to Columbia Bar and Grill in Hollywood. First came a letter stating that “your article was both interesting and enlightening but not accurate. We’ve been in existence for five years and have been written up by every entertainment columnist since its opening. Army Archerd reports on celebrities and entertainment executives in our restaurant at least twice a week. Enclosed is a copy of his column written after President Ronald Reagan lunched here with Arnold Schwarzenegger in which Archerd wrote ‘The Brown Derby was never like this. . . .’ ”

Managing general partner Jayson Kane also pointed out that his is the only restaurant to have Lucite name plaques on tables to identify the VIPs, such as: Stephen Cannell, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Sherry Lansing, Norman Lear, Brandon Tartikoff, Paul Witt, Susan Harris, Stanley Jaffe, Gary Lieberthal, Jim Wiatt, “just to name a few.” (FYI, the pecking order was his. Also included was, er, Robin Leach.)

But his most interesting news was that, just a week ago, director Robert Altman chose Columbia to shoot a “power eating” scene for his in-the-works film “The Player,” based on the novel about a studio executive who gets death threats from a screenwriter.

Still don’t think people take power eating seriously?

Two days after the article appeared, one of the authors of “Power Eating” made a 1 p.m. reservation for two at Columbia Bar and Grill. When she arrived, Kane gleefully escorted her to her table--which had been strategically placed in the hallway between the men’s and ladies’ rooms.

“This is what happens,” Kane explained, “to people who leave us out of their ‘Power Eating’ articles.”

No problem. But the only reason she made the reservation at Columbia was that Patina happened to be closed that day.

(For a sampling of other reaction, please turn to the Letters page.)