A Room That Fits 007 to a T

It’s a gray world above the bar at the T Room--a curvy 3-D map of it anyway. An asteroid-like globe lamp hangs over a huge circular chrome-and-vinyl couch. Shiny red vinyl covers the padded walls of the dining room. The tube-shaped banquettes are black and chrome. The crowd is young, hip and arty. A metallic door to the outside world, like something out of a B-movie spaceship, looks as if it’s ready to whoosh when it opens. Is this a restaurant or James Bond’s living room?

Actually, it’s not a restaurant in the usual sense. Tell your waiter, for instance, that you’d like the halibut and enoki mushroom eggrolls to start and then the lamb chops for dinner and you’ll get what you asked for . . . simultaneously. Everything on the vaguely French-Japanese menu--from the charbroiled chicken breast and sea bass en croute to the sauteed oysters and seared tuna sashimi--comes on the sort of small pedestal plates you’d have seen in a fancy Chinese restaurant 20 years ago. No hungry-man meals here. This is stuff to eat when you’re more interested in chatting, drinking and scanning the crowd for potential dates. Just like James Bond.

* T Room, 5657 Melrose Ave., Hollywood. (213) 467-4068. Menu prices $8 to $18.