A Little Boost for Some Missing Children

We’ve become accustomed to seeing photos of missing children on milk cartons, grocery bags and billboards. In the ongoing hunt for the abducted Polly Hannah Klass of Petaluma, searchers are using computer bulletin boards and even MTV. Now James Chin, who is planning to open Duck Heaven in Hollywood, has come up with the idea of printing photos of missing youth--runaways or kidnap victims--on his takeout menu. “It’s a matter of sacrificing some space, but it’s worth it,” he says. “I see a lot of runaways and homeless in this area.”

The Adam Walsh Center in Orange, the California branch of the nonprofit National Center for Missing & Exploited Children based in Arlington, Va., will provide the photos for the menus, which should change approximately every three months as new menus are printed. Chin’s first takeout menu will feature pictures of the 12-year-old Klass and Wilda Benoit, 15, of Louisiana. “When a case is new,” says the Center’s Kim Giambalvo, “you have a better chance of recovery. As the clock ticks, it’s murderous. You don’t know what’s happening, and they can get farther away.”

Chin, who hopes to open Duck Heaven on Friday, plans to feature lots of Chinese barbecue and dim sum. But his specialty will be (as if you couldn’t guess) . . . duck: roasted, marinated, as a salad and Peking-style. He named the restaurant after the restaurant one of his friends owns in Manhattan, Pig Heaven. “I liked the name, but I thought some people will be offended by pig,” Chin says. “Chicken Heaven doesn’t sound so good. Duck Heaven sounds better. Maybe some people will get curious and drop in.”

CLASSIC CORELLI: If you’re lucky, you’ve already made the pilgrimage to Emilia-Romagna, the gastronomic center of Northern Italy with the reputation of offering the country’s best food--authentic balsamic vinegar, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, prosciutto di Parma. If you haven’t been, don’t worry, Mauro Vincenti has invited Igles Corelli, the two-star chef of Trigabolo in the little town of Argenta, near Bologna, to cook at his downtown’s Rex Il Ristorante for three nights, beginning Tuesday. Each night a different five-course prix fixe menu ($75 per person, food only) is featured, and reservations are limited to 30 guests.

FAUCHON WEST: Pascal Ohlats, who owns Pascal, one of Orange County’s best restaurants, plans to open a small French gourmet food store/deli next to his Newport Beach restaurant featuring, as he puts it, “anything you can find in France.” Well, maybe not the Eiffel Tower or Paul Bocuse, but things like foie gras , fresh rabbit, duck, cheeses, pastries, chocolates, olive oils. “You know,” says Ohlats, “just because we are in Newport Beach, doesn’t mean we are in Leisure World.”

STOCKPOT: Eat a Northern Italian dinner at Prego today and take home a free pumpkin. . . . Millie’s, the pint-sized, offbeat diner on Sunset that won’t go away, is now open for dinner. . . . Dick’s Last Resort in San Diego offers all the snow crab legs you can eat for $9.95 from 4 to 10 p.m. every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday during October and November.