RESTAURANT REVIEW : Two Options When It’s Time to-Go

This last heat wave sent me running from the stove straight to two fun new to-go counters.

La Bottega Marino, the cute and casual daughter of Marino, one of L.A.’s more ancestral Italian restaurants, sits on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Sweetzer. With wooden tables and chairs, a young Italian staff and thoroughly Euro ambience, it’s a great place for a latte and a dolce, or a fast, big, moderately priced bowl of pasta.

It’s also a fully equipped takeout kitchen whose options include prepared salads, pastas, chicken dishes and sandwiches plus cold cuts, wines, assorted groceries and pasta sauces by the pint. A steam table tempts one with huge meatballs, browned sausages, roasted chicken and three kinds of lasagne.

Sandwich rolls aren’t crusty enough, but I love the hot sausage and rapini sub, and the cold Atomico, with spicy varieties of coppa , salami and capocolla .

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Pastas are varied and competent. I like the bright-tasting spaghetti puttanesca with fresh tomatoes and a penne with many plump, slippery porcini and shiitake mushrooms.

Two not-to-be-missed items include Marino’s terrific antipasti (grilled, sauteed and marinated vegetables) and a tiramisu that, for once, is neither 90% soggy ladyfingers or whipped cream, but mostly mascarpone, the world’s richest cream cheese.

La Bottega’s staff, while ebullient, is temporarily distracted. “It’s World Cup service,” some regulars explain as I wait for an order. Indeed, my bags are filled between bouts of cheering and moaning around the TV, and I leave without my order of lasagna or any of our sfizi di , those golden-fried arancini (rice balls) and crocche de patate (potato croquettes). So best wait until after July 17 to descend on La Bottega.

* La Bottega Marino, 8301 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, (213) 654-1214. Monday-Saturday 8:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Wine and beer to go only. Visa, MasterCard and American Express accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $15-$38.

Those Wild Oats Are Contemporary

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Wild Oats Community Markets can be found in New Mexico, Missouri and other points east, but the large, health-food oriented supermarket on South Lake in Pasadena feels entirely like Berkeley to me. Heck, you can get a neck massage while you’re waiting for your to-go deli order.

Versatile and friendly, Wild Oats caters to most contemporary food preferences; in the deli, this means wheat grass juice and espresso, vegan fare and beef, nonfat doughnuts and butter-cream cakes.

Except for the sandwiches and the sushi, deli food is prepared at Wild Oats’ own off-site kitchen.

We like a classic summer meal of cold lemon chicken and potato salad made with fresh dill--with creamy, slightly overcooked rice pudding for dessert. A vegetarian friend and I try a flavorful lentil/walnut pate, bland seitan stroganoff, a juicy Greek salad and, best of all, curiously addictive tofu chunks in peanut sauce.

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Salads can be hit or miss; a lemony orzo and bulgur is wonderful, but the barley and corn salad tastes mostly like dry oregano. Pasta salads are on the bland side. Our friendly server accurately predicts that we’ll find a salad of grapes, melon, corn, onion, peppers and cilantro “weirdly refreshing.”

Pea-filled vegetarian tamales are surprisingly delicious--far better than their chicken counterparts. Sandwiches are a disappointment; a pita with cheese, sprouts and artichokes fell apart in our hands; a prosciutto sandwich with ordinary black olives is simply misconceived.

Because Wild Oats is a large, diverse supermarket, to-go meals can be augmented with almost anything--Jamaican ginger beer, no-fat black sesame crackers, small organic peaches. Desserts are from Mani’s, Perfectly Sweet and other local bakeries. High impulse items clustered around the deli case can cater to obscure impulses; I buy a bag of sea vegetable crackers just because they contain something called “Job’s Tears.”

* Wild Oats Community Market, 603 S. Lake Ave . , Pasadena (818) 792-1778. Deli open 7 days 8 a.m.-9 p.m. Visa and MasterCard accepted. Deli items $2.99-$8.99 per pound.