Full Menu Awaits New Year’s Eve Diners

New Year’s Eve is celebrated throughout this city in many restaurants with an enticing variety of menus--although this year, foie gras seems a near-universal holiday taste. The following, a comparatively small listing of restaurant festivities, includes some dreamy food and a few good bargains. Unless otherwise noted, prices quoted do not include tax, gratuity or beverages. Early reservations are a must and some restaurants require a deposit.

Most establishments offer two seatings. Second seatings often cost more because of extra courses, party favors, entertainment and much whooping it up at the stroke of midnight.

Jimmy’s in Beverly Hills offers its regular a la carte dining from 5:30-9 p.m. and then a black-tie-optional formal dinner party with music and dancing beginning at 9 p.m. A five-course menu offers party-goers plenty of choices, including oysters, blinis with two caviars, lobster consomme, and Tournedos Rossini with goose liver and truffle sauce. $115 per person. Champagne and wines not included.

* Jimmy’s, 201 Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 552-2394.

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The Thousand Cranes Restaurant in the New Otani Hotel is offering a traditional nine-course “kaiseki” dinner from 6-9:30 p.m. The formal Japanese dinner includes caviar, clear soup with lobster and shiitake mushrooms, sashimi, steamed eel, grilled cod, deep-fried shrimp, salmon roll, Japanese noodles and traditional soba noodles. $65 per adult, $35 for children under 10. From 9 p.m.-1 a.m., there will be dancing, a no-host bar and sake-barrel breaking as well as a long life noodle celebration for $20 per person.

* Thousand Cranes, 120 S. Los Angeles St., Little Tokyo, (213) 629-1200.

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A three-course New Year’s Eve dinner will be offered from 6 p.m. until 1996 at Abiquiu. Stop in for, among other items, blue corn pancakes with lobster and lime butter, haunch of venison and “Pueblo” baked Alaska, for the terrific price of $30 per person.

* Abiquiu, 1413 5th St., Santa Monica, (310) 395-8611.

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Decisive eaters may wish to spend New Year’s Eve celebrating at La Cachette, where there are two seatings. From 5:30-8:30 p.m., there will be a three-course meal for which chef Jean Francois Meteigner offers such impossible choices as: foie gras, escargots with parsley mousse, warm lobster salad or black truffle salad. From 8:30 on, a four-course meal is offered, with the same sorts of choices, plus a deejay, dance floor, party favors, etc. First seating, $60 per person. Second seating, $100 per person.

* La Cachette, 10506 Little Santa Monica Blvd., Century City, (310) 470-4992.

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Campanile’s New Year’s Eve merrymaking will be set to the sounds of Ray Botado and his Cuban Quartet. The first seating, from 6-7 p.m., concluding at 9 p.m., includes a five-course dinner with a tough choice of entree: seared scallops with Osetra caviar, duck breast stuffed with foie gras or roast saddle of venison with chestnuts. The later seating, at 9, 9:30 and 10 p.m. until after midnight, includes a five-course menu (the extra course is a seafood buffet), party favors and a glass of champagne at midnight. First seating, $75 per person; second seating, $125 per person.

* Campanile, 624 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 938-1447.

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At Citrus, the regular menu will run from 6 until 8:30 p.m., when chef de cuisine Alain Giraud’s special New Year’s Eve dinner menu and party begins. A six-course meal features foie gras and vegetable roulade, goat cheese terrine with winter salad, and a choice of roast veal loin or filet of venison. $125 per person includes food, a glass of champagne to toast in the New Year, music and fun.

* Citrus, 6703 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 857-0034.

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Provencia, the bright yellow “French trattoria” on Fairfax, will have two seatings for a four-course meal with one glass of champagne and party favors. $45 per person.

* Provencia, 945 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 654-4594.

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Diaghilev at the Wyndham Bel Age in West Hollywood will offer a five-course menu for two seatings, the first from 6-8:30 p.m., the second from 9 p.m. on. A female vocalist will perform Russian songs. The prices, $65 per person for the first seating and $125 per person for the second seating, include food, party favors and valet parking, but no vodka.

* Diaghilev, 1001 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, (310) 854-1111.

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For those willing to brave party crowds and pre-Rose Parade traffic, Twin Palms in Pasadena is featuring a four-course menu. Entrees include chicken with foie gras, roasted veal with sweet pea flan, ro^tisserie prime rib or John Dory Duglere. The first seating, from 5:30-6:30 till 8:15 p.m., costs $65 per person, which includes food, tax and gratuity. The second seating, from 9-10:30 p.m until midnight, costs $145 per person and includes food, house wine, well drinks, champagne for a midnight toast, party favors, tax and gratuity.

* Twin Palms, 101 W. Green St., Pasadena, (818) 577-2567.

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The Border Grill in Santa Monica will have a live Latin band, a condensed menu of its usual authentic Mexican and Latin food, plus a few special dishes by chef Scott Lindquist. The doors open at 5:30 p.m., and while there is no cover charge, there is a food-only minimum of $25 per person and a two-hour maximum at the tables--but you can hang out in the bar and dance for as long as you like. At midnight, there will be a big sorpresa!

* The Border Grill, 1445 4th St., Santa Monica, (310) 451-1655.