Two to Tango

IN A PERFECT WORLD, RESTAURANTS WITH GREAT FOOD WOULD HAVE an equally exciting setting. More often than not we have to choose one or the other, and my propensity is for food over atmosphere. Occasionally I’ll find a place that’s so congenial, I’ll go back whether the cooking is my heart’s desire or not.

Loren “Lola” Dunsworth, a Canadian who was director of special events for the House of Blues, has created a relaxed, convivial atmosphere at her new restaurant, Lola’s, on Fairfax Avenue. The space that once housed the Hollywood Diner, Tuttobene and Provencia has never looked better. The front windows of the small ‘20s building are embellished with smoked glass depicting a martini glass with an 8-ball “olive.” Inside, “Friends” look-alikes perch on stools at the bird’s-eye maple bar sipping one of Lola’s 45 martinis. Vodka infused with banana liqueur or cranberry juice? Not for me. I’ll stick with a classic Boodles gin martini poured into an oversized glass from a stainless steel shaker.

To the right is a cozy alcove outfitted with leopard-skin sofas; beyond that a room with an antique billiard table has a handful of dining tables from which to savor the action. The main dining room has a vaulted ceiling and saucy wrought-iron chairs upholstered in cheetah-patterned velveteen. Tables range from tete-a-tete size to large enough for a birthday party.

The offerings are strictly in the grown-up comfort food vein. Egg pie, a flat omelet layered with potatoes, bacon and mushrooms and thickly blanketed in melted cheese, isn’t at all bad. Golden arancini, deep-fried rice balls stuffed with cheese, would be better off without the canned-tomato-tasting marinara sauce. There are soggy crab cakes with tartar sauce and pale fried calamari with a bowl of that same tomato sauce. Overall the menu seems geared for people who don’t pay much attention to what they’re eating. Who would after a couple of those oversize martinis?

A Nicoise salad has the tuna, hard-boiled egg and potato, but where are the Nicoise olives, the anchovies and green beans? Instead you get rice, green onions and artichokes. Pacific Northwest salad is a sorry mixture of tired greens with sweet smoked salmon and a maple-balsamic vinaigrette, a new one on me. Spaghetti and meatballs consists of springy noodles and mushy meatballs sloshed in ‘50s-style red sauce. Linguine and clams in white sauce is gummy, doused in enough cream for five orders. Grilled pork chops with applesauce and floury corn pudding is a good deal at $9.50, and the baked English fish and chips, topped with checca sauce, is pretty good, especially with vinegar on the fries.

For dessert, pass up the other choices in favor of the gooey, delicious fried bananas in brown sugar, butter and rum sauce.

Lola’s food is not terrible (it’s not expensive either), but with a few tweaks it could be a lot better. The service, however, is warm and friendly, and it’s a great hangout.

*

THE ARRIVAL OF A NEW CHEF INSPIRED ME TO TAKE ANOTHER LOOK AT 410 Boyd, set next to a Japanese restaurant and bar a block or so southeast of Little Tokyo. The restaurant, which looks something like an industrial diner, is a reliable downtown lunch spot. After dark it turns into a haven for artists living in the nearby lofts, with a friendly, eclectic crowd occupying the black booths across from the block-long wood bar.

Well-made and generously sized drinks include a top-notch Manhattan. When asked about the imported beers, the bartender pulls out the last of his Schneider Weisse, a dark wheat beer from Germany with an unusually strong yeast taste. The wine list is fairly innocuous, though.

Appetizers from the mix-and-match menu are generous enough to feed two, even three. Best bets are the platter of chicken threaded onto skewers and served with a delicious, grassy cumin and cilantro sauce and a plate of decent smoked salmon with all the fixings. Steamed mussels arrive in a tomato and chile ragout so searing it blasts out your sinuses, making it difficult to taste the mild mollusks. Crab cakes are fried to a dark brown crunch and paired with a dollop of chipotle remoulade.

And miracle of miracles, you can actually get soup. Not the ubiquitous vegetable puree--no butter, no cream--offered in many L.A. restaurants, but interesting, well-conceived soups like chilled avocado and cucumber or Tuscan white bean with fresh tomatoes.

Sandwiches (in fact, the entire menu) are served at both lunch and dinner. My favorite is the blackened catfish with crispy fried onions and Cajun remoulade on a brioche. There’s also a good grilled Portobello mushroom sandwich on spongy sun-dried tomato bread. The all-American burger comes on grilled rosemary bread. How American is that? At least they didn’t leave out the onion, and they remembered to cook it medium rare. But a two-inch-thick piece of barely seared pepper-crusted ahi tuna, served on a soft brioche, is unappetizing.

Fish is always very fresh. One night grilled salmon tasted as if it had just been pulled from the water, a wonderful piece of fish served with an herb rice pilaf. Another time it was Chilean sea bass surrounded with summer vegetables. A light coverlet of mellow Gorgonzola and parsley goes a long way toward giving the New York steak some flavor. I’d order it just for the fries dusted with chile powder. Pass on the spicy gumbo, though, more like rice with sauce than anything I’d ever call a gumbo. We’re not here to examine the fine points of the cooking anyway; it’s the good talk and the slightly bedraggled scene that are the appeal.

For dessert there’s an old-fashioned shortcake with that familiar Bisquick taste, heaped with sliced peaches and berries. If the kitchen would cut down on the salt and juice up the berries a little, it would be perfect. But no quibbles with the chocolate terrine, an elegant slab of dark chocolate that seems as if it wandered in from some other restaurant.

The owner and manager, Ulrich Schnetter and Stephan Schlag, are Germans who worked for the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain, which may explain why 410 Boyd seems so polished at moments. But at others it’s just plain quirky, which is fine when it comes to atmosphere.

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Lola’s

CUISINE: American comfort food. AMBIENCE: Comfortable hangout. BEST DISHES: egg pie, grilled pork chops. FACTS: 945 N. Fairfax Ave., West Hollywood; (213) 736-5652. Open daily for dinner until 2 a.m. Dinner for two, food only, $33 to $60. Corkage $10.

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410 boyd

CUISINE: California. AMBIENCE: Urban diner with eclectic crowd. BEST DISHES: Skewered chicken platter, grilled salmon. FACTS:410 Boyd St., Los Angeles; (213) 617-2491. Closed Saturday and Sunday, and Monday for dinner. Dinner for two, food only, $24 to $60. Corkage $7.50.