Just Which Law Did the Suspect Break?

Mona Hobson of L.A. notes that the Wilshire Independent’s police blotter contained this somewhat indelicately written item: “A day laborer hired to do some work at a woman’s house is suspected of going through the woman’s drawers.”

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ONE LESS EYEWITNESS: Then there was the police log item that Kathy Aikenhead spotted in the Palisadian-Post about the suspect who “broke victim’s trunk lock, removed glasses and fled in unknown direction.”

A diabolical trick, Aikenhead notes, to take off the victim’s glasses so the latter wouldn’t know what direction the thief took.

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DAREDEVIL GOURMET: Firefighters were sent to a hotel in Century City on Wednesday after a report of a man about to jump from an upper floor. They later determined “he was just having lunch.”

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SANDWICHING IN SOME STRANGE LETTERS: Dede Stokes of Duarte noticed a shop with a new type of dish (see photo) while Douglas Haynes of Moorpark observed that there’s still a bit of the country spirit in Simi Valley. Haynes purchased a sandwishie--excuse me, a sandwich--with “everythang” (see accompanying).

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LEFTOVERS: Marty’s, the funky, 67-year-old diner on East 7th Street, has been taken over by new owners, who are transforming it into an upscale eatery called the French Garden. Some other historic restaurant names that survive:

* 1. Cole’s, downtown, opened in 1908

* 2. Philippe’s, downtown, 1908

* 3. Musso and Frank, Hollywood, 1919

* 4. Pacific Dining Car, west of downtown, 1921

* 5. Tam O’Shanter, Los Feliz, 1922

* 6. Original Pantry, downtown, 1924

* 7. La Golondrina, Olvera Street, 1924

* 8. Les Freres Taix, Echo Park, 1927

* 9. El Cholo, midtown, 1927

* 10 (tie). El Coyote, Park La Brea, 1931

* 10. Canter’s, Fairfax, 1931.

Little Joe’s, which opened in 1932, deserves an asterisk. It began as the Italian-American Grocery Company in 1910 in L.A.’s Little Italy near the city’s French colony. Both areas are now part of Chinatown.

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CROSS-CULTURAL DINERS: Jackie Lapin came upon the Mongolian BBQ & Mexican Grill in Thousand Oaks (motto: “Wok ‘n’ South”). No telling what would go into a taco with everythang.

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MAY I RECOMMEND THE DEAD FISH TODAY, SIR? Hugh Ryono, a volunteer worker at Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific, writes, “While preparing the sea otter’s squid, shrimp and clams, I thought to myself how this same meal served in a Westside restaurant as ‘Calamari, Scampi and Steamers’ would be an extremely fashionable, and expensive, menu item. Isn’t it amazing how, by just changing the names, we can turn a water weasel’s sustenance to a legal eagle’s business lunch?”

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YOU MEAN IT LANDED ON EARTH?! Dolores Vernet of Torrance, checking on the Internet, found a reference to a drug called Pregnenolone, which, the text said, “is asteroid hormone.”

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miscelLAny:

A conscientious tree-pruner with a sense of humor left a note for Archie Ackroyd and his Arcadia neighbors that said in part: “Due to the hazard of falling limbs, we ask that you clear your frontyard of cars, furniture and other valuables (especially children).”

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Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.