MY FAVORITE WEEKEND

* The writer and director’s new film, “Bones,” opened Wednesday.

Taking Sides: I’ve got four kids, three boys [ages 3, 6 and 9] are living with me, and we try to go out to dinner one night during the weekend. The boys would rather go to Ed Debevic’s. I think they like the ambience of the place, the music and the fact that waiters get up and sing on the tables. The wait staff is always funny and comically rude. But we try to steer them to Gourmet 88 in Burbank, on San Fernando Road. It’s the Chinese place and the food is very fresh. The Hunan-style lamb is really good. My daughter, who’s 17, lives back East, but when she comes out, she sides with Gourmet 88.

On a Roll: Saturday the boys have activities they go to. But then we’ll spend the rest of the day going bike riding. We live in Encino, and there’s that great park-Balboa Park-that has beautiful paths and not too far away are nice neighborhoods for riding around. Maybe we’ll go play miniature golf [nearby], too. The boys like a few rounds of that, and then they like to play video games in the arcade afterward.

Got a Sitter?: There’s a great Japanese restaurant, Ita-Cho, that my wife and I like to eat at if we can get away by ourselves. If there’s some good jazz playing, we like to go to Catalina’s. Sometimes we just drive around and see what’s going on. One night after dinner at Ita-Cho, we just drove around and noticed that the Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax was showing a 3-D version of “Dial M for Murder,” so we pulled over and got in. It’s fun having no structure for the weekend.

Brunch Options: Sunday we relax, just get up and go to brunch at one of a couple of places. I really like Hugo’s on Santa Monica Boulevard. The breakfast pasta is really good; it’s pasta scrambled with eggs and other stuff. They have an interesting one called the Pasta Mama, with smoked salmon. The kids love I Cugini, in Santa Monica, because they love the olive spread. We’ll go and then hang out on the Promenade. We might even go to Chinatown for dim sum. Empress Pavilion there is probably the biggest restaurant I’ve ever been to.