RESTAURANT JOURNAL

JAAN, the restaurant at Raffles L’Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills, is the newest player in a game called Overprice That Entree. It now offers the Forty-Five Dollar Salad (that’s what they call it).

The salad has so many exotic ingredients, it looks like the tally of a Bristol Farms looting spree. To wit: a whole poached Maine lobster, Hudson Valley foie gras with a confit of pears and a port reduction, Italian black truffles, green pea shoots, white asparagus, English peas, teardrop tomatoes, artichoke chips and, of course, Beluga caviar.

A lunch version is enough for one diner, but chef Bruno Lopez created the more exotic dinner salad as a shared appetizer.

A few blocks east at Mastro’s Steakhouse, an 18-ounce Australian lobster tail -- with no side dishes -- is $79.95. Feel like beef? A double-cut 40-ounce Porterhouse steak is $60. A side of fingerling potatoes is $9.95.

At L’Orangerie, le turbot sauvage -- that’s wild turbot -- is $58. It hails from Brittany, is given a salt crust and is served with an artichoke ragout and baby vegetables.

Don’t be silly and think you’re going to scoop the leftovers into a doggie bag. At L’Ermitage, there’s another option. For Fido or Fifi, items on a special pet companion menu begin at $16 for a bowl of chicken consomme with bonito flakes. The little furry princes can also choose from a $28 grilled filet of beef with organic rice, a $23 poached salmon belly with frothed milk, a $25 pate of foie gras with micro-farmed chicken eggs and, for our most loyal companions, the Osetra caviar with hard-poached eggs for a mere $98. Portions are, of course, small because the hotel sets a weight limit of 35 pounds for pet guests.

-- Valli Herman-Cohen

Small bites

* Noe, a restaurant featuring “progressive American cuisine,” opened two days ago in the Omni Los Angeles Hotel at the California Plaza downtown. Chef Robert Gadsby, formerly of Gadsbys on La Brea, will offer six- and nine-course tasting menus, for $65 and $95, as well as a la carte dishes such as rigatoni with house-prepared dried sausage and veal sweetbreads with celery-apple whipped potatoes, pancetta and fennel jus. Noe will be open for dinner seven nights a week.

Noe, 251 S. Olive St., Los Angeles, (213) 356-4100.

* Things are heating up earlier in the day at Nic’s, Larry and Melissa Nicola’s stylish Beverly Hills martini lounge. Lunch is now being served Tuesdays through Saturdays. Early favorites include the spa chop chop with grilled turkey breast, papaya, cucumber, tomato and feta and the Nic burger with white Cheddar and grilled onions. There’s also a nonalcoholic “three martini” lunch special for $22. It might feature organic gazpacho or halibut ceviche -- in martini glasses, natch.

Nic’s, 453 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 550-5707.

* A third Los Angeles location of the popular restaurant Gyu-Kaku, a yakiniku or Japanese-style barbecue, has opened in Torrance, joining the more upscale version, which opened on Beverly Hills’ Restaurant Row in April, and its West Los Angeles location. Yakiniku allows diners to grill their own meats at the table, but the Gyu-Kaku version offers a classic ending to every meal-by-fire -- s’mores for dessert. The restaurant chain is huge in Japan, where there are 400 locations.

Gyu-Kaku, 24631 Crenshaw Blvd., Torrance, (310) 325-1437; and 163 N. La Cienega Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 659-5790.

* Vida, the terminally hip Los Feliz restaurant of Fred Eric, has closed. Eric, who is also behind Fred 62 in Los Feliz and Airstream Diner in Beverly Hills, said he wanted to spend more time with his baby daughter. He leased the space to friends who plan to open under the same name in a few weeks.