Yes, these desserts are toying with you

They’re taking the kitsch out of the kitchen -- and sending it over to your table with dessert.

Odd little statues, wooden music boxes and even wind-up toys are being incorporated into restaurant dishes all over town. Call it the next stage in the theatricalization of dining.

Order the new Going Bananas dessert at the Belvedere in the Peninsula Beverly Hills, for example, and a monkey is pressed into service -- an 8-inch brass monkey. Between its hands is a tiny dish of bananas Foster. At its feet is a cup of peanut butter-banana creme brulee. A banana milk chocolate tart sits on the marble base.

“We’re trying to bring a certain amount of playfulness to the dining room without going overboard,” says executive chef Bill Bracken, who last week introduced a California clam chowder served tableside from a Campbell’s Soup-style can with a special “Bracken’s Original” label. This isn’t Bracken’s first can. He’s dished out heirloom tomato soup from a similar Warhol-inspired vessel and presented tuna tartare in a squat tuna can.

Most people, Bracken says, “get a laugh” out of these presentations. Some even ask to take the can home. “But every now and then,” he adds, “we get a customer who is like, ‘You expect me to eat out of a can?’ and it comes back to the kitchen.”

VIPs might receive, and those who know to ask for it can order, a specially presented amuse bouche -- the Rabbit Surprise -- at the Restaurant at Hotel Bel-Air. A rabbit figurine arrives bearing a demitasse of lobster soup, a taste of ahi tuna tartare and a tiny potato pancake topped with house-smoked salmon. Or special guests might be amused by the appearance at the end of a meal of a miniature cast iron stove filled with petit fours and truffles.

For mini-drama, check out the classic three-minute hourglasses presented to diners at Madame Wu’s with orders of certain specialty teas. The sands rush through, running out at the moment when the tea in your pot is perfectly steeped.

But the most interactive props are part of the prix fixe menu at Rockenwagner restaurant in Santa Monica. There’s the wind-up lobster that zips around the edge of an oversized plate (on which is arranged actual lobster on a corncake with fava beans). Then there are the music boxes that play Beatles tunes. Chef Hans Rockenwagner sends them out of the kitchen topped with berries and tiny sweets.

“Inevitably what happens is people first hear what the song is,” he says, “then they sing along and start eating their desserts.

“You know as a kid you were told by your parents not to play with your food? This is the complete opposite.”

-- Leslee Komaiko

Small bites

* Doug Arango’s opened last week in the former Yujean Kang’s space on Melrose Avenue. A familiar name to Coachella Valley regulars, the Northern Italian-California eatery has been in Palm Desert for 14 years, but due to what Julie Bennett, one of the owners, describes as “circumstances surrounding the purchase of the building we were in,” the decision was made to head west. Open for dinner Monday through Saturday.

Doug Arango’s, 8826 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, (310) 278-3684.

* The former Pammolli in Beverly Hills reopened two weeks ago after closing for a few weeks of renovation. There’s a new, more casual feel and a new name, Massimo (for chef and co-owner Massimo Ormani). Other updates include an expanded bar offering a menu of Assaggi Toscani (Tuscan tastes).

Massimo, 9513 South Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 273-7588.

* Marshall Blair’s restaurant opens Tuesday. Blair, who was chef de cuisine at Water Grill before embarking on this project, also designed the contemporary-looking space.

Blair’s, 2903 Rowena Avenue, Silver Lake, (323) 660-1882.