A return to pandemic protocols for L.A. eaters?

It finally happened.

On Thursday, for the first time in months, I walked toward a modest Mexican restaurant in South Los Angeles and thought twice, pausing, about sitting indoors for a quick lunch.

As new variants of the coronavirus demonstrate a remarkable ability to spread and get past vaccines and boosters, Los Angeles County this week reentered the “high” tier of community spread for COVID-19. Hospitalizations are on the rise, which means a direct, tangible effect of the pandemic on everyday life — a return to a mandate of universal indoor masking — looms by the end of the month.

Hot dude summer? It was fun while it lasted.

I’m Daniel Hernandez, Food editor at the Los Angeles Times, and this week, I’m starting to get worried — as L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer is now officially suggesting — about catching COVID-19 (again).

My instinctive hesitation on Thursday about eating inside hit me in the gut in a way I could not have anticipated. We’ve been relishing the freedom and semi-return to pre-pandemic normalcy since spring, when mandates lifted and the initial Omicron variant surge subsided.

I’ve been running around town, hitting new dining spots and dance parties, slurping micheladas at Dodgers games, and having friends over for spontaneous barbecues. It’s been nice.

Now, as I approached the front entrance of a new-to-me typical L.A. Mexican diner on Slauson Avenue in Windsor Hills, a “stop” sign greeted me along with the familiar symbols for hand sanitizer and masks being encouraged. The modest spot, Puerto Nuevo, is asking patrons to wait to be let inside. All staff wore masks. My guest and I looked at each other with a shared glance of understanding and decided to take a table on the side patio outdoors.

As we munched on burritos and slurped Mexican jugos, the specter of another debilitating wave of COVID infections seemed both around the corner and far in the distance. Something’s still off in the air in L.A. about the pani, as I like to call it.

Despite how awful previous waves of the pandemic have been for our communities — including cooks, cleaners, servers, agricultural workers and all the essential laborers who keep our food industry humming — it seems there is little willingness overall to go into full masking or lockdown mode again in Los Angeles. So what will it take for the renewed threat to be taken seriously? If things keep getting worse with coronavirus variants and a return of mandates, will local policymakers have the resolve to respond with robust mitigation and enforcement? Will restaurants, which are barely clawing back to stability since March 2020, be able to survive if another massive wave hits?

These thoughts will linger with me as we head into another sunny weekend in Southern California. For now, I’ll still be going out there, eating, tasting and enjoying everything our fair county has to offer this summer. And I’ll remain outdoors as much as possible.

How are you feeling about all this? Drop a line to tastingnotes@latimes.com and let our staff writers know. Now, here are more highlights from the week in L.A. Times Food coverage. There is, as ever, a lot going on ...

Other news

The bone marrow taco from Pepe’s Red Tacos taco truck.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)

— Yes, bone marrow belongs in a taco, as Jenn Harris informs us. She’s found an innovative taco truck that is marrying the current crazes for birria and bone marrow in one sacred form, the taco.

— Brewers need cans for beer. Beer cans are in short supply nationally. And California’s evidently obsolete recycling system and regulations are making it harder for beer makers to sell their brews. Insert weeping emoji here.

— First Lady Jill Biden’s recent taco gaffe (but was it even really? Make it make sense!) gave the reactionary right some fodder for ... some kind of attack on the White House. Your L.A. Times analysts are on it here, here and here.

— The French dip, California roll and the Moscow mule were all invented in Los Angeles. Patt Morrison tells us more.

— Our resident recipe tester Julie Giuffrida explores the wonderful universe of eggplant from our archive of Times recipes. That timbale by Evan Kleiman in the lead photo looks alarming at first, but look closely!

— Critic Bill Addison knows San Diego dining, and this week, he proves it. If you’re headed to the carnival of senses that is Comic-Con, take his new map with you.

— We say it often, but I’ll just say it again. Los Angeles’ restaurant scene is as robust, dynamic and sophisticated as any other city’s in the world. There. Said it. Addison’s review this week zeroes in on Camphor in the Arts District for further evidence. At dusk, he writes, “the restaurant takes on the dream-state feel of a waiting area to a cinematic afterlife.” Savor it more.

Chefs Max Boonthanakit, left, and Lijo George, right, prepare to open at Camphor on June 30.

(Wesley Lapointe / Los Angeles Times)