Fish And Chips

The dining room featuring a chandelier is full, and a hungry crowd waits outside for a table at the most famous restaurant in town. On the menu: fish and chips. In a fast-food age of American-style hamburgers and Italian pizzas, some Britons still savor the old culinary art of crispy fish and chips (french-fried potatoes). And Harry Ramsden's, a celebrated fish and chip restaurant in the northern town of Guiseley, is where the old-fashioned gourmets come for a finer taste of British heritage.

While "gastropubs" are a staple in the U.K. and Australia, they're still a relatively new concept here. Ben Ford, of Ford's Filling Station in Culver City, will demystify the concept at a special lecture and three-course dinner to introduce new menu items at his restaurant. "It's not just about fish and chips; it can be a very creative cuisine," says Ford. With dishes like roasted quail, smoked lake trout, goose confit and persimmon bread pudding, that's some very fancy pub grub indeed. 6:30 p.

Arsonists set fire to the roof of a doughnut shop and a fish and chips restaurant Thursday night in Mira Mesa, causing more than $150,000 in damage, a San Diego fire official said. No one was injured in the 11:30 p.m. fire in the 6700 block of Mira Mesa Boulevard near Camino Santa Fe. Firefighters arrived to find smoke and flames on the roof and took more than two hours to put out the blaze. Three empty cans containing traces of gasoline were found.

Los Angeles is flooded with grastropubs, but most of them aren't really pubs in the true sense of the word. The Pikey is the real deal. There are three beers on tap, and fish and chips is on the menu. LOCATION 7617 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 850-5400, thepikeyla.com PRICES Snacks, $4-$5; small plates, $11-$16; main courses, $14-$27 DETAILS Open 11:45 a.m. to 2 a.m. Monday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. Credit cards accepted.

The World Cup might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for area soccer fans, but it won't come cheap. A sampling of prices at the food court and concession stands outside the Rose Bowl: U.S. or Mexico sweater: $165. Sweatshirt with Striker mascot: $130. Mexico jersey: $100. U.S. warm-up jersey: $75. U.S. jersey: $60. Colombia hat: $20. Two Big Macs, large fries, Coke, bottled water: $15. Fish and chips: $7. International Quarter-Pound Hot Dog: $3.50. Snow cone: $2.50.

The lemon slush and bottled water will flow freely, but alcohol will not be on tap during UCLA's home football games at the Rose Bowl this year. A trial, one-year no-alcohol sales period begins Saturday at the Bruins' home season opener against the University of Oklahoma, stadium officials said.

England and Japan have a lot in common. For instance, they're both known for very formal social manners and, at the same time, for their love of nature. And England and Japan are both fond of deep-fried batter-coated fish: fish and chips and tempura, respectively. Could this, like their shared taste for plain cooking, be another consequence of being island nations? No, it's simpler than that. Both countries picked up the recipe from Portuguese visitors in the 16th and 17th centuries.

There is British comedy and there is American comedy, and though each influences the other, they do not easily combine. The darts fly in slightly different directions; the rhythms are a hair off, one from the other. Still, with transatlantic mutual admiration among comics stronger than ever, attempts will be made to make it work. Starring and created by David Cross (American, writing with Shaun Pye, British) and set and made in the U.K., "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret," which debuts Friday on IFC, is just such a venture and a not altogether successful one. The six-episode series features Cross ( "Arrested Development," "Mr. Show With Bob and David")

It is toward midnight at the Pikey, the lights are fairly low and the Kinks are playing so loudly that you swear you can hear Ray Davies scratching his ears. You are seated beneath one of Ben Watts' photographs of aging Teddy Boys - tattooed Robert Mitchum types in dark, bespoke suits, and you may be drinking something called a Divine Brown, a peculiar mixture of Ancient Age whiskey and Dr Pepper named for the hooker caught with Hugh Grant just a few blocks from here in Hollywood. You will definitely be observing members of the crowd - in their early 20s - who don't sit down to dinner as much as drift from table to table, having a drink here and an appetizer there before vanishing into the night.

The pilings and other pier supports had just arrived in Redondo Beach, scheduled for use this week to repair the damage to the city's famous pier resulting from January's storm. Then the ocean struck again. It took only 15 minutes Saturday evening for wind-swept waves to claim a favored fishing area--not a single piling was left standing where the 155-foot promenade had stretched between the Monstad section of the pier and the horseshoe-shaped Fisherman's Wharf area.