Restaurants

RESTAURANT diners -- when they can make themselves heard above the blaring music from a chef's iPod playlist, the clatters and shouts from an open kitchen, and the roar of the cocktail drinkers in an adjacent lounge -- are talking about restaurant noise these days more than the food. And the sound of that is finally reaching management ears.

Diners in this food-obsessed city are used to exotic offerings such as chili squid salad, risotto Milanese with oxtail ragu and marinated noisettes of venison. But this winter a controversial new item has been showing up in the fine print of menus at some of the hottest restaurants: a surcharge to help pay for worker health insurance.

The server shows off the charred bistecca fiorentina, then carves the massive porterhouse into finger-thick slices. At $160 for two, it's easily the most expensive steak I've ever eaten, if not the most expensive piece of aged meat in the country. Want to anoint it with horseradish sauce? Here at Carnevino, Mario Batali's new restaurant on the Strip, that'll be $5 more.

POLISHING off their cream-filled crepes and fruit smoothies, the after-movie crowd at Garden Cafe drifts homeward around 1 a.m. But by 3 a.m., a fresh wave of customers -- most in goth-inspired club-wear -- fills the tables at this classic Hong Kong-style coffee shop.

Taco truck owners vowed to ignore a law passed by Los Angeles County supervisors Tuesday making it a misdemeanor crime -- punishable by fines and jail -- to stay parked in one place for more than an hour. "They can try to move us, but we're not going to go," said Aleida De La Cruz, whose taco truck has been a family business for 20 years. "What are they going to do, take us all to jail?"

LOS ANGELES is burgerville, but we love our hot dogs too. A lot. This is the No. 2 dog-eating town in the country, right after New York. It's no accident that Wienerschnitzel, the world's largest hot dog chain, was born in Wilmington. We have our old-time dog houses such as Pink's in Hollywood, Cupid's in Northridge and the notorious Oki Dog, with its indefensible topping of pastrami and cheese.

Orange County should give itself an F for the way it informs the public about health conditions in restaurants, according to a grand jury report released Thursday. Most residents are "in the dark" about whether a trip to a restaurant will result in a memorable meal or a stay at the hospital. The report's recommendation: Follow Los Angeles County's example by implementing a grading system that assigns each restaurant an A, B or C. "Studies . . .

For many of California's upscale hotels and restaurants, green is the new black. Prompted by trendy, taste-making guests, California's chicest resorts, spas and eateries are integrating local ingredients into their decor, amenities and menus. And high quality may be why local products are now associated with status at many upscale retreats. Celebrity chefs such as Neal Fraser of Grace strive to "reduce our carbon footprint."

RICHARD Riordan is no gourmet. That's one of the first things he wants you to know. But he is a restaurateur, and a very successful one. In fact, though the 78-year-old Riordan is best known as the multimillionaire former mayor of Los Angeles, he also owns two of the busiest restaurants in Southern California, the Original Pantry and Gladstone's Malibu.

Americans love eating out -- and that affection for restaurant food is growing. Restaurant industry sales were $379 billion in 2000, reaching an estimated $558 billion in 2008, according to the National Restaurant Assn. But there's a price to pay beyond the tab -- thicker waistlines. Many restaurant items are laden with fat and calories, far more than most people would estimate. But eating out doesn't have to be unhealthful.