FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson has quietly resided in Prince ton, N.J., on the wooded former farmland that is home to his employer, the Institute for Advanced Study, this country’s most rarefied community of scholars. Lately, however, since coming “out of the closet as far as global warming is concerned,” as Dyson sometimes puts it, there has been noise all around him. Chat rooms, Web threads, editors’ letter boxes and Dyson’s own e-mail queue resonate with a thermal current of invective in which Dyson has discovered himself variously described as “a pompous twit,” “a blowhard,” “a cesspool of misinformation,” “an old coot riding into the sunset” and, perhaps inevitably, “a mad scientist.” Dyson had proposed that whatever inflammations the climate was experiencing might be a good thing because carbon dioxide helps plants of all kinds grow. Then he added the caveat that if CO2 levels soared too high, they could be soothed by the mass cultivation of specially bred “carbon-eating trees,” whereupon the University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner looked through the thick grove of honorary degrees Dyson has been awarded — there are 21 from universities like Georgetown, Princeton and Oxford — and suggested that “perhaps trees can also be designed so that they can give directions to lost hikers.” Dyson’s son, George, a technology historian, says his father’s views have cooled friendships, while many others have concluded that time has cost Dyson something else. There is the suspicion that, at age 85, a great scientist of the 20th century is no longer just far out, he is far gone — out of his beautiful mind.

But in the considered opinion of the neurologist Oliver Sacks, Dyson’s friend and fellow English expatriate, this is far from the case. “His mind is still so open and flexible,” Sacks says. Which makes Dyson something far more formidable than just the latest peevish right-wing climate-change denier. Dyson is a scientist whose intelligence is revered by other scientists — William Press, former deputy director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and now a professor of computer science at the University of Texas, calls him “infinitely smart.” Dyson — a mathematics prodigy who came to this country at 23 and right away contributed seminal work to physics by unifying quantum and electrodynamic theory — not only did path-breaking science of his own; he also witnessed the development of modern physics, thinking alongside most of the luminous figures of the age, including Einstein, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Witten, the “high priest of string theory” whose office at the institute is just across the hall from Dyson’s. Yet instead of hewing to that fundamental field, Dyson chose to pursue broader and more unusual pursuits than most physicists — and has lived a more original life.

Among Dyson’s gifts is interpretive clarity, a penetrating ability to grasp the method and significance of what many kinds of scientists do. His thoughts about how science works appear in a series of lucid, elegant books for nonspecialists that have made him a trusted arbiter of ideas ranging far beyond physics. Dyson has written more than a dozen books, including “Origins of Life” (1999), which synthesizes recent discoveries by biologists and geologists into an evaluation of the double-origin hypothesis, the possibility that life began twice; “Disturbing the Universe” (1979) tries among other things to reconcile science and humanity. “Weapons and Hope” (1984) is his meditation on the meaning and danger of nuclear weapons that won a National Book Critics Circle Award. Dyson’s books display such masterly control of complex matters that smart young people read him and want to be scientists; older citizens finish his books and feel smart.

Yet even while probing and sifting, Dyson is always whimsically gazing into the beyond. As a boy he sketched plans for English rocket ships that could explore the stars, and then, in midlife, he helped design an American spacecraft to be powered by exploding atomic bombs — a secret Air Force project known as Orion. Dyson remains an armchair astronaut who speculates with glee about the coming of cheap space travel, when families can leave an overcrowded earth to homestead on asteroids and comets, swooping around the universe via solar sail craft. Dyson is convinced that our current “age of computers” will soon give way to “the age of domesticated biotechnology.” Bio-tech, he writes in his book, “Infinite in All Directions” (1988), “offers us the chance to imitate nature’s speed and flexibility,” and he imagines the furniture and art that people will “grow” for themselves, the pet dinosaurs they will “grow” for their children, along with an idiosyncratic menagerie of genetically engineered cousins of the carbon-eating tree: termites to consume derelict automobiles, a potato capable of flourishing on the dry red surfaces of Mars, a collision-avoiding car.

These ideas attract derision similar to Dyson’s essays on climate change, but he is an undeterred octogenarian futurist. “I don’t think of myself predicting things,” he says. “I’m expressing possibilities. Things that could happen. To a large extent it’s a question of how badly people want them to. The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people’s hopes.” Formed in a heretical and broad-thinking tradition of British public intellectuals, Dyson left behind a brooding England still stricken by two bloody world wars to become an optimistic American immigrant with tremendous faith in the creative imagination’s ability to invent technologies that would overcome any predicament. And according to the physicist and former Caltech president Marvin Goldberger, Dyson is himself the living embodiment of that kind of ingenuity. “You point Freeman at a problem and he’ll solve it,” Goldberger says. “He’s extraordinarily powerful.” Dyson seems to see the world as an interdisciplinary set of problems out there for him to evaluate. Climate change is the big scientific issue of our time, so naturally he finds it irresistible. But to Dyson this is really only one more charged conundrum attracting his interest just as nuclear weapons and rural poverty have. That is to say, he is a great problem-solver who is not convinced that climate change is a great problem.

Dyson is well aware that “most consider me wrong about global warming.” That educated Americans tend to agree with the conclusion about global warming reached earlier this month at the International Scientific Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen (“inaction is inexcusable”) only increases Dyson’s resistance. Dyson may be an Obama-loving, Bush-loathing liberal who has spent his life opposing American wars and fighting for the protection of natural resources, but he brooks no ideology and has a withering aversion to scientific consensus. The Nobel physics laureate Steven Weinberg admires Dyson’s physics — he says he thinks the Nobel committee fleeced him by not awarding his work on quantum electrodynamics with the prize — but Weinberg parts ways with his sensibility: “I have the sense that when consensus is forming like ice hardening on a lake, Dyson will do his best to chip at the ice.”

Dyson says he doesn’t want his legacy to be defined by climate change, but his dissension from the orthodoxy of global warming is significant because of his stature and his devotion to the integrity of science. Dyson has said he believes that the truths of science are so profoundly concealed that the only thing we can really be sure of is that much of what we expect to happen won’t come to pass. In “Infinite in All Directions,” he writes that nature’s laws “make the universe as interesting as possible.” This also happens to be a fine description of Dyson’s own relationship to science. In the words of Avishai Margalit, a philosopher at the Institute for Advanced Study, “He’s a consistent reminder of another possibility.” When Dyson joins the public conversation about climate change by expressing concern about the “enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories,” these reservations come from a place of experience. Whatever else he is, Dyson is the good scientist; he asks the hard questions. He could also be a lonely prophet. Or, as he acknowledges, he could be dead wrong.

IT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO that Dyson began publicly stating his doubts about climate change. Speaking at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University, Dyson announced that “all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated.” Since then he has only heated up his misgivings, declaring in a 2007 interview with Salon.com that “the fact that the climate is getting warmer doesn’t scare me at all” and writing in an essay for The New York Review of Books, the left-leaning publication that is to gravitas what the Beagle was to Darwin, that climate change has become an “obsession” — the primary article of faith for “a worldwide secular religion” known as environmentalism. Among those he considers true believers, Dyson has been particularly dismissive of Al Gore, whom Dyson calls climate change’s “chief propagandist,” and James Hansen, the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and an adviser to Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Dyson accuses them of relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models that foresee a Grand Guignol of imminent world devastation as icecaps melt, oceans rise and storms and plagues sweep the earth, and he blames the pair’s “lousy science” for “distracting public attention” from “more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet.”

A particularly distressed member of that public was Dyson’s own wife, Imme, who, after seeing the film in a local theater with Dyson when it was released in 2006, looked at her husband out on the sidewalk and, with visions of drowning polar bears still in her eyes, reproached him: “Everything you told me is wrong!” she cried.

“The polar bears will be fine,” he assured her.

Not long ago Dyson sat in his institute office, a chamber so neat it reminds Dyson’s friend, the writer John McPhee, of a Japanese living room. On shelves beside Dyson were books about stellar evolution, viruses, thermodynamics and terrorism. “The climate-studies people who work with models always tend to overestimate their models,” Dyson was saying. “They come to believe models are real and forget they are only models.” Dyson speaks in calm, clear tones that carry simultaneous evidence of his English childhood, the move to the United States after completing his university studies at Cambridge and more than 50 years of marriage to the German-born Imme, but his opinions can be barbed, especially when a conversation turns to climate change. Climate models, he says, take into account atmospheric motion and water levels but have no feeling for the chemistry and biology of sky, soil and trees. “The biologists have essentially been pushed aside,” he continues. “Al Gore’s just an opportunist. The person who is really responsible for this overestimate of global warming is Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers.”

Dyson agrees with the prevailing view that there are rapidly rising carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere caused by human activity. To the planet, he suggests, the rising carbon may well be a MacGuffin, a striking yet ultimately benign occurrence in what Dyson says is still “a relatively cool period in the earth’s history.” The warming, he says, is not global but local, “making cold places warmer rather than making hot places hotter.” Far from expecting any drastic harmful consequences from these increased temperatures, he says the carbon may well be salubrious — a sign that “the climate is actually improving rather than getting worse,” because carbon acts as an ideal fertilizer promoting forest growth and crop yields. “Most of the evolution of life occurred on a planet substantially warmer than it is now,” he contends, “and substantially richer in carbon dioxide.” Dyson calls ocean acidification, which many scientists say is destroying the saltwater food chain, a genuine but probably exaggerated problem. Sea levels, he says, are rising steadily, but why this is and what dangers it might portend “cannot be predicted until we know much more about its causes.”

For Hansen, the dark agent of the looming environmental apocalypse is carbon dioxide contained in coal smoke. Coal, he has written, “is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet.” Hansen has referred to railroad cars transporting coal as “death trains.” Dyson, on the other hand, told me in conversations and e-mail messages that “Jim Hansen’s crusade against coal overstates the harm carbon dioxide can do.” Dyson well remembers the lethal black London coal fog of his youth when, after a day of visiting the city, he would return to his hometown of Winchester with his white shirt collar turned black. Coal, Dyson says, contains “real pollutants” like soot, sulphur and nitrogen oxides, “really nasty stuff that makes people sick and looks ugly.” These are “rightly considered a moral evil,” he says, but they “can be reduced to low levels by scrubbers at an affordable cost.” He says Hansen “exploits” the toxic elements of burning coal as a way of condemning the carbon dioxide it releases, “which cannot be reduced at an affordable cost, but does not do any substantial harm.”

Science is not a matter of opinion; it is a question of data. Climate change is an issue for which Dyson is asking for more evidence, and leading climate scientists are replying by saying if we wait for sufficient proof to satisfy you, it may be too late. That is the position of a more moderate expert on climate change, William Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University, who says, “I don’t think it’s time to panic,” but contends that, because of global warming, “more sea-level rise is inevitable and will displace millions; melting high-altitude glaciers will threaten the food supplies for perhaps a billion or more; and ocean acidification could undermine the food supply of another billion or so.” Dyson strongly disagrees with each of these points, and there follows, as you move back and forth between the two positions, claims and counterclaims, a dense thicket of mitigating scientific indicators that all have the timbre of truth and the ring of potential plausibility. One of Dyson’s more significant surmises is that a warming climate could be forestalling a new ice age. Is he wrong? No one can say for sure. Beyond the specific points of factual dispute, Dyson has said that it all boils down to “a deeper disagreement about values” between those who think “nature knows best” and that “any gross human disruption of the natural environment is evil,” and “humanists,” like himself, who contend that protecting the existing biosphere is not as important as fighting more repugnant evils like war, poverty and unemployment.

Embedded in all of Dyson’s strong opinions about public policy is a dual spirit of social activism and uneasiness about class dating all the way back to Winchester, where he was raised in the 1920s and ’30s by his father, George Dyson, the son of a Yorkshire blacksmith. George was the music instructor at Winchester College, an old and prestigious secondary school, and a composer. Dyson’s mother, Mildred Atkey, came from a more prosperous Wimbledon family that had its own tennis court. Together they raised Dyson and his sister, Alice, in what Dyson calls a “watered-down Church of England Christianity” that regarded religion as a guide to living rather than any system of belief. The emphasis on tolerance, charity and community — and the free time afforded by the luxury of four servants — led Mildred to organize a club for teenage girls and a birth-control clinic. These institutions meshed uneasily with her patrician Victorian sensibilities. The girls were never, Dyson says, “considered equals,” and Mildred told him with amusement about the young mother who walked in carrying a red-headed infant. “What a beautiful baby,” Mildred reported saying. “Does he take after his father?”

“Oh, I couldn’t tell you, Mum,” came the reply. “He kept his hat on.”

Winchester is a medieval town in which, Dyson writes, he felt that everyone was looking backward, mourning all the young men lost to one world war while silently anticipating his own generation’s impending demise. He renounced the nostalgia, the servants, the hard-line social castes. But what he liked about growing up in England was the landscape. The country’s successful alteration of wilderness and swamp had created a completely new green ecology, allowing plants, animals and humans to thrive in “a community of species.” Dyson has always been strongly opposed to the idea that there is any such thing as an optimal ecosystem — “life is always changing” — and he abhors the notion that men and women are something apart from nature, that “we must apologize for being human.” Humans, he says, have a duty to restructure nature for their survival.

All this may explain why the same man could write “we live on a shrinking and vulnerable planet which our lack of foresight is rapidly turning into a slum” and yet gently chide the sort of Americans who march against coal in Washington. Dyson has great affection for coal and for one big reason: It is so inexpensive that most of the world can afford it. “There’s a lot of truth to the statement Greens are people who never had to worry about their grocery bills,” he says. (“Many of these people are my friends,” he will also tell you.) To Dyson, “the move of the populations of China and India from poverty to middle-class prosperity should be the great historic achievement of the century. Without coal it cannot happen.” That said, Dyson sees coal as the interim kindling of progress. In “roughly 50 years,” he predicts, solar energy will become cheap and abundant, and “there are many good reasons for preferring it to coal.”

THE WORDS COLLEAGUES COMMONLY use to describe Dyson include “unassuming” and “modest,” and he seems the very embodiment of Newton’s belief that a man should strive for simplicity and avoid confusion in life. Dyson has been in residence at the institute since 1953, a time when Albert Einstein shared his habit of walking to work there, which Dyson still does seven days a week, to write on a computer and solve any problems that come across his desk with paper and pencil. (In his prime, legend held that he never used the eraser.) He and Imme have spent 51 happy years together in the same house, a white clapboard just over the garden fence from the stucco affair once inhabited by their former neighbors, the Oppenheimers. On some Sundays the Dysons pile into a car still decorated with an Obama bumper sticker and drive to running races, at which Dyson can be found at the finish line loudly cheering for the 72-year-old Imme, a master’s marathon champion. On many other weekends, they visit some of their 16 grandchildren. During the holiday season the Dysons routinely attend five parties a week, cocktail-soiree sprints at which guests tend to find him open-minded and shy: when friends’ wives give him a hug, he blushes. One of Dyson’s daughters, the Internet vizier Esther Dyson, says her father raised her without a television so she would read more, and has always been “just as interested in talking to” the latest graduate student to make the pilgrimage to Princeton “as he is the famous person at the next table.” Oliver Sacks says that Dyson has “a genius for friendship.”

Continue…

Liechty Soccer Field
7th St and Union Ave
Los Angeles CA 90017

$3 donation per family/group
Prizes: ChivaPatrol
Food: Huarache Azteca

* have tried
** would return
*** would return regularly

Alcazar
17239 Ventura Blvd, Encino
818.789.0991
Tue–Fri 11:30 am–2:30 pm and 5:30–10:30 pm, Sat 11:30 am–mid, Sun noon–9 pm.
Full bar. Hookah and cigar lounge. Takeout. Lot parking in rear. AE, MC, V. Lebanese. $

Alegria*
3510 Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake
323.913.1422
www.alegriaonsunset.com
Mon–Thu 10 am–10 pm, Fri–Sat 10 am–11 pm.
No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. Cash only. Mexican. $

Al-Watan
13611 Inglewood Ave., Hawthorne
310.644.6395
Open daily 11 am–10 pm No alcohol. MC, V. Indian. $

Angeli Caffe
7274 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles
323.936.9086
www.angelicaffe.com
Lunch Tue–Fri 11:30 am–2:30 pm; dinner Tue–Thu, Sun 5–10 pm, Fri–Sat 5–11 pm.
Beer and wine. Takeout. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V. Rustic regional Italian. $

Angelini Osteria
7313 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles
323.297.0070
www.angeliniosteria.com
Lunch Tue–Fri noon–2:30 pm; dinner Tue–Sun 5:30–10:30 pm.
Beer and wine. Valet parking. AE, JCB, MC, V. Italian. $$

Antequera de Oaxaca
5200 Melrose Ave., Hollywood
323.466.1101
Open daily 9 am–8:30 pm.
No alcohol. Takeout. Street parking. MC, V. Oaxacan. $

AOC
8022 W. Third St, Los Angeles
323.653.6359
www.aocwinebar.com
Mon–Fri 6–11 pm, Sat 5:30–11 pm, Sun 5:30–10 pm.
Wine bar. Valet parking. AE, DC, MC, V. French-Mediterranean-influenced small plates. $$

Asanebo
11941 Ventura Blvd., Studio City
818.760.3348
Lunch Tue–Fri noon–2 pm; dinner Tue–Thu 6–10:30 pm, Fri–Sat 6–11:30 pm, Sun 6–10 pm.
Takeout. Street parking. AE, MC, V. Japanese. $$

Attari**
1388 Westwood Blvd, Westwood (entrance on Wilkins)
310.441.5488
Tue–Sun 11 am–6 pm
No alcohol. Street parking, plus validated lot parking at Borders. Cash only. Iranian. $

Babita
1823 S. San Gabriel Blvd, San Gabriel
626.288.7265
Lunch Tue–Fri 11:30 am-3:30 pm; dinner Sun and Tue–Thu 5:30–9 pm, Fri–Sat 5:30–10 pm.
Beer and wine. Takeout. Street parking. AE, D, DC, MC, V. Mexican. $

Beacon: An Asian Cafe
3280 Helms Ave, Los Angeles
310.838.7500
www.beacon-la.com
Lunch Mon–Sat 11:30 am–2 pm; dinner Tue–Wed and Sun 5:30–8:15 pm, Thu–Sat 5:30–9:15 pm.
Beer and wine. Lot parking. AE, MC, V. Asian Fusion. $$$

Beechwood
822 Washington Blvd, Venice
310.448.8884
www.beechwoodrestaurant.com
Dinner menu Tue–Sat 6–11 pm; bar menu served late into the evening and also Sun–Mon. Full bar. Valet parking. New American. $$

Bistro K
1000 S. Fremont Ave., South Pasadena
626.799.5052
www.lqmanagementservices.com
Wed–Sat 5:30–9 pm.
Free corkage. Lot parking. AE, MC, V. French Bistro. $$$

Bluebird Cafe
8572 National Blvd, Culver City
310.841.0939
www.bluebirdcafela.com
Mon–Fri 8 am–5 pm, Sat 8 am–3 pm.
Free lot parking. AE, MC, V. American. $$

Border Grill
1445 Fourth St, Santa Monica
310.451.1655
www.bordergrill.com
Sun–Thu 11:30 am–10 pm, Fri–Sat till 11 pm. Full bar open till mid.
Takeout. Street and valet parking. AE, D, MC, V. Modern Mexican. $$

Bridge Restaurant & Lounge
755 N. La Cienega Blvd, West Hollywood
310.659.3535
www.bridgela.com
Restaurant Mon–Sat 6–11 pm; Lounge 8 pm–2 am.
Full bar. Street and valet parking. AE, MC, V. Italian. $$$

Caioti Pizza Cafe*
4346 Tujunga Ave., Studio City
818.761.3588
www.caiotipizzacafe.com
Sun–Thu 11 am–10 pm, Fri–Sat till 11 pm; brunch Sat 9–11 am, Sun 9 am–3 pm.
No alcohol. Takeout. Street parking. MC, V. Contemporary California. $

Campanile**
624 S. La Brea Ave, Los Angeles
323.938.1447
www.campanilerestaurant.com
Lunch Mon–Fri 11:30 am–2:30 pm; dinner Mon–Wed 6–10 pm, Thu–Sat 5:30–11 pm; brunch Sat–Sun 9:30 am–1:30 pm.
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, DC, MC, V. California/Mediterranean. $$$

Casa Bianca**
1650 Colorado Blvd, Eagle Rock
323.256.9617
Dinner Tue–Thu 4 pm–mid, Fri–Sat 4pm–1am.
Beer and wine. Street parking. Cash only. Italian. $

Chameau
339 N. Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles
323.951.0039
www.chameaurestaurant.com
Dinner Tue–Sat 6–10pm.
Beer and wine. Street parking. AE, D, DC, MC, V. French Moroccan. $$$

Chichen Itza***
In Mercado La Paloma, 3655 S. Grand Ave, Los Angeles
213.741.1075
www.mercadolapaloma.com
Sun–Wed 8am–6:30pm, Thu–Sat 8am–8pm.
No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. AE, MC, V. Yucatecan. $$

Chosun Galbi*
3330 W. Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles
323.734.3330
www.chosungalbee.com
Open daily 11am–11pm.
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V. Korean barbecue. $$

Citizen Smith
1600 N. Cahuenga Blvd, Hollywood
323.461.5001
www.citizensmith.com
Lunch Mon-Fri 11am-3pm; dinner nightly 6pm-2am.
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. American. $

Ciudad
445 S. Figueroa Street, downtown
213.486.5171
www.ciudad-la.com
Mon–Tue 11:30am–9pm, Wed–Thu 11:30am–10pm, Fri 11:30am–11pm, Sat 5–11pm, Sun 5–9pm.
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V. Pan-Latino. $

Clementine**
1751 Ensley Ave., Los Angeles
310.552-1080
www.clementineonline.com
Mon–Fri 7am–7:30pm, Sat 8am–5pm.
No alcohol. Parking in rear lot and on street. AE, DC, MC, V. American. ¢

Cobras & Matadors
7615 W. Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles
323.932.6178
Dinner Sun–Thu 6–11pm, Fri–Sat 6pm–mid.
BYOB. Valet parking. MC, V. Spanish. $

Cora’s Coffee Shoppe
1802 Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica
310.451.9562
Tue–Sat 7am–9pm. Closed Sun–Mon.
No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. AE, MC, V. Continental, Italian-based. $

Cut
9500 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills
310.275.5200
Dinner Mon–Sat.
Full bar. Valet parking a half-block south of Wilshire Blvd. on Rodeo Drive. AE, D, MC, V. California Contemporary. $$$

Daikokuya**
327 E. First St., downtown
213.626.1680
Lunch Mon–Sat 11am–2:20pm; dinner Mon–Thu 5pm–mid, Fri–Sat 5pm–1am, Sun noon–7pm.
Beer and wine. Takeout. Street parking. AE, MC, V. Japanese. $

Europane**
950 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena
626.577.1828
Mon–Sat 7am–5:30pm, Sun till 3pm.
No alcohol. Street parking. MC, V. California Bakery. ¢

Father’s Office
1018 Montana Ave, Santa Monica
310.393.BEER
www.fathersoffice.com
Food served Mon–Wed 5–10pm, Thu 5–11pm, Fri 4–11pm, Sat 3–11pm, Sun 3–10pm.
21 and over only. Beer and wine. Takeout. Difficult street parking. AE, M, V. California Contemporary. $

Fogo de Chao
133 N. La Cienega Blvd, Beverly Hills
310.289.7755
www.fogodechao.com
Lunch Mon–Fri 11:30am–2pm; dinner Mon–Thu 5–10pm, Fri 5–10:30pm, Sat 4:30–10:30pm, Sun 4–9:30pm.
Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Southern Brazilian. $$$

Ford’s Filling Station
9531 Culver Blvd., Culver City
310.202.1470
www.fordsfillingstation.net
Mon–Fri 11am–11pm, Sat 5–11pm.
Full bar. Parking at city lot around the corner. AE, MC, V. California Contemporary. $

Geisha House
6633 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
323.460.6300
www.geishahousehollywood.com
Sun–Wed 6–10:30pm, Thu 6–11:30pm, Fri–Sat 6pm–1am.
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. Japanese. $$

Golden Triangle
7011 S. Greenleaf Avenue, Whittier
562.945.6778
Mon–Sat 11am–10pm, Sun 11am–9pm.
Beer and wine. Takeout. AE, D, MC, V. Thai-Burmese. $

Grace
7360 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles
323.934.4400
www.gracerestaurant.com
Tue–Thu 6–10:30pm, Fri–Sat 6–11pm, Sun 6–10pm.
Full bar. Valet parking; difficult street parking. AE, MC, V. American. $$

The Griddle*
7916 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood
323.874.0377
www.thegriddlecafe.com
Breakfast and lunch Mon–Fri 7am–4pm, Sat–Sun 8am–4pm.
Beer. Lot parking in rear. AE, D, MC, V. American. $

The Grill on the Alley
9560 Dayton Way, Beverly Hills
310.276.0615
www.thegrill.com
Mon–Thu 11:30am–10:30pm, Fri–Sat 11:30am–11pm, Sun 5–9pm.
Full bar. Takeout. Valet parking after 6 p.m.; free street parking before that. AE, D, DC, MC, V. Traditional American Steak House. $$

Guelaguetza**
3337½ W. Eighth Street, Los Angeles
213.427.0779
www.guelaguetzarestaurante.com
Daily 8am–10pm.
No alcohol. Street parking. AE, MC, V. Oaxacan. $

Haru Ulala**
368 E. Second Street, downtown
213.620.0977
www.haruulala.com
Mon–Thu 6pm–mid, Fri–Sat 6pm–2am.
Street parking. AE, MC, V. Japanese. $$

Hatfield’s
7458 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles
323.935.2977
Mon–Sat 6–10pm.
Beer and wine. AE, MC, V. California Contemporary. $$

Hungry Cat*
1535 N. Vine Street, Hollywood
323.462.2155
www.thehungrycat.com
Lunch Tue–Fri 11:30am–2:30pm; brunch Sun 11am–3pm; dinner Mon–Sat 5:30pm–mid, Sun 5–11pm.
Beer and wine. Validated parking. AE, MC, V. Seafood. $$

Jar*
8225 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 655-6566
www.thejar.com
Dinner Mon–Thu 5:30–10pm, Fri–Sat 5:30–11pm; brunch Sun 10am–2pm.
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V. California American. $$

JiRaffe
502 Santa Monica Bpoulevard, Santa Monica
310.917.6671
www.jirafferestaurant.com
Mon 6–9pm, Tue–Thu 6-10pm, Fri–Sat 6–10:30pm, Sun 5:30–9pm.
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. California Bistro. $$

Josie
2424 Pico Boulevard, Santa Monica
310.581.9888
www.josierestaurant.com
Dinner Mon–Thu 6–10pm, Fri–Sat 6-11pm, Sun 5:30–9pm.
Full bar. Takeout. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. Progressive American with French and Italian. $$

Kagaya
418 E. Second Street, downtown
213.617.1016
Tue–Sat 6–10:30pm, Sun 6–10pm.
Wine, beer, sake. Lot parking. DC, MC, V. Japanese. $

Kiriko
11301 Olympic Boulevard, No. 102, West Los Angeles
310.478.7769
www.kirikosushi.com
Lunch Tue–Fri noon–2:15pm; dinner Tue–Sun 6–10pm.
Beer and wine. Parking lot. AE, MC, V. Japanese. $$

Koi
730 N. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles
310.659.9449
www.koirestaurant.com
Dinner Mon–Wed 6–11pm, Thu 6–11:30pm, Fri–Sat 6–mid, Sun 6–10pm.
Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards. California Contemporary. $$

Krua Thai**
13130 Sherman Way, North Hollywood
818.759.7998
and
935 S. Glendora Avenue, West Covina
626.480.0116
Daily 11am–3:30am.
No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. All major credit cards accepted. Thai. $

Langer’s***
704 S. Alvarado Street, Los Angeles
213.483.8050
www.langersdeli.com
Mon–Sat 8am–4pm.
Beer and wine. Curbside service (call ahead). Validated lot parking (on corner of Westlake Ave. and Seventh St.). MC, V. Jewish Deli. ¢

La Terza
8384 W. Third Street, Los Angeles
323.782.8384
Breakfast 7–11am. Lunch 11:30am–2pm; dinner 5:30–11pm.
Full bar. Takeout. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V. Italian. $$

Lawry’s the Prime Rib
100 N. La Cienega Boulevard, Beverly Hills
310.652.2827
www.lawrysonline.com
Mon–Thu 5–10pm, Fri 5–11pm, Sat 4:30–11pm, Sun 4–10pm.
Full bar. Takeout. Valet and street parking. All major credit cards. American. $$

Literati II
12081 Wilshire Boulevard, West Los Angeles
310.479.3400
www.literati2.com
Lunch Mon–Fri 11:30am–2:30pm; dinner Mon-Thu 6–10pm, Fri–Sat 5:30–10pm; brunch Sat–Sun 10am–2pm.
Full bar. $2 valet parking in rear. AE, MC, V. California Contemporary. $$

Lodge
14 N. La Cienega Blvd., Beverly Hills
310.854.0024
Open nightly 5pm–1am.
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. California Steak House. $$

Los Balcones del Peru
1360 N. Vine St., Hollywood
323.871.9600
Sun–Thu 11am–9pm, Fri–Sat 11am–10pm.
Beer and wine. Validated parking at ArcLight Cinema. AE, MC, V. Peruvian. $$

Lou
724 N. Vine Street, Hollywood
323.962-6369
Mon–Thu 5–11pm, Fri–Sat 5pm–mid.
Wine. Lot parking. MC, V. California Contemporary. $$

Lucques
8474 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood
323.655.6277
www.lucques.com
Sunday nights feature 3-course prix fixe dinners. Lunch Tue–Sat noon–2:30pm; dinner Tue–Sat 6–11pm, Sun 5:30–10pm.
Full bar (limited bar menu available 10 p.m.–mid.). Valet parking. AE, MC, V. French. $$

Magnolia
6266½ W. Sunset Blvd, Hollywood
323.467.0660
www.magnoliahollywood.com
Daily 11am–2am.
Full bar. Valet parking. California Contemporary. $$

Mama’s Hot Tamales Cafe**
2124 W. Seventh Street, Los Angeles
213.487.7474
Daily 9:30am–3:30pm.
No alcohol. Coffee bar. Takeout. Validated parking around the corner on Lake Street in the Unified parking lot. Mexican. $

Mama Voula’s
11923 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Los Angeles
310.478.9464
Mon 11am–9pm, Tue–Thu 11am–9:30pm, Fri–Sat 11am–10pm, Sun 1–9pm.
BYOB. Lot parking. Mediterranean/Greek. $

Marouch**
4905 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles
323.662.9325
www.marouchrestaurant.com
Tue–Sun 11am–11pm.
Beer and wine. Lot parking. Middle Eastern/Lebanese/Armenian. $

Matsuhisa
129 N. La Cienega Blvd, Beverly Hills
310.659.9639
www.nobumatsuhisa.com
Lunch Mon–Fri 11:45am–2:15pm; dinner Mon–Sun 5:45–10:15pm.
Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards. Japanese. $

Max
13355 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks
818.784.2915
www.maxrestaurant.com
Sun–Thu 5:30–10pm, Fri–Sat 5:30–11pm.
Full bar. Street parking. Takeout. California Asian. $

Meals by Genet
1053 S. Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles
323.938.9304
www.mealsbygenet.com
Lunch and dinner Wed–Fri 5:30pm–10pm, Sat–Sun 11:30am–10pm.
Beer and wine. Catering. Street parking. MC, V. Ethiopian. $

M Cafe de Chaya*
7119 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles
323.525.0588
www.mcafedechaya.com
Open daily 9am–9pm.
No alcohol. Takeout. Limited lot parking. All major credit cards. California Contemporary. $

Metro Cafe
11188 Washington Place, Culver City
310.559.6821
Breakfast and lunch 7am–3pm; dinner 6–10pm.
Beer and wine. Parking in Travelodge lot. MC, V. Serbian. $

Michael’s
1147 Third St, Santa Monica
310.451.0843
www.micahelssantamonica.com
Mon–Fri noon–2:30pm, 6–10:30pm, Sat 6–10:30pm.
Full bar. Nonsmoking, including patio. Takeout. Valet and street parking. All major credit cards. California. $

Mimosa
8009 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles
323.655.8895
www.mimosarestaurant.com
Dinner Mon–Sat 6–10:30pm.
Beer and wine. Valet and street parking. AE, D, MC, V. Reservations recommended on weekends. French Bistro. $

Mission 261
261 Mission Drive, San Gabriel
626.588.1666
Mon–Fri 10:30am–3pm, 5:30–10pm, Sat–Sun 9am–3pm, 5:30–10:30pm.
Full bar. Takeout. Lot parking. AE, D, MC, V. Cantonese. $

Musso & Frank Grill*
6667 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood
323.467.7788
Tue–Sat 11am–11pm.
Full bar. Validated parking in rear. AE, DC, MC, V. American. $

New Concept
700 S. Atlantic Blvd., Monterey Park
626.282.6800
Dim sum Mon–Fri 10:30am–3pm, Sat–Sun 10am–3pm; dinner nightly 5–11pm.
No alcohol. Street parking. MC, V. Chinese. $

Nook
11628 Santa Monica Blvd, No. 9, West Los Angeles
310.207.5160
www.nookbistro.com
Lunch Mon–Fri 11:30am–3pm; dinner Mon–Sat 5–10pm.
Beer and wine. Lot parking. AE, MC, V. American Bistro. $

Norman’s
8570 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood
310.657.2400
www.normans.com
Tue–Thu 6–10pm, Fri–Sat 6–10:30pm; lounge open Tue–Sat at 5:30pm.
Full bar. Valet parking. Takeout. AE, MC, V. Caribbean. $

O-Dae San
2889 W. Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles
213.383.9800
Open daily 11am–10pm.
Beer and wine. Takeout. Lot parking. AE, MC, V. Korean. $

101 Noodle Express
1408 E. Valley Blvd, Alhambra
626.300.8654
Mon–Fri 10am–3pm, 5–10pm; Sat–Sun 10am–11pm.
No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. Cash only. Chinese. $

Orris
2006 Sawtelle Blvd, West Los Angeles
310.268.2212
www.orrisrestaurant.com
Dinner Mon–Fri 6–10pm, Sat 5:30–10:30pm, Sun 5:30–9:30pm.
Beer, wine and sake. Lot parking (valet Wed.–Sat.). AE, D, MC, V. Small-plate cuisine. $

Ortolan
8338 W. Third St., Los Angeles
323.653.3300
www.ortolanrestaurant.com
Tue–Sat 6–10pm (Closed Sun–Mon in summer).
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. French. $

Philippe the Original***
1001 N. Alameda St, Los Angeles
213.628.3781
www.philippes.com
Open daily 6am–10pm.
Beer and wine. For takeout, must call ahead, and order must be over $40. Lot parking. Cash only. American. ¢

Phillips’ Barbecue
4307 Leimert Blvd, Los Angeles
323.292.7613
Mon 11am–8pm, Tue–Thu 11am–10pm, Fri–Sat 11am–mid, Sun 11am–6pm.
and 2619 S. Crenshaw Blvd, Los Angeles
323.731.4772
Tue–Thu 11am–10pm, Fri–Sat 11am–11pm, Sun 11am–6pm.
and 1517 Centinela Ave., Los Angeles
310.412.7135.
No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. Cash only. Barbecue. $

Pie ’n Burger
913 E. California Blvd, Pasadena
626.795.1123
www.pienburger.com
Mon–Fri 6am–10pm, Sat 7am–10pm, Sun 7am–9pm.
Beer and wine. Takeout. Lot parking. Cash or check. American. $

Pink’s*
709 N. La Brea Ave, Hollywood
323.931.4223
www.pinkshollywood.com
Sun–Thu 9:30am–2am, Fri–Sat 9:30am–3am.
No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. Cash only. American. ¢

Pollo a la Brasa
764 S. Western Ave, Los Angeles
213.382.4090
Lunch and dinner Wed–Mon 11am–10pm.
No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. MC, V. Peruvian. ¢

Providence
5955 Melrose Ave, Hancock Park
323.460.4170
www.providencela.com
Mon–Fri 6–10pm, Sat 5:30–10pm, Sun 5:30–9pm.
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V. Modern American Seafood. $

Red Corner Asia
5267 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
323.466.6722
www.redcornerasia.com
Open daily 11–2am.
No alcohol (liquor license pending). Takeout. Valet parking on weekends. AE, MC, V. Asian Fusion. $

Sapp Coffee Shop
5183 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
323.665.1035
Lunch and dinner 7am–8:30pm; closed Wed.
No alcohol. Takeout. Lot parking. Cash only. Thai. $

Sona
401 N. La Cienega Blvd, West Hollywood
310.659.7708
www.sonarestaurant.com
Dinner Tue–Thu 6–10pm, Fri 6–11pm, Sat 5:30–11pm. Closed Sun–Mon.
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, D, DC, MC, V. Modern French (with global influences). $

Spago
176 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills
310.385.0880
www.wolfgangpuck.com
Lunch Mon–Fri 11:30am–2:15pm, Sat noon–2:15pm; dinner Mon–Thu 5:30–10pm, Fri–Sat 5:30–11pm, Sun 5:30–10:30pm.
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V. California with Asia and Europe. $

Susina Bakery and Cafe
7122 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles
323.934.7900
www.susinabakery.com
Mon–Fri 7am–11pm, Sat 8am–11pm, Sun 8am–11pm.
No alcohol. Takeout. Street parking. AE, MC, V. European Bakery. ¢

Table 8
7661 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles
323.782.8258
www.table8la.com
Mon–Thu 6–10pm (late-night menu until 10:30), Fri–Sat 6–10:30pm (late-night menu until 11:30).
Full bar. Takeout. Valet and street parking. All major credit cards. California Seasonal. $

Tacos Baja Ensenada
5385 Whittier Blvd., Los Angeles
323.887.1980
Lunch and dinner Tue–Sun 10am–9pm.
No alcohol. Lot parking. Cash only. Mexican. ¢

Tiara
127 E. Ninth St., downtown
213.623.3663
Food served Mon–Fri 11:30am–3pm; Market open Mon– Fri 8am–5pm.
Beer, wine, sake, and Champagne only. Street parking. All major credit cards. California Seasonal. $

Torafuku
10914 Pico Blvd, West Los Angeles
310.470.0014
www.torafuku-usa.com
Lunch Mon–Sat noon–2:30pm; dinner Mon–Thu 6–10pm, Fri–Sat 6–10:30 pm, Sun 5–10pm.
Beer, wine and sake. Valet and street parking. AE, MC, V. Prix fixe starts at $80, set dinners $38, bento lunches $8.50–$12, à la carte meals vary, takeout $55. Traditional Japanese. $

Trattoria Tre Venezie
119 W. Green Street, Pasadena
626.795.4455
Lunch Fri 11:30am–2:30pm; dinner Tue–Sun 5:30–10pm.
Full bar. Valet and street parking. AE, DC, MC, V. Italian. $

Urasawa
218 N. Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills
310.247.8939
Mon–Sun 6–8:30pm.
Full bar. Valet. AE, MC, V. Japanese. $

Vietnam House*
710 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel
626.282.6327
Lunch and dinner Mon, Wed, Thu 10am-9pm, Fri–Sun 10am–10pm.
Beer only. Takeout. Lot parking. AE, MC, V. Vietnamese. $

Vincenti
11930 San Vicente Blvd, Brentwood
310.207.0127
www.vincentiristorante.com
Mon–Sat 6–10pm, Friday for lunch noon–2pm.
Full bar. Takeout. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. Italian. $

Wat Thai
8225 Coldwater Canyon Blvd, North Hollywood
818.785.9552
www.watthaiusa.org
Open weekends only 10am-2pm.
No alcohol. Parking lot. Cash only. Thai. $

Wilshire
2454 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
310.586.1707
www.wilshirerestaurant.com
Lunch Mon–Fri noon–2pm; dinner Mon–Wed 6–10pm, Thu–Sat 6–10:45pm.
Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V. California Seasonal. $

Woodlands**
9840 Topanga Canyon Blvd, Chatsworth
818.998.3031
and
11833 Artesia Blvd, Artesia
562.860.6500
Tue–Sun 11:30am–3pm, 5–10pm.
Beer and wine. Takeout. Lot parking. AE, MC, V. Indian. $

* have tried
** would return
*** would return regularly

By Andrea Chang, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
6:04 PM PDT, September 8, 2008

Thanks Michael

Parkside Fútbol Club, clockwise from top left: Daniel Hernandez, Moses Francia, Antonio Trejo, Fernando Dimas, Jose Rivera, Jonathan Maghen, Aaron Trejo, Omar Romano, Johnathon Law, Grant Bush; La Liga de Fútbol Lafayette Park, Fall/Winter 2008.

Photography by Michael Wells