More last-minute Thanksgiving options: Fraiche, Vermont, Agura, Oaks Gourmet, Kiss My Bundt

Last-minute bakery (for candied yams too): Kiss My Bundt will be open Thanksgiving Day so you can pick up side dishes such as candied yams, sweet potato souffle, sweet or savory cornbread and strawberry butter, and Big Ol' Bundts and mini and baby bundts for desserts. For pickup on Thanksgiving, the order deadline for side dishes and Big Ol' Bundts is Wednesday at 1 p.m. (Delivery also available). 8104 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles; (323) 655-0559; www.kissmybundt.net.

Thanksgiving at Fraiche: Fraiche will be serving family-style Thanksgiving with wood-fired mushroom salad or chestnut soup to start, followed by roasted turkey (or chicken), seared duck breast or flat-iron steak, served with mashed potatoes, stuffing, mac 'n' cheese, creamed spinach, green beans, glazed carrots and cranberry sauce. Pumpkin or apple pie for dessert. $35 per person. Noon to 8 p.m. 312 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica; (310) 451-7482; www.fraicherestaurantla.com. (The Culver City location is closed Thanksgiving.)

Thanksgiving at Vermont: Order Thanksgiving a la carta at Vermont; choose from starters such as butternut squash soup, crab cakes or apple endive salad and mains such as organic roasted turkey, filet mignon, halibut or goat cheese and truffle ravioli. Pumpkin pie and apple tart are on the dessert menu. 1714 N. Vermont, Los Angeles; (323) 661-6163; www.vermontrestaurantonline.com.

It's a Turkey Plate: The Oaks Gourmet is offering a Thanksgiving Turkey Plate for $19, for take-out or dine-in: roasted turkey with foie gras gravy; sage and chestnut dressing; roasted brown butter yams; grilled Brussels sprouts with pancetta and shallots; truffle mashed potatoes; and a slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Wine pairings and a beer selection available. Pre-order or same-day service. 1915 N. Bronson Ave., Los Angeles; (323) 871-8894; www.theoaksgourmet.com.

Turkey teriyaki rolls!?! Agura is offering a "Japanese-inspired" Thanksgiving feast. For $12, you can get roasted turkey breast with grilled vegetables and ginger-flavored Madeira wine sauce. The restaurant also has created a special teriyaki turkey roll (only in L.A. ... ) for $8. 514 N. La Cienega Blvd., Hollywood; (310) 289-1940; www.aguradining.com.

-- Betty Hallock

For a complete list of Thanksgiving to-go and dine-in options, click here.

Photo: Kiss My Bundt

Are consumers losing their appetite for eating out?

Adele Cabot and her husband used to dine out three or four times a week, regularly spending $75 to $100 at a sushi bar sampling rainbow rolls and yellowtail nigiri sushi.

But that changed after Cabot, an adjunct professor of theater at UCLA, had to take a 6% salary cut. The couple now eat out half as much and frequent less expensive Mexican and Italian places.

"I just don't want to spend the money to eat out a lot," Cabot said.

With Thanksgiving this week and Christmas next month, restaurants are eager to win back customers such as Cabot who seemed to disappear amid a brutal summer for the nation's eateries. Restaurant owners are worried that tight corporate entertainment budgets, cash-conscious consumers and greater competition from price-cutting supermarkets will make for another dreary Christmas. Read more here:

-- Jerry Hirsch

Photo: Patina Restaurant Group founder Joachim Splichal, shown at his Nick & Stef's Steakhouse in downtown L.A., has been focusing on booking company parties, offering price breaks as inducements. Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times

Valet parking: Now accepting credit cards

How many times have you stood in the valet line to retrieve your car after a meal only to realize that you don't have any cash, forced to ask friends or maybe even worse -- your date -- to lend you money?

Starting Dec. 1, valet stations at Osteria and Pizzeria Mozza in Hollywood and just-opened Bouchon in Beverly Hills will accept credit cards. Regent Hospitality Parking, which provides valet services at Mozza and Bouchon, among other restaurants, says that valet stations here will have wireless credit card terminals and that transactions will be completed "in less than one minute."

Regent Hospitality founder Brad Saltzman says that credit cards will be accepted at other restaurants' valet stands depending on the success of the company's efforts at Mozza and Bouchon. Valet parking fees at each restaurant will remain the same ($8 for Bouchon, $10 for Mozza).

The company claims it will be the first in the country to allow guests to pay their parking fees with credit or debit cards.

Why didn't anyone do this sooner?

-- Betty Hallock

Photo: A Regent valet in Culver City. Credit: Ken Hively

Restaurant preview: The Mercantile

New York entrepreneur George Abou-Daoud has a spanking new place for Hollywood hipsters to hang. That would be the gourmet market and wine bar called the Mercantile just a few blocks west of his popular Bowery and Delancey venues. And this time, he's nabbed a name chef to do the food -- Kris Morningstar, who comes fully credentialed from stints at A.O.C. and Blue Velvet, not counting a short tenure at Casa downtown as opening chef. Morningstar will be handling both the Mercantile and the restaurant District next door (slated to open soon). Read more here:

Photo caption: Chef Kris Morningstar chats with a customer at the Mercantile, a new wine bar and restaurant, off Sunset Boulevard. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Fight the food coma: Your Thanksgiving weekend club guide

When you've had your fill of turkey and family, here's what you can do on Thanksgiving weekend.

And if you conveniently missed your holiday dinner with relatives, many clubs and bars are offering a special holiday menu.

More Thanksgiving options: Joe's, Simon L.A., Henry's Hat, Gus's BBQ, Josie and Larcmont Larder

Joe's Restaurant is offering a four-course Thanksgiving menu with several choices for each course, including sunchoke soup with smoked baby artichokes and hazelnuts; crispy sweetbreads with fall vegetables; Heritage Farms turkey breast and leg confit; Eastern monkfish and gulf shrimp with butter clam parsley broth; and pumpkin pie with pepita brittle and parsnip vanilla ice cream. $52 per person, $22 for children. 1023 Abbott Kinney Blvd., Venice; (310) 399-5811, www.joesrestaurant.com.

Henry's Hat opens Thanksgiving Day at 9 a.m., serving brunch all day long (including 2-for-1 mojitos and Bloody Marys, and bottomless mimosas and sangria). A Southern Thanksgiving buffet dinner starts at 2 p.m.: spinach salad; deep-fried turkey breast; brown butter and honey glazed ham; mashed potatoes; stuffing; roasted Brussels sprouts; coconut cream pie and pumpkin pie. $20 per person; children under 8 eat free. 3413 Cahuenga Blvd., Studio City; (323) 512-2500; www.henrys-hat.com.

Simon L.A. at the Sofitel Hotel is serving Thanksgiving, featuring free-range, organic turkey and trimmings such as sweet potatoes with caramelized walnuts, cornbread and sage stuffing, and buttermilk mashed potatoes. Kerry Simon's signature junk food platter: pumpkin cupcakes, orange coconut snowballs, pecan-date cookies, candy corn Rice Krispies treats, cranberry-orange sorbet, and pumpkin milkshake. Or you can have pumpkin pie. 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., $46 per person, $21 for children under 12. Sofitel L.A., 8555 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles; (310) 358-3979; www.simonlarestaurant.com.

Sir Winston's at the Queen Mary closing in December for menu, decor changes

The Queen Mary’s signature upscale restaurant, Sir Winston’s, is about to go under the knife. Planned updates to the restaurant named for Winston Churchill follow a recent change in management for the popular tourist attraction.

We can expect the Old World classics on the menu, such as beef Wellington and rack of lamb, to receive “a more contemporary interpretation” as well as an emphasis on local, seasonal produce, according to a statement by Delaware North Cos. Parks & Resorts, which took over management of the Queen Mary in late September.

Menu and restaurant-decor changes are scheduled to be implemented by Dec. 21. As such, Sir Winston’s will close on Sunday, Dec. 6 and reopen on Monday, Dec. 21. Read more here:

Photo: At Sir Winston’s, the menu might change, but the views won’t. Credit: Delaware North Cos. Parks & Resorts

Preview: Philippe by Philippe Chow in West Hollywood

 

One of the great joys of life in Los Angeles is its aspiration toward casualness at all costs. In this city, the more dressed down you are at an upscale restaurant the more likely it is that you are someone important.

And so it was that on a recent Wednesday night at West Hollywood's new chichi Chinese restaurant, Philippe by Philippe Chow, a sizable turnout of meticulously informal diners found themselves seated in the resplendent red-white-and-black dining room, nibbling on thimble-sized crispy duck rolls and sipping exotic fruit-based martinis. Read more here:

Photo: The main dining room at Philippe by Philippe Chow, a recently opened ultra high-end Chinese restaurant in West Hollywood. Credit: Alex Gallardo / Los Angeles Times

Battle over outdoor dining roils Larchmont Boulevard

When Larchmont Bungalow opened a couple of weeks ago, the “Artisan Cafe, Bakery and Brew” coffeehouse seemed a perfect fit for the tony neighborhood, with its exposed wooden beams, reconditioned hardwood floors and roasting coffee wafting through the airy space.

But there was just one problem — and it had everything to do with the chairs and tables where patrons sat, drank coffee and noshed on offerings such as red velvet pancakes and jerk chicken sliders.

Those chairs and tables, a group of residents says, threaten the very fabric of Larchmont Village because they transformed what had been permitted as a take-out restaurant into something vastly different.

Because the business offers patrons a place to sit and eat, they said, it knowingly violates a series of longstanding ordinances for the neighborhood known as “Q conditions” that, among other things, limit the number of restaurants in the shopping district. Plans for the business showed retail and a bakery — but not tables and chairs.

The controversy underscores a long-simmering battle on the boulevard that L.A. City Councilman Tom LaBonge, who represents the area, calls “our American Main Street.” Read more here: 

Photo: Tables and chairs outside Larchmont Bungalow are tagged for sale.

Credit: Richard DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times

Eating along the Gold Line Eastside Extension: What didn't we include?

 

After eating our way from Little Tokyo to Atlantic Boulevard (and beyond) in East L.A., we had the difficult task of deciding which restaurants to include in an article about the many, many places to dine along the Gold Line Eastside Extension. (Trains are scheduled to start running on Sunday.)

The Little Tokyo stop presented some particularly difficult choices, because the area is packed with so many restaurants, without even including the Arts District. In this case, an editorial decision was made: The story focuses on those restaurants that are closest, within about a block or so of the stop at 1st and Alameda streets. So it doesn't include anything south of 2nd Street or much further west of Central Avenue. Unfortunately, that omits a lot of great restaurants.

And we heard about it from readers. Please let us know what else you would have wanted included. 

Here, a few additions from readers: