PRICE:
Frommer's Highly Recommended

Hip Hollywood restaurants geared toward the club scene tend to open and close faster than I can finish this review, but I'm hoping that Citizen Smith will be an exception. Unlike most of the dig-me diners in this area, the model/actor waitstaff here -- and beautiful they are -- actually care that you have an enjoyable dining experience. And because the menu is all about upscale comfort food (which is pretty hard to screw up), the cuisine is pleasing as well, both in quality and quantity. The dimly lit, high-ceiling interior is replete with avant-garde appointments, the coup de grâce being the giant tubular chandeliers lined with translucent prints of women's faces. The meaty menu, however, will bring you back on familiar ground: Angus half-pound burgers, aged cuts of prime beef, center-cut pork chops, plump fried chicken breasts, and the requisite bowel-bursting sides such as mac and cheese, whipped potatoes, and onion rings. If you prefer dining alfresco, the back alley has been converted into a patio, but chances are good you'll be sitting next to young smokers. The restaurant converts into a club at around 11pm, so unless you want people dancing next to your table as you're starting on dessert (which is what happened to me), I suggest you arrive before 8pm.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Los Angeles 2008, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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