Seems Like Old Times

Downtown is home to some of L.A.’s oldest restaurants. Two of them are 24/7. That would be the Original Pantry, the city’s original greasy spoon, and Pacific Dining Car, which is creaking toward its 81st birthday at a time when steakhouses are in fashion again.

The restaurant is a replica of a railroad dining car that Fred and Lovey Cook had built in 1921 and installed at 7th Street and Westlake Avenue. Two years later it was moved to 6th and Witmer streets, its present location. Today, two robust faux-bronze steers draped with a banner boasting “80 years” are suspended above the 6th Street side of the white picket fence that surrounds the property. The restaurant has spread out with the years, adding a couple of dining rooms, a generously sized bar and, as wine became an essential part of fine dining, a wine room. But the ownership hasn’t changed, it’s just moved on to the third generation.

Pacific Dining Car downtown is an old-fashioned place. The decor plays up every possible reference to the past. Old suitcases that look as if they have traveled back and forth across the country sit on brass luggage racks. The original dining car is lined with narrow hardwood boards and fitted with high-backed booths for two. The place smells of wood smoke and coffee and the decades. You fully expect Georgian-era gentlemen to be sitting in the wingback armchairs in their slippers. (The Santa Monica branch is a mere 11 years old and doesn’t have the same evocative atmosphere.)

Most everybody thinks of the Pacific Dining Car as a place for dinner, especially when events are going on downtown. The restaurant has its own shuttle to ferry guests to Staples Center or the Music Center. If an event runs late, you can order breakfast when you return. It’s served from 11 p.m to 11 a.m. weekdays and until 4 p.m. weekends. Come between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. during the week and you can have your car washed while you eat.

Until I had severe jet lag one morning, I’d never tried the restaurant for breakfast. Coffee? A waiter is immediately at your side. Half a dozen newspapers are set out on a rack just beside the kitchen. Two eggs sunny side up are perfect with salt and pepper from the matching copper shakers on the table. The hash browns are golden and buttery--crunchy on the outside, tender within. The bacon is applewood smoked, and fried to a charred mahogany. What’s good for steaks, I guess the cooks figure, is good for bacon.

Of course, you can also get a top-sirloin or breakfast-size filet and eggs, or hefty three-egg omelets filled with mushrooms and cheddar or Swiss cheese. The eggs Benedict or eggs Blackstone, which substitutes sliced tomato for the English muffin and crumbled bacon for the Canadian bacon, are both on the heavy side.

The beef is all from the East and dry-aged on the premises, and the grill men here seem to never make a mistake, even though they’re working over live mesquite rather than a broiler set to a precise heat. Order the richly marbled rib-eye medium rare with a char and that’s exactly what you’ll get. Even the baseball steak, which is top sirloin cut in the shape of a baseball three to four fingers thick, is perfectly rosy at the center. That and the massive cowboy steak, a rib-eye on the bone, are my picks for best flavor and texture. The pepper steak is one of the best around, especially if you order the Delmonico prepared that way. Basically a bone-in New York strip, it comes studded with cracked black peppercorns that pack a fierce heat. When the menu says Roquefort, it’s not fooling around. The New York comes glazed with a particularly pungent blue, which may not be to everyone’s taste.

Depending on your waiter, service--while professional--can sometimes feel like a push to sell. One night we ordered bottled water, which was poured in each tall glass to the very brim. Minutes later, the waiter had a second $7 liter bottle at the ready in the ice bucket. As for the menu, I’m left wondering whether the cuts are smaller than they were before prices were lowered to compete with the other downtown steakhouses. Waiters don’t tend to offer much information either. When friends arrived late and were distracted, the waiter didn’t correct their notion that sides were included in the price of the $30-something steaks, so they merrily ordered one or two each. At $5 for tired mashed potatoes or shriveled mushroom caps, that adds significantly to the bill.

As for the other sides and appetizers, anything fried tends to be greasy. Vegetables are reasonably priced at $3.75 but no bargain, with the exception of Dining Car potatoes sauteed with bell peppers and onions. Beefsteak tomatoes are as pale as Swedes in the winter. Creamed spinach is overworked. This resembles cooking from the Midwest 50 years ago. Fresh broccoli, though limp, is a good deal better, napped with a serviceable hollandaise.

First courses are mostly disappointing. Crab cakes are more filler than crab. The salads could have come from a school cafeteria. The greens aren’t pristinely fresh, and they taste as if they’ve been dressed hours before.

It feels very much as if Pacific Dining Car is riding on its laurels. The quality of the steaks is excellent. It’s the other dishes that need reworking. Could it be that a little updating is in order?

The restaurant prides itself on its extensive wine list, put together by resident sommelier Ron Washam. Replete with vintage after vintage of top Bordeaux and Cabernets at premium prices, it can be daunting to diners who want just one good bottle of red. Fortunately, Washam is there most nights to offer advice

Pacific Dining Car gets an eclectic crowd, from early-rising stockbrokers and the power breakfast set to prominent lawyers and judges at midday, to folks with time on their hands for afternoon tea, and in the wee hours, kids on their way home from the clubs or studio musicians after a gig.

“Oh, yeah, we get a lot of people in here at 2 and 3 in the morning,” our waiter told us. “You’d be surprised. Nicolas Cage comes in sometimes late. He knows the place because his father and his uncle used to bring him here when he was small. Once he showed up with two limousines full of people at 3 in the morning.”

Pacific Dining Car has history and nostalgia going for it, not to mention that aged prime beef. But it’s no longer the only steakhouse in town, or downtown. Coffee? This venerable dining car needs a wake-up call.

Pacific Dining Car

1310 W. 6th St.

Downtown Los Angeles

(213) 483-6000

Cuisine: Steakhouse

Rating: * 1/2

AMBIENCE: Old-fashioned railroad dining car, plus other rooms with wingback chairs, stained glass and musty coziness. SERVICE: Professional but impersonal. BEST DISHES: Two eggs with hash browns and applewood smoked bacon, cowboy steak, baseball steak, Delmonico pepper steak, Dining Car potatoes, broccoli with hollandaise sauce. Dinner appetizers, $8 to $16. Steaks and chops, $30 to $40. Sides, $3.75 to $5.50. Corkage, $20. WINE PICKS: 1997 Von Strasser Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley; 1996 Torbreck “The Steading,” Barossa Valley, Australia. FACTS: Never closed. Valet and street parking.