The older we get, the easier it can be to pop over to a favorite restaurant for a meal that's a "sure thing." One bad experience can make a diner run screaming back to his routine of golden oldies. So don't just read about new restaurants; pick a day when nothing can break your stride and make a reservation at the new place in town.

LOS ANGELES

Reading the L.A. Times's food page makes Hot Plates feel like a real Californian trapped in the body of an East Coaster. Everything sounds whimsical, free, and beachy. What can go wrong there?

I guess that's easy to think when a restaurant review of a new place in Malibu starts with this: "Spectacular beaches, dramatic cliffs, amazing surf ..." Take a look at the picture of the place, and you will want to hop a plane, too. It's a review of Terra, a new place on the Pacific Coast Highway. Apparently the neighborhood needs this kind of place more than any big-name kitchen: Terra is "a warm, personable spot with great service, a graceful dining room, a serious chef and good cooking."

As a contrast to a homey little cottage, the paper also offers a profile of Laurent Tourondel, the chap behind the BLT (Bistro Laurent Tourondel) empire. The news hooks are that his second cookbook has come out, and -- more importantly for L.A. -- he will open a restaurant there this winter on Sunset Boulevard.

Tourondel is French, he is all about creativity and surprise, and he is "not afraid of excess" -- all reasons he pleases American diners so much. Besides the cooking, a manager at BLT Market is quoted saying Tourondel also "gets it" in terms of dining style; he understands "this new world in which guests show up in jeans and T-shirts but still expect Christofle silver to tackle a luxurious burger and fries."

Lastly, don't we all need a little more serenity? How can one not want to "escape to a Japanese small-plates island" -- especially a quiet "izakaya, or Japanese pub-style cafe," among Ventura Boulevard's more "raucous" sushi spots. The sushi chef cuts each piece of sushi in half; this is "common courtesy for women diners in Tokyo," the writer says. It's good for sharing with your fellow diners and "also a solution for the age-old two-bite awkwardness."

WASHINGTON

After a fire this past spring wiped out much of the famed Eastern Market in D.C.'s Capitol Hill, probably no one expected it would bounce back this fast. Some friends of Hot Plates headed there one recent Sunday for crab cakes at Market Lunch, which Tom Sietsema writes about this week, and it did live up to the hype. From crab cakes to pancakes, it has something for most lunchers, and you can feel like a real Washingtonian sitting at the "long, 30-seat communal table" that survived the April fire.

A new nightspot opening on Nov. 1, The Park at 14th will have four floors and its menu will be typical creative American -- but it sounds like the real estate will be what makes it. "Treetop views" of Franklin Park are sure to lure the cool after-work crowd. Dirk van Stockum, the guy behind it, has some experience with cool: He was a doorman in the 80s at age 21 who went on to open the club Fifth Column; he left D.C. before it started to have some polish. Now, after a stint in Vegas, he is back in this still-transforming city.

Before we make our last stop up north, we should provide a link for your bookmarks: The Washington Post's Annual Dining Guide, which came out Sunday.

NEW YORK

Hot Plates's old stomping grounds doesn't always make it onto The New York Times's dining page. Queens has always seemed to be the uncool borough, though people do cut it some slack for its bountiful, wonderful ethnic eateries.

This week, two notable places written up in the paper might just lure a few Manhattanites onto the subway (or, more likely, into a cab). Athens Tavern opened in Astoria, the Greek neighborhood of Western Queens right over the 59th Street Bridge from Midtown that has no shortage of Mediterranean places -- but you wouldn't call most of them a "gastro-taverna," as this place is being dubbed. The food's a bit more upscale, which makes sense as the neighborhood continues on its path to gentrification.

We try to be impartial, but we are just going to go ahead and say it: Writer Peter Meehan rocks. He leaves his Times Square office and ventures out to deep, dark, faraway places in New York City -- like Elmhurst, Queens -- so that he can write about places like Nusara Thai Kitchen. Meehan doesn't care if the places aren't cool, and they certainly aren't where the Beautiful People are going. He just loves interesting tastes, and it's so clear from his hunger-inducing writing.

In the case of Nusara, the diner and his companion are humbled by trying to do as the natives do: "our eagerness in ordering it spicy led to sheepish and fevered demands for more water, sweaty faces and giggles from the diminutive woman in the kitchen who peeked out from around a corner."

This one we saved for last because it sounds like the most inviting restaurant of all that were mentioned this week. Yeah, it's just another West Village Italian. And yeah, Frank Bruni likes it OK, but just calls it "good." But the cooler evening air these days must have cast a spell on Hot Plates, because all of these mentions of Centro Vinoteca's little, lightly fried treats (called piccolini) sound so just-right.