Taking the Hell’s Angel Food Cake

There is one place in the crowded city where the deafening roar of a Harley is greeted with indifference and not disdain, where no one will shout out from a window: “Stop that infernal racket!”

At Thunder Roadhouse, a guy or a gal with a motorcycle can go, well, hog wild. Dinner dressed in jeans and leather? No problem. It’s not that a suit jacket isn’t appreciated here, but certainly a man has no need to hide his long hair in a ponytail. Heck, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda have been spotted here.

Half of the restaurant is dimly lit, with lots of heavy wood paneling and rough-hewn shellacked wood tables, the sort of stuff you’d find in a winter lodge. Oversized vintage motorcycle ads hang on the walls in the way that French liqueur ads hang on the walls of bistros. In the back room, the lighting is bright, the counter is Formica and the mood is all diner.

The food, cooked by chef Lionel Deniaud, is at home in either room. There are two meat loaves: “Evel Knievel’s” regular-guy standard or “Wild One” blackened turkey meatloaf (which, happily, doesn’t taste healthy or anything). You can get pork chops and a T-bone, fried chicken and fried catfish, a decent banana cream pie--and a grilled vegetable plate for those inevitable hell’s accountants.

* Thunder Roadhouse, 8363 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (213) 650-6011. Entrees $8.95 - $14.95.