Feeding Your Inner Child

A few weeks ago, my in-laws took my husband and me to a newish steakhouse in Rancho Mirage named Prime 10. It is a sharp-looking place, very sleek and adult. The menu is more or less what you’d expect: beefsteak tomato and onion salad, lots of big meat, a couple of seafood alternatives.

What I didn’t expect was the towering pink pouf of freshly spun cotton candy set down in the middle of the table at the end of our meal.

The diners around us looked equally incredulous. They pointed and smiled and whispered among themselves.

A few seconds passed. Then I tore in. It was as if I had time-traveled back to first grade.

“It certainly does bring back childhood memories,” says Sandy Josephson, the restaurant’s general manager, of the $4.95 confection. “People will start reminiscing about when they were a kid they’d get cotton candy at the beach or at a fair. Some people scream, ‘Oh, my god!’ It’s just a great spontaneous reaction.”

In the past year, there’s been much talk about comfort food: meatloaf and roast chicken, mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. But what could be more comforting than food from our childhood? It recalls carefree summers and a time when cholesterol, for all intents and purposes, didn’t exist. It makes us feel good. Quite likely, it also makes us return customers.

Prime 10 is not the only place feeding our collective inner child. Porterhouse Bistro, a Beverly Hills steak place where the average check is about $60 a head, also serves cotton candy to people celebrating birthdays or on special request.

“We wanted to break the pretentiousness in L.A.,” says general manager Bobby Burton. “We thought fine dining could be a little more fun.”

A slew of places are doing root beer floats. Napa Valley Grille, a stylish California bistro in Westwood, makes a classic float with homemade vanilla ice cream and IBC root beer ($6.95). Aqua, at the St. Regis Monarch Beach hotel in Dana Point, makes one with root beer sorbet ($9). And Nine, an uber-hip Las Vegas steakhouse, substitutes cinnamon ice cream for vanilla in its version. ($8).

Nine’s director of operations, Andrew Belmonti, says the float is among the restaurant’s most popular desserts. But it isn’t the most popular. That honor goes to the $8 s’mores, which restaurant patrons cook themselves over little portable hibachis.

“When you walk into the dining room and smell the aroma of toasting marshmallows, it takes you back to a time when you didn’t have a care in the world,” says Belmonti. “It is a nostalgic feeling, one that everyone can relate to.

“The feeling, or the smell, seems to be contagious when it passes through the dining room. Everyone wants to join the party around the campfire.”

Gyu-Kaku, a casual Japanese barbecue spot in West Los Angeles, also recently added s’mores ($2) to its menu of otherwise traditional Japanese desserts. Restaurant spokeswoman Chaco Kim says the response from patrons has been great, especially from younger diners: “It’s so unexpected. That’s why everyone gets a kick out of it.”

The surprise element is a big part of these items’ appeal. There’s also a satisfying feeling of mischief in ordering a kiddie dessert in a real restaurant. A root beer float at a diner is a root beer float, but a root beer float at a place like Aqua borders on rebellion. It’s saying, “No, thanks,” to frou-frou pastries.

Or rather, it’s saying, “I know what I want, and I want it now,” just as you did when you were 6. And, quite frankly, is there anything better?

The youthful trend isn’t limited to sweets. North, a hipster restaurant/bar in Hollywood, serves the old cafeteria favorite sloppy Joe for $10. “It’s a gourmet version,” says restaurant manager Leeann Rupprecht. “I always thought sloppy Joe was really sweet. This is more hearty, with less of a sugary taste. It’s more geared toward adult taste buds.”

Windows Lounge at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills does a trio of mini-burgers for $14, like upscale White Castle “sliders”: one sirloin, one turkey and one portabello mushroom.

Hans Rockenwagner also offers a $7.95 hamburger on the Wunderbar menu at his Santa Monica restaurant. That not-so-miniature 6-ounce burger is served on a pretzel roll with Swiss cheese and grilled onions. “That’s the single most popular item on that menu,” he says. The Wunderbar menu also features a grown-up grilled cheese with nuggets of lobster.

And the Belvedere at the Peninsula Beverly Hills Hotel recently added a hot dog to its lunch menu. Well, they call it a hot dog, but it’s made from chicken and foie gras, served on a brioche roll and finished with morel mushroom and onion relish and spicy oven-dried tomato ketchup. At $16, it must be the most expensive frank around.

But it satisfies the adult palate as well as the inner child. And compared to therapy, it’s a relative bargain.

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Aqua at the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort and Spa, One Monarch Beach Resort, Dana Point. (949) 234-3200.

The Belvedere at the Peninsula, 9882 Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. (310) 788-2306.

Gyu-Kaku, 10925 W. Pico Blvd., West L.A. (310) 234-8641.

Napa Valley Grille, 1100 Glendon Ave., Westwood. (310) 824-3322.

Nine at the Palms, 4321 W. Flamingo Road, Las Vegas. (702) 933-9900.

North, 8029 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 654-1313.

Prime 10, 32-250 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage. (760) 202-6063.

Porterhouse Bistro, 8635 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. (310) 659- 1099.

Rockenwagner, 2435 Main St., Santa Monica. (310) 399-6504.

Windows Lounge at the Four Seasons, 300 S. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills. (310) 273-2222, Ext. 2139.