Fish Is the Dish at Beverly Center Spot

Still doing your Christmas shopping? Then you’ll probably be glad to know that the Beverly Center has yet another new restaurant. With, it should be noted, its own valet parking service on the ground floor of the building.

Pacifics, 8500 Beverly Blvd., (213) 652-1974, is a large, bright and reasonably priced restaurant that specializes in fish. There is fish in almost everything--even the Caesar salad contains chopped clams. (It’s not as bad as it sounds.) There is a creamy clam chowder, slightly rubbery shrimp cocktail . . . you get the picture. The best thing that I tasted was the special grilled sea bass.

As I was finishing up with an incredibly gooey strawberry tart in a chocolate-enhanced cookie crust my friend the shopping maven came bouncing in. She has, it turns out, made a thorough study of the eating options at the Beverly Center, and she is convinced that the best thing to eat after a day of conspicuous consumption is crab with black bean sauce at the Mandarin Cove. “It makes you feel like going out and spending some more,” she said, going off to do just that.