For Starters

Whenever I travel, I get jet lag. I drink plenty of water, eat lightly, even take melatonin. Still, the first night after a long flight home, my eyes pop open in the dark. I look at the clock and sigh. Usually it’s 4 a.m. and I realize that I can’t go back to sleep, that I’m ravenously hungry and that there’s absolutely nothing in the refrigerator.

Where to eat at this ungodly hour? Wild horses couldn’t get me to one of those 24-hour delis. Definitely nowhere too bright or bustling. Ah, but the original Pacific Dining Car is open 24 hours and it’s quiet. That’s where early-rising stockbrokers start their day.

One recent Monday morning, I point the car toward downtown Los Angeles, gliding through the thrillingly empty streets. The 76-year-old restaurant is still empty, too, except for two young men who look as if they’ve been up all night, quietly talking over Cokes.

The waiter puts on a fresh pot of coffee, turns up the lights enough for me and my breakfast companion to read the newspaper and brings us wonderful, just-squeezed orange juice. I’m hungry enough to order everything on the menu. Though the eggs Blackstone and other variations of eggs Benedict (a blue crab Benedict?) are good, today I’m more interested in the country breakfast: big, fluffy buttermilk pancakes, soft-scrambled eggs and two meats--a nicely spiced sausage patty and very smoky, crisp bacon. I sneak a couple of bites of my companion’s mesquite-grilled breakfast filet, which tastes faintly of Worcestershire sauce. But I’m more entranced by his hash browns, potatoes cut like thick chips, crisp and golden at the edges. They’re a little bit greasy, but fine washed down with hot coffee. By the time we leave at 5:30, the first few cleanshaven stockbrokers have filed in.

Up and pacing at 5:30 Tuesday, I decide to go to the office early but stop at Urth Caffe on Melrose Avenue on the way. The lattes--a swirl of organic coffee and creamy, fine-textured foam served in tall, heavy mugs--are among the best in town. The sun is just starting to hit the small terra-cotta terrace out front that’s set with green wooden tables and French garden chairs. Warmed by the sunlight, I start making lists to organize the thoughts ricocheting through my jet-lagged brain. At the next table, a young actress with blue toenails looks over a script. I don’t want to eat much, just a toasted bagel, La Brea Bakery’s exemplary version.

At 6:45 a.m. Wednesday, the garden at the Belvedere in the Peninsula Hotel is truly lovely with its double-skirted tables and lush plantings of jasmine and wisteria. Good coffee comes in a silver-plated pot, but the cappuccino is so foamy that one sip and my companion looks like one of those milk ads. He’s a New Yorker and orders the house-smoked salmon with a bagel, which comes with chopped red onion and capers. The smoked fish is supple and moist, but without a proper New York bagel (this one is too doughy), it just doesn’t work. At $19.95, the American breakfast may be the most expensive in town, but everything about it is top-notch--from the coffee and fresh-squeezed juice to my soft-scrambled eggs, perfectly crisp (and piping hot) bacon and toasted English muffin tucked into a cloth napkin to keep it warm.

At 7 a.m. Thursday, I’m heading down Franklin Avenue toward Hollywood to meet a friend who jogs around Hollywood Reservoir even earlier. “Last cappuccino before the 101,” reads the cheerful sign outside the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop, an honest-to-God old-fashioned coffee shop with pink vinyl booths and celebrity photos that include three-star chef Paul Bocuse and other luminaries of the culinary world. We take a seat at the long counter with a view of the short-order cooks and promptly order cappuccino. Concentrated and covered with froth, there’s enough caffeine in the oversized cup to keep you up for a week. Good thing, too, because I’m planning to make it to midnight tonight. The orange juice is fresh-squeezed with lots of pulp, and the pink grapefruit juice is luscious. The place begins to fill up with harried-looking commuters and guys in baseball caps studiously scribbling in notebooks. The short stack is two dreamy buttermilk pancakes, but syrup comes in tacky little plastic cups. The corned beef hash is terrific. It’s hand-chopped so you get discrete tastes of the corned beef and creamy potato, browned on the outside, plus two perfectly poached eggs on top. And I’m so taken with my huevos rancheros that I really don’t want to share. It’s a fried tortilla smeared with refried beans, topped with runny-yolked eggs and swimming in a savory tomato sauce spiked with cilantro. I’ll be back.

Except for a gentleman reading the newspaper and downing cup after cup of black coffee, at 7:30 a.m. Friday we’re the only customers in the Fountain Coffee Room at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Waiters in pert uniforms, the curving sweep of the counter, the pink vinyl and chrome stools and that fabulous banana-leaf wallpaper re-create the feel of a ‘40s-era coffee shop. The house joe is good and strong, and the OJ is squeezed right in front of you. The famous silver-dollar buckwheat cakes--which come with the hotel’s own tiny bottles of real maple syrup--are delicious. A Western omelet comes out moist in the center and loaded with bits of ham, bell pepper and onion. Corned beef hash, however, has had one too many whirls in the food processor. So I concentrate on the poached eggs, the fine hash browns and hot toast while watching the bodybuilding couple at the end of the counter put away everything in sight.

The next morning, I actually oversleep and have time for only a quick cup of coffee at home before the day claims me. And so, I regret, ends my breakfast spree.

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BREAKFAST

Pacific Dining Car, 1310 W. 6th St., Los Angeles; (213) 483-6000. Breakfast served 11 p.m. to 11 a.m. Monday through Friday, to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. $6.95 to $14.95. Urth Caffe, 8565 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood; (310) 659-0628. 6:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. daily. $4 to $7. The Belvedere, Peninsula Beverly Hills Hotel, 9882 Little Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills; (310) 788-2306. 6:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. daily. $6.50 to $19.95. Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop, 6145 Franklin Ave., Hollywood; (213) 467-7678. Breakfast served anytime. $5.25 to $8.95. Fountain Coffee Room, Beverly Hills Hotel, 9641 Sunset Blvd., Beverly Hills; (310) 276-2251. 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. $4.50 to $10.25.