I've been on the road. In Los Angeles, it turns out, you can't get dinner after 10. "Sorry, kitchen's closed," says the headwaiter at a Cuban joint on Wilshire. "Sorry, kitchen closed," says the counterman at a Chinese takeout on Pico as he flips off the OPEN sign. Ten o'freaking clock on a freaking Saturday night ... in freaking Hollywood! Kitchen closed, sheesh!

No such conditions in Belltown, fortunately.

Ten o'clock on a Saturday night at Alexandria's, for instance. A line of Escalades and Hummers waiting to be valet-parked. A clutch of folks waiting to get in. Every table filled. Jazz sextet blowin' up a storm. Two and three-deep at the bar, where Alberto Meza had to hire a back-up barman and two barmaids just to keep up.

Executive chef Michael Franklin has gone home for the day, but he's left the kitchen in good hands. Eric Buchanan, in a bright red cap, is quarterbacking. He's part of the Buchanan clan: Alexandria's owner is Jim Buchanan, with his younger brother Joseph serving as operations manager. "I'm Jo-Jo's first cousin," Eric says.

At the hottest station in town stands Erin Brown, a veteran line cook. Both six-burner gas ranges are going full blast, pans lined up on the blazing front hot plates like the wheels on a cockeyed locomotive.

Here in the hellish brimstone of commercial kitchen, there's no time to read restaurant reviews. This is combat. It's

Joe versus the Volcano, or Eric versus the Vulcan, as the case may be.

Catfish, shrimp, the signature Seafood Pan Roast, pasta dishes: Eric spins and flips, stirs and stabs, tosses a handful of noodles, pokes a fish filet, checks the oven, and shakes his flaming pans like a sexton ringing changes.

Out slide chicken, prawns, collard greens. A corps-de-ballet of servers maneuvers in and out, picking up their plates and pivoting into the dining room. Three young women who recently arrived from the Sonics game find perches at the bar and order Grey Goose martinis. "The best in town, Alberto," one of them says. Alberto beams. Soon enough, sure enough, a couple of really tall dudes sidle over and buy the second round.

And THAT, my friends, is Saturday night in Belltown.

Something about meat and fire, especially this time of year.

We're carnivores, most of us, and there's nothing as elementally satisfying as a grilled steak. The two best practitioners of the art are, not surprisingly, the Buenos Aires Grill and El Gaucho.

At Buenos Aires, the beef comes from Argentina, as does the wood-fired grill. Proprietor Marco Casas-Breaux, who also owns Madrid 522, is taking over the Harbor Steps space on First Avenue vacated by Wolfgang Puck and will transform it into another South American restaurant to be called Peru. It's scheduled to open in early January.

Meantime, at Buenos Aires, tango dancers Patricio and Eva perform on weekends, gliding elegantly between the crowded tables, adding a note of sophistication to those primal urges for seared meat. You can gorge on the parrillada or dine more modestly on the amazingly flavorful skirt steak. Either way, drink a hearty malbec, Argentina's best wine. Bravo!

Don't go to El Gaucho if you're watching your wallet. Too dark for that. On the other hand, you can watch the captain toss your Caesar salad tableside and imagine yourself in a bygone era, at a fabled spot like the Brown Derby or Chasen's. Owner Paul Mackay holds the fort here, having rewarded former GM Rich Troiani with a restaurant of his own.

Executive chef John Broulette puts only the best beef on the grill, 28-day, dry-aged Certified Angus Prime, about as high a pedigree as it gets. The chateaubriand for two, carved tableside, is impressive as hell.

Like those snooty Manhattan steak houses, El Gaucho makes much of side dishes like sautˆöed spinach. The lengthy wine list is designed for players eager to drink expensive labels. Yet dinner here is a remarkably unaffected experience. You don't come here to be "seen;" it's too dark for that, remember. You come because you're hungry, and you'll leave well-fed.

Travel dispatch from Arizona: The Borgata shopping center in Scottsdale is modeled on the archetype of Italian hill towns, San Gimignano, though without the hills. Borgata means village in Italian, though not necessarily a picturesque village. Not to complain. Inside is Cafˆö Citron, which serves a sensational choice of gelati. Italian ice in the desert, nice. The amaretto was good, the nocce better. I'm partial to Dolce Vita's gelati myself. James Lalonde, a former colleague at Seattle Weekly, makes them at his shop on Queen Anne and retails them, come summer, from a gelato cart in front of Axis. Especially fond of the blood orange ...

Travel dispatch from California: There seems to be an In-N-Out Burger everywhere. Not really; they've just snapped up great locations along the freeways. Like Mickey-D, they started as a single drive-through burger stand. Unlike Mickey-D, which by now runs franchised 31,000 stores, In-N-Out never franchised, and essentially stopped growing when they got to 150 restaurants, almost all in southern California. Unlike Mickey-D, they make everything fresh: hand-cut beef, hand-leafed lettuce, no heat lamp, microwave or freezer on company property. In San Bernadino, I handed over four bucks for a goopy, delicious "Double-Double" with fries, and even got a penny change.

Ah, if only Belltown had something like this! Instead, we're bracketed by a couple of yucky Mickey-Ds and pimpled by four depressing Subway storefronts.

Still, enthused as I am for In-N-Out, it's not quite as substantial as the burger at Two Bells, which remains the gold standard.

A correction to last month's column. Oyster Happy Hour at Flying Fish lives on, 5 to 6 p.m. weeknights. Three bucks a dozen, probably through April. It's such a crush at the bar that they remove the stools. u

Messenger restaurant reviewer Ronald Holden welcomes news and comments from foodies and feeders alike. Additional dispatches on his weblog, www.cornichon.org.

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