OK, what are they smoking?

YOU’VE heard of pot brownies. Now there’s stoner steak -- at Tart, the eclectic restaurant that opened mid-March in the groovy Farmer’s Daughter Hotel on Fairfax.

That’s not its official name, of course, but watch when the cowboy hay-smoked steak -- an 18-ounce, bone-in rib-eye served with smoked green alfalfa -- is delivered to a table.

As the server sets down a covered cast-iron pot and lifts the lid, a plume of steamy smoke rises and an aroma permeates the air that causes heads to swivel, eyebrows to raise and diners to look questioningly at their companions: Is that what it smells like it is?

Indeed, no. In fact, the pungent smoke, while intended as an attention-getter, was a byproduct of an effort to evoke a barnyard, not a ‘60s crash pad.

Karim Dennis Mejia, a Bastide veteran who until last week was executive chef at Tart, came up with the dish (which is offered as a nightly off-the-menu special) when he was challenged by the hotel’s owners, Peter and Ellen Picataggio, to create something that would play on the farmer’s daughter theme. Mejia, who remembered reading about how hay was used as a preservative “before the invention of modern cookery,� experimented first with steak and dry hay combinations (a bust) before coming up with the recipe using alfalfa.

So how does Tart’s kitchen make the steak dish that smells like marijuana? A steak is partially grilled over mesquite charcoal, then put into a two-compartment Staub mussel pot. In the other compartment are placed a few pieces of the charcoal. Previously smoked grape seed oil is added in a don’t-try-this-at-home fashion to the coals, then a handful of green alfalfa. The top goes on the pot, and it’s finished in a 500-degree oven for about 5 minutes. Served with warm cornbread, fried green tomatoes and fresh okra, it’s definitely got that homegrown feeling -- and aroma.

Not naughty enough for you? There’s also a side of “moonshine sauce� made with Jack Daniel’s and Caribbean rum.

Leslee Komaiko

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Small bites

* Simon LA opened on Monday in the Sofitel Hotel across from the Beverly Center. The modern American eatery is the latest from chef Kerry Simon who is behind Simon Kitchen and Bar in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. (He has another project in the works in Maui.)

The menu features some of his signature dishes such as tandoori wild Pacific salmon, wood-fired pizzas and meatloaf.

Simon LA, 8555 Beverly Blvd., L.A. (310) 358-3979.

* Caffe Roma in Beverly Hills has a new owner, Ago Sciandri of Ago and Sortino and a new chef, Piero Topputo, former executive chef at Toscana. A fresh look was put together with a quickie 72-hour decor makeover, and there’s a new menu. Among the specialties: Tuscan covaccine, similar to very thin pizzas.

Caffe Roma, 350 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 274-7834.

* Sunday night is burger night at the Tower Bar in the Sunset Tower Hotel (formerly the Argyle).

On this night only, the restaurant offers an all-burger menu, with burgers of not only beef, but also duck, tuna, turkey, even one that combines monkfish and scampi. For dessert? Hot fudge sundaes and root beer floats.

The Tower Bar, 8358 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 848-6677.

* Eat Well Beverly has opened in the old Cafe Tartine space on Beverly Boulevard.

This is the fourth Eat Well. (The others are in West Hollywood, Glendale and Silver Lake.) The chain of hip coffee shops is best known for hearty egg dishes, burgers and assorted melts.

Eat Well Beverly, 7385 Beverly Blvd., L.A., (323) 938-1300.