I am going to be in LAX overnight in a few weekends. I would like to meet up with some friends who are flying through - they have a longish layover. Ideally we want to grab dinner somewhere.

Since I am pretty flexible on hotels, which one has the best restaurant. Or, is there a good sitdown restaurant at LAX proper that does NOT require going through security?

I wont have a car, and we don't want to go through the hassle of getting a taxi and all that. So we pretty well want to stick to a hotel that is on the hotel shuttle loop. Any recommendations?