December 16, 1981

WASHINGTON IN this city of lobbyists and other assorted pressure groups, it is no surprise to find that restaurants also have their claques. And though all factions might agree that the most fashionable eating scenes are played out in French, Italian and Far Eastern restaurants, opinions differ widely as to which eating place is the best in each category. The conflicting advice presents a frustrating situation to those who care most about eating well and have only a few days in which to do so. Having tried the three French restaurants considered tops by almost all Washington food buffs, I found the best by far to be Jean Louis in the Watergate Hotel. Le Pavillon came in second with very good food and very pretentious service in a darkly depressing setting. Lion d'Or was uneven; some dishes were excellent, others were mediocre, and the service left almost everything to be desired. That trio having been accounted for a few weeks ago, there is a second level of eating places that are solidly ''in,'' and again they vary widely in the quality of their ingredients and preparations.

New-car sales by the Big Three domestic auto makers dropped 27.8 percent during the first 10 days of December, as the industry remained mired in the worst sales slump in recent years. The Chrysler Corporation, the Ford Motor Company and the General Motors Corporation reported combined sales of 120,439 cars, compared with 166,808 in the same period last year. There were nine selling days in both periods. The sharpest decline was reported by Ford, which had a 37.7 percent drop, to 24,733 cars, compared with 39,688 in early December 1980. Ford's offer of $400 to $600 rebates expired at the end of November.

As the American economy slips deeper into recession, and with only an anemic recovery expected in Europe next year, the industrial world appears to be slipping another step down from the high rates of economic growth and prosperity it enjoyed during the 1960's. This is the view of bankers, economists and other analysts who were interviewed in recent days. The first pronounced decline in the economic growth of the industrial nations occurred in the 1970's, when rising inflation and the 1974 oil price shock helped shrink the average rate of economic expansion to only 3.5 percent a year from the 5 percent that prevailed in the 1960's. Down to a Lower Plateau Now economic growth rates appear to be dropping to a lower plateau, partly as a result of the second oil price shock in 1979-80 but also because of high interest rates. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and most private forecasters now expect that the industrial economies - essentially, the United States, Canada, Western Europe and Japan - will follow the mild contraction in 1980 and probable stagnation this year by growing a paltry 1.5 percent or so on average during 1982.

A Business Day article yesterday on video game commercials by Atari and Intellivision incorrectly reported NBC's position. It has asked that the commericials be revised, but has not ordered them off the air.

The Public Service Electric Gas Company, New Jersey's largest utility, asked the State Board of Public Utility Commissioners today for permission to abandon one of two nuclear power plants it is building near Salem, N.J. The utility also asked the board for permission to increase its rates sufficiently over the next 12 years to cover the estimated $370 million cost of construction already completed and the abandonment of the project. Company officials testified at a board hearing that one plant, called Hope Creek II, was no longer needed because consumer demand for energy was growing at a rate of only 1.9 percent, compared with 7 percent a decade ago when the plant was planned. Financing Difficulty Cited Everett L. Morris, a senior vice president of the company, also said that it would have difficulty obtaining financing for the project and that putting more money into Hope Creek II would jeopardize completion of the Hope Creek I plant next to it on Artificial Island in the Delaware River near Salem.