NEWPORT’S OYSTER BAR IS A PEARL

The other day, when it was about a week old, the Newport Oyster Bar and Grill gave up putting raw crayfish on display behind the oyster bar proper. They were too fresh. It seems they were crawling around and nibbling on the peeled prawns.

Every oyster bar should have such problems. Of course, the Newport Oyster starts out with the advantage of being owned by the renowned Rex, which is just around the corner, and had its fresh-seafood-buying problem licked before it even opened.

The Newport Oyster has problems of its own, to be sure, the chief of which is its peculiar size and shape. It’s little more than a wall full of windows with space about one table deep behind it, plus an L-shaped mezzanine, making you feel a bit like an egg in a carton that’s been sliced down the middle.

In oyster bar tradition, it doesn’t take reservations, so on a busy weekend night (and maybe a busy weekend afternoon, come beach weather) we’re talking as much as an hour’s wait if your party is competing for one of the few tables that seat more than two. And something about the shotgun-apartment shape of the place makes the waiters look remarkably harried.

Other than that, the NOB&G; is rather pleasant, classily old-fashioned, with lap wood paneling in nautical white enamel and a hexagonal white tile floor.

And it has the decency to offer a wide selection of takeout for those waiting on the massive wooden bench out on the sidewalk who’ve finally decided to settle for a carton of crab claws to go.

The word “grill” in the name should not lead anyone to assume that you can get a steak here. This is a rather seafood-obsessed place; they even put fish in the cole slaw.

The bulk of the menu is oyster bar items. Seafood cocktails, of course, in a rather simple tomato cocktail sauce with an assassin’s bite of horseradish that should warn you to approach the horseradish in the table dispenser with respect.

Clams (usually cherrystones, sometimes tiny manilas) and oysters (usually bluepoints) come raw or in simple baked dishes, such as Doryman clams with a savory topping of bacon, green onions and Parmesan cheese, or oysters Newport, which sounds a little better than it is: The spinach and cilantro topping (pretty faint on the cilantro) does not seem to know what it is doing there.

Seafood chowders are exceptionally good. The red chowder tastes of fresh tomatoes and has a jivey note of hot pepper. The white chowder, also based on a strong seafood broth, is rather buttery with just-done chunks of new potato floating around.

The oyster stew is dazzling, a creamy broth dotted with plush little oyster-pillows. And seafood sandwiches, for once, are among the hottest things on the menu. Typically they come on good San Francisco sourdough rolls with mayonnaise, lettuce and thin-sliced onion, accompanied by fresh (somewhat oily) shoestring-sized French fries. The shrimpburger in particular is a marvel with its crunchy-fresh breaded shrimp.

These appetizerish items seem to be on the menu most of the time, but the entrees are more subject to availability. If they have soft-shell crabs, they will fry them in a cracker breading with garlic and maybe a little oregano, and you might be able to get a soft-shell crabburger.

If they have large-sized squid, you might get calamari “abalone style,” which is a pretty descriptive name: a couple of slices about four or five inches in diameter and a good half-inch thick, breaded and fried--rather like abalone, but with the smoother texture of calamari, chewy without being tough.

Fish is usually simply prepared, broiled by preference though sometimes you see the word “blackened” lurking around at the lower end of the menu, and I’ve even seen “sauteed.”

Sometimes there are fried crab cakes, flat burger-shaped models that are fairly crabby but a shade mushy. King crab, on the other hand, is really wonderful, with sweet drawn butter.

Along with the fresh fish, there are a couple of fresh pasta dishes, the most interesting to me being linguine with clams. Not what you expect, not a plate of pasta with a clam sauce, but a clam soup--a garlicky, faintly smoky clam broth--with linguine in it and some cherrystones piled on top.

Desserts are pretty much limited to cheesecake, the type with a sour-cream frosting layer, but they are fresh, too--the owner’s mother makes them.

Prices vary, as at any seafood restaurant, according to the market, but currently the entrees are running $6.50-$9.95, the cocktails $3.50-$5.95, and the raw oysters and clams respectively 95 cents and 75 cents apiece.

Note: My apologies to Julio Iglesias for referring to him in my last column (a review of La Casita LC Cafeteria) as Raul. I must have been thinking of what’s his name, that actor in “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” You know, Raul Julio.

NEWPORT OYSTER BAR & GRILL 2100 W. Ocean Front (at Newport Pier),

Newport Beach,

(714) 675-9977.

Open for lunch and dinner daily. MasterCard, Visa and American Express cards accepted.