ARTFUL OMELETTES IN AN EXPANDING TIME FRAME

Alice B. Toklas wrote that it was impossible to gauge how many persons a recipe would serve. You’d have to know what they’d been doing, what else they’d eaten--in other words, just how hungry they were. Similarly, we tend to consider menus and environments as faits accomplis , forgetting that they take on different looks depending on our sensibilities and the time of day.

The venerable Egg and the Eye restaurant, known, as the name implies, for its omelettes, has been thought of as a place for lunch before or after one looked at art, since it is situated in the Craft and Folk Art Museum, with the County Museum of Art right across the street. One could eat salads and eggs in a lively arena while discreetly kicking off one’s shoes. Now that the Egg and the Eye is open for breakfast and dinner, both the menu and the ambiance seem different than at bustling lunchtime.

Tucked above the museum’s gift shop, the restaurant feels like a secret attic with low ceilings and low lights. Pretty spotlights focused on each table halo a fresh nosegay. Artwork decorates the baby peach walls, with exhibitions changing regularly. A back room, used at lunch, is similarly adorned.

Lunchtime is still the center of the restaurant’s world, with its many good selections and high energy. There are crepes, quiches, hamburgers, 10 kinds of salads, a cold and a hot soup--and then, of course, the omelettes. From “classique,” which is plain, to “African” which is filled with diced beef, dried apricots and apples, prunes, raisins and curry, there are 50 offerings--standards, sweet variations and, like the “Pachyderm” made with peanut butter, several oddities. The omelette really is the Egg and the Eye’s piece de resistance --both moist and firm and made with real butter, judiciously.

A salade nicoise was large and fresh with potatoes cut like tulips, shaped lemons and three kinds of beans. The gazpacho was frothy and bracing, served very prettily with separate tubs of sour cream, croutons and chopped hard-boiled egg. The waiter presented it with the flourish he might also lavish on Beluga caviar. In fact, the service was extremely kind each time we were there. I didn’t care for the artichoke bottoms filled with curried chicken and shrimp remoulade; I found them too creamy, overblown. The baskets of sturdy pumpernickel raisin bread are a nice touch and, welcomely, are refilled.

A raspberry shortcake turned out to be the most exciting part of our meal. Really an elegant, lemony pound cake rather than a shortcake, it was soaked with egg yolk and Marsala, festooned with beautifully placed berries and nearly disguised with a vast mound of freshly whipped cream. “Everyone loves a mound, don’t they?” my friend said.

The menu, the same at lunch and dinner, does contain several hot seafood and chicken specialties but the bulk of it really does feel like luncheon food. One wants a bit more pizazz at night and we were unexcited by our meal. We began by sharing an Egg and Eye Salad, which is straightforward greens with avocado, bacon, mushrooms, small amounts of Swiss cheese, tomatoes and hard-boiled egg. Quite a healthy portion, and we did enjoy the vigorous, peppery vinaigrette.

We did not particularly relish a hot salade chinoise nor a shrimp creole. The first was an uninspired, unspiced stir-fried mass set beside a mound of rice noodles. Everyone didn’t love this mound. The shrimp, properly butterflied and of medium size, were set in a bland tomato, onion and bell-pepper sauce. It was a pale rendition of Creole cuisine. Even the dessert failed to live up to our lunch’s delight. While visually dramatic, particularly under the lovely spotlight, the two-chocolate cake--on a sea of raspberry puree with mint leaves placed like wings--was dry. We did enjoy the fact that one could order any wine, California or imported, by the glass.

I went back for breakfast and think I enjoyed that the most. Entering through the museum before opening time, it felt like being in a favorite department store after hours, or maybe even like breakfast at Tiffany’s. Uncrowded--in fact, quite under-utilized--it was like a private club. The waiter treated me like a special guest. I sat back and read the paper and noticed, for the first time, the substantial weight of the silverware. A good place for a breakfast meeting or to organize one’s day, there’s a choice of the 50 omelettes, a Continental breakfast, cheese blintzes, espresso, papayas and fresh orange juice. The bacon omelette I had was perfectly made with the crispest bacon, the egg neither runny nor dry. Oh, to have breakfast amid art. I think Miss Toklas would have felt right at home.

The Egg and the Eye Restaurant, 5814 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 933-5596. Reservations suggested at lunch. Breakfast: Tuesdays-Fridays, 7-11 a.m. Brunch: Saturdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Lunch: Tuesdays-Fridays, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Dinner: Tuesdays.-Saturdays, 5:30-10 p.m. Visa, MC, Amex accepted. Lunch or dinner for two (food only): $12-$28.