Restaurants Survive First Year, but Pains of Adolescence Linger

It’s always interesting to watch promising young restaurants grow and mature.

They often go through stages, just like growing children, and can become awkward and clumsy just when the self-assurance of adulthood seems within their grasp. When they reach the one-year mark, eateries frequently break out in a rash of personnel problems--a sort of figurative acne peculiar to the trade--such as when the chef whose name has become intertwined with the restaurant’s decides to take off.

Then there is the problem of too much success too early, which can lead to a careless, “We can’t fail” attitude, and thus to disaster. Those places that plod along studiously, learning as they go, seem to be the ones that ultimately achieve lasting success.

Two of the most interesting newcomers of early 1985 were Lamont Street Grill in Pacific Beach and downtown’s Broadway Place. Although quite distinct from one another in almost every outward attribute, the two seem to have common roots in the “contemporary cuisine” movement, a kind of post- nouvelle style that is based upon the rules of classic cooking but is always ready and willing to bend those rules with nouvelle flippancies and fancies. (A quick example would be Broadway Place’s fondness for seasoning beurre blanc sauces with fruit purees and spices; this is Escoffier with oomph.)

Lamont Street Grill remains a very attractive place, both in the physical sense (the peach and gray decor is lovely and soothing), and in terms of the menu, which is written with a sort of unself-conscious gracefulness. A less-assured chef might balk at including in his menu both sea bass in a complicated tomato-walnut pesto and a very plain but very good hamburger, but this chef seems quite comfortable with such culinary extremes. This explains why the appetizer list includes both salmon Provencal and fried potato skins, and why the entree list balances a citified halibut in avocado-lime butter with a decidedly rustic preparation of barbecued pork ribs.

Overall, however, the restaurant seems to have slipped a bit--not much, perhaps, but the cooking seems rather less expert than it did a year ago, and the service could use some fine-tuning. The servers during a recent visit could have paid more attention to detail, and one committed that unforgivable sin that restaurant managers should never allow: The silver that had been used for a salad was removed from the plate and set before the diner to be used again for the entree. A properly trained staff knows that fresh silver always is brought for every course.

This meal began most respectably with a shrimp remoulade appetizer, the sauce for which was not the blistering if savory remoulade of New Orleans but rather the tamer French version that is basically a mayonnaise mixed with strong, coarse mustard. The shrimp were large and tender, the sauce creamy and plentiful.

A house salad (included with all entrees) followed and proved to be a minor visual masterpiece; a small head of butter lettuce had been opened and slightly flattened so that its leaves resembled the petals of a flower. Tomato wedges, chopped walnuts and crumbles of sharp cheese decorated the greens, which had been moistened with a nice, mustard vinaigrette.

One guest ignored the salad in favor of the optional soup du jour, a yellow split pea that had a slightly musty flavor that was confusing, if not precisely disagreeable. It may be that the kitchen slipped some chopped parsnip or turnip into the soup.

The same guest exclaimed, “I can’t believe this--it’s a small roast!” when a top sirloin steak was set before him. It was indeed a large piece of steak, a good 1 1/2 inches thick and as big around as a dessert plate, and quite a bargain at $10.95. Bulk aside, though, it was not entirely satisfactory--the blue cheese and grilled onion garnish that had been one of the primary reasons for ordering this steak had a rather off-taste. The blue cheese butter that garnished a grilled breast of chicken (served over fettuccine) had the same off-taste, with the same unfortunate result. One suspects that the gas in the grill had been turned too high and had imparted its unpleasant odor to the all-too-receptive cheese. In both cases, the meats themselves were properly cooked.

Desserts were skipped; most are catered and, in any case, portions at Lamont Street Grill tend to be exceedingly generous.

Broadway Place opened in the heady atmosphere of downtown renaissance that preceded the opening of Horton Plaza and the U.S. Grant Hotel. With its chic, Art Deco look and ambitious menu, this restaurant made it clear that it intended to become one of the fashionable meccas of the downtown crowd. When this did not happen according to schedule, the management took stock of the situation and wisely decided to make changes.

Gone is the multipage menu that attempted to be all things to all men. Several popular dishes have been retained, but the menu, which now is written to reflect the season, has a much more manageable scale. It still tends to be somewhat eclectic--it includes contemporary French, Italian, American regional and even Mexican dishes--but seems well within the range of the new chef, Brion Flynn.

Broadway Place serves lunch and dinner, but lunch would seem to be the restaurant’s bread and butter; dinner is no longer served on Monday nights, and the place is less crowded at night than during the day.

The luncheon menu makes a fine statement with such dishes as a salad of grilled chicken, scallops and papaya garnished with mango chutney, and an assortment of pastas that runs from noodles with veal, roasted peppers and artichoke hearts in cream sauce to linguine in pesto with grilled marinated quail.

The formal entree list is also quite extensive and is made more so by the inclusion of several daily specials. Two were tried at a recent lunch, a blue-nosed sea bass in a beurre blanc flavored with banana puree, and cognac-flamed shrimp served atop a mound of linguine.

The bass, nicely grilled over mesquite, married well with its bath of banana-spiked butter sauce. The kitchen used restraint when adding the puree, so that only a faint, rather refreshingly sweet, banana flavor came through; it served to soften the naturally strong flavor of the bass. Small semolina tortellini in a nutmeg-seasoned white sauce and a variety of well-finished vegetables completed the plate.

The shrimp quite surpassed the oddly titled San Diego dish called “shrimp scampi,” although there were numerous similarities. Giant shrimp were used; after their bath in butter and flaming brandy, they were set atop a sea of pasta drenched in garlic, olive oil, butter and--a simple trick that made an immense difference--a healthy jolt of fresh lemon juice.

At this meal, a soup and salad were enjoyed as first courses, and both excelled. The Mediterranean-style fish soup packed various shell fish into a sparkling broth, and the salad, a mix of greens garnished with sticks of cheese and a salami cornet, was served with a “pesto” (similar in inspiration to the sauce used for pasta) dressing that was basically a good mayonnaise flavored with just enough basil.

The dinner menu repeats many of these same dishes, although it is somewhat more formal and grand. Its highlights arrive with such dishes as the veal medallions sauteed with figs and shiitake mushrooms, and the beef filet with Stilton cheese and brandy sauce, but it is pleasant for its pastas, salads and seafood dishes. One pasta, the agnolini verdi, made an especially nice impression; the sizable rounds of spinach paste were filled with a mixture of crab and shrimp, and finished with a good cream sauce. Vermicelli aromatici, or angel hair pasta dressed with mushrooms, cured ham, garlic, capers and other flavorings, is a pungent and delicious holdover from the original Broadway Place menu.

The dessert tray is quite pleasing. One homemade specialty, the chocolate-pecan pie, indulges in a bit of lily-gilding, since pecan pie really does not need the addition of chocolate. The combination works, though, especially if one has a guest who is agreeable to splitting an order.

LAMONT STREET GRILL

4445 Lamont St., Pacific Beach

270-3060

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner served nightly.

Dinner for two, including a glass of house wine, tax and tip, $30 to $45.

BROADWAY PLACE

926 Broadway Circle, San Diego

234-3442

Credit cards accepted.

Lunch served Monday through Friday, dinner Tuesday through Saturday.

Lunch for two, with a glass of house wine, tax and tip, $20 to $40.