PRINCESS: TREATS BEYOND THE LOBBY

Well, here’s the Orange County restaurant writer, walking through a hotel lobby again. I get to look at a lot of hotel lobbies. It’s gotten so I scarcely expect to see a menu if I haven’t passed a bell captain.

But let me pause to marvel at this particular lobby, or atrium, as the Alicante Princess Hotel calls it. The hotel says the ceiling--and I take management’s word, because I can scarcely see it--is 160 feet high. You’ve got to be impressed. Standing here is a little like being at the foot of Niagara Falls when the water’s off, particularly because of the subtle mobile that hangs from the ceiling: a sinuous curtain of metal bars way up there that looks as if maybe the water is just starting again.

However, it is only the Cafe Alicante (familiar hotel cafe dishes plus spa cuisine) that basks in the stark majesty of the atrium. The hotel’s more ambitious restaurant, the Princess Lounge, is a quiet sort of place with ceilings of ordinary height. Indeed, it is a musical lounge with a little jazz group on weekends. Surprisingly, it turns out to have been open a mere three weeks, though the only possible tipoff I can see is a certain indecision in the bread tray: one night whole-wheat raisin buns, another night a milk-flavored loaf like sheepherder’s bread.

Ceilings aside, I’m glad I’ve walked in. The best appetizer is really something, a tasty French-style fresh sausage with a mild duck flavor. It comes with whole-seed mustard on a sort of hash of cabbage and shallots tossed in clarified butter and a little white wine. It’s light, spicy, meaty--even crunchy. What an appetizer.

Most of the other appetizers are pretty good, too, and some foreshadow entrees. The pan-fried crab cakes (as usual in California, a little mushy and studded with sweet peppers and corn kernels) come with lamb’s lettuce salad and a relish of corn and sweet peppers in sharp rice vinegar--the same things that accompany a veal chop later on in the program. Shrimp in lime and cilantro are particularly nicely grilled, charcoaly like an entree or two to come. And the “warm carpaccio” is apparently cooked (well, considerably “warmed,” at any rate) under a salamander, to judge from the hotness of the plate and the way the meat sticks to it (nice flavor from the fresh rosemary). Look for a dessert that works the same way.

Unfortunately, the soups are faint and vague. Mushroom-flavored consomme is just about not there, and the main pleasure in the duck consomme is deciding whether there is fennel in the dumplings. There is certainly fennel in, or rather on, one of the entrees, the seared tuna--about half a poached fennel bulb, looking rather like a fat endive. “Seared,” I take it, means blackened without Cajun spices and the result is very nice with its smooth Dijon mustard sauce.

The easy winner among the entrees is lobster with broad noodles (pappardelle, misspelled parpadelle as is usual in these parts) with a light tarragon sauce and some julienne carrot and zucchini. There are two unusually good steaks, too, though the menu descriptions are faintly misleading. One is a filet which comes with onion marmalade, not the sweet-and-sour relish found elsewhere under that name but a savory, somewhat heavy sauce based on pureed cooked onions, virtually the same as the classic French sauce soubise.

The other is a steak with fresh horseradish and hickory-smoked bacon sauce, as flavorful as you would expect, though somehow I expect to find more of such an American Revival sort of sauce than a thin layer coating the plate and lapping the edges of the unusual (and quite successful) accompaniment of white beans. On request, they will bring you as much fresh horseradish as you can stand, and then some--this is fresh horseradish, as strong as tear gas.

We’ve got one problem among the entrees. In itself I can recommend the free-ranging chicken, as nicely grilled as the shrimp appetizer, but the two sauces that come with it are disappointing. One is a mild tomato salsa with the dull flavor that I always credit to oxidation, and the other is a definitely hot tomatillo sauce that is somewhat bitter. For what it’s worth, you also get a mini-quesadilla of blue corn tortillas.

The dessert cart is dominated by European-style fruit tarts, usually with a layer of almond paste under the fruit, and a couple of devastating chocolate deals made by layering sponge cake and frosting. There are a few other desserts that require up to 20 minutes of preparation, and two are well worth the wait: hot pear tart on a paper-thin crust in custard sauce, and fruit in sabayon. This last is the warm carpaccio-like dessert: fruit topped with sweetened whipped egg and cooked under a salamander, giving it a somewhat messy appearance but an enjoyable meringue top.

Prices are in the hotel restaurant range. Appetizers run $5.50 to $8.50, entrees $13.50 to $24 and desserts $2.95 to $5.

PRINCESS RESTAURANT Alicante Princess Hotel,

100 Plaza Alicante, Garden Grove

(714) 971-3000

Open for dinner daily. All major credit cards accepted.