CAJUN PIONEER DIFFIDENT ABOUT FARE

The Cajun invasion of Dana Point is now fait accompli , as Cajuns must gleefully be saying in their native tongue. I have already reported on Ghaffari’s (“California and Cajun Cuisine”) at the Harbor Pavilion, where it has been joined by a New Orleans coffeehouse selling beignets, an insidious Louisianian cousin of the doughnut that exists to get powdered sugar on your face.

It turns out I missed the early landing party. A seafood restaurant named the Harbor Grill started blackening things around here about a year ago and therefore deserves the credit of being the Cajun pioneer of Dana Point. The reason the Harbor Grill has not gotten credit before is that it is a bit diffident about its Cajun dishes, listing them only on a blackboard menu while the printed menu dwells on the usual mesquite broiled fish.

Doubtless the Harbor Grill has not wanted to stray too far from its seafood grill basis. The place is usually pretty full, and not because of its looks: basically it’s the standard beach town seafood place with paper napkins and oilcloth on the tables and something pretty close to an ocean view--actually more of a marina view, a thick grove of pleasure boat masts spotted with clearings marked by electric blue deck covers.

The salad ingredients are always quite fresh, notably the croutons, which are big and crusty. The french fries, as the menu points out, are hand cut--they’re potatoes when they enter the place, not frozen pre-cut fries--and they are also a little thinner and less mealy than usual. The seafood cocktails are marginally better than average (there are lumps in the crab cocktail that show that somebody pried the meat out of a crab not far from here), and with dishes like the rather chewy but tasty fried calamary comes tartar sauce that is a fresh-tasting model based on sour cream rather than mayonnaise.

Mostly the menu is fish simply grilled over mesquite in a display kitchen that faintly suggests an aquarium. All well and good. The Cajun stuff is more of a mixed bag, though.

Since the Cajun dishes are not on the regular menu, it’s a little hard to generalize, but often there’s decent blackened prime rib. It tastes reassuringly Californian, the spices rather recalling Lawry’s Seasoned Salt with the addition of fennel and cayenne. The shrimp Diane are apparently from Paul Prudhomme (before Prudhomme’s book on Louisiana cooking we mostly knew of steak Diane: a mild, Continental way to eat steak with butter), sauteed with mushrooms and herbs and a faint buzz of cayenne. It’s served on linguine colored with squid ink.

The barbecued shrimp are said to be Cajun, but we should not take Louisianians at their literal word when they talk about barbecued shrimp--what they mean is another variety of shrimp sauteed in butter. At the Harbor Grill, the barbecued shrimp are not, therefore, the real Louisiana thing, just prawns thrown on the barbie as in the regular mesquite menu, only served with a dubious dipping sauce that tastes like one of those French dressings made by adding catsup to vinegar and oil dressing.

The gumbo, though, is something to ponder and meditate about. It is quite unlike any other in the area, neither a beef stew nor a beef gravy with seafood added. For one thing, it’s an actual soup, as gumbo is supposed to be. For another, this kitchen has taken Paul Prudhomme to heart when he wrote that a proper gumbo should be based on a dark, dark roux--flour cooked in oil until it’s almost black.

This is the kind of roux they have here, darker than any local kitchen I know has dared. It’s rather on the oily side, but it has the earthy flavor of real Cajun food. However, something is missing, and it’s vegetables. Forget the fact that there’s no okra in this gumbo (and that they don’t offer the powdered herb called file as they’re supposed to)--there are no bell pepper and celery. I’m sorry. Gumbo without bell pepper and celery is not gumbo. What we have here are pieces of meat and seafood in roux.

The gumbo may be bizarre, but nothing seems positively bad (though the smoked fish is mushy and not very smoky to boot) and the desserts are surprisingly good. I’ve had an old-fashioned devil’s food cake with great chocolate crumb, and a couple of good cheesecakes including a pumpkin cheesecake I wished I’d had at Thanksgiving). Prices: Appetizers are $3.25 to $7.95, entrees $5.50 to $13.95. At lunch entrees run $3.95 to 7.95.

HARBOR GRILL 34499 Golden Lantern, Dana Point

(714) 240-1416

Open for lunch Monday to Saturday, dinner daily; Sunday brunch. American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard and Visa accepted.