CHICKEN AND LAMB, CALIFORNIA STYLE

In the lobby of the Anaheim Hilton, visitors swarm, chat and pause for drinks, dressed however they feel is appropriate for this suburb of the Magic Kingdom. You see business suits and leisure suits, T-shirts, pantsuits and party dresses.

Just off that beaten path, a restaurant called Hasting’s quixotically tries to maintain a dress code, and it’s a halfway losing battle. The jacket quotient may be higher than it is in the lobby, but no matter what they say, men without jackets get in all the time.

At least you never see mouse ears.

It’s a strange project, though, here in the shadow of Disneyland. Hasting’s is aiming for an urban, East Coast feel. The walls are teak and mahogany, adorned with mirrors and paintings of skyscrapers, even a few samples of old-time New York School Abstract Expressionism. With its brass railings and marble tile floor, Hasting’s looks solid and enduring, like an old-fashioned businessmen’s steakhouse--as if this were what people come to Anaheim for.

It’s not a steakhouse, though. Once upon a time, they termed the Hasting’s style Continental; now they call it California Cuisine, and it really is a little of both, the same Hotel Nouvelle style that is served in a number of Orange County’s fancy hotel restaurants.

The food tends to be rich and solid, with emphasis on good-quality meat and splurge ingredients such as lobster and caviar (well, OK--it’s likely to be salmon caviar). At the same time, it treats vegetables with respect and aims for a little California-style unexpectedness in the ingredients.

But there isn’t, for instance, a lot of grilling or any whiff of Japanese ideas. If anything, the food is rather Germanic (a considerable proportion of our local chefs are German). You can get lobster ravioli elsewhere in the state, but not usually with dill on it.

One genuinely California Cuisine element, though, has a definite Italian note. The basil linguine is exquisitely garlicky, topped with prawns and julienned leek and served in a butter sauce slightly flavored with Roquefort. Another appetizer repeats the motif with calamary pasta (colored brownish black with squid ink), redolent of garlic and topped with prawns and Roquefort sauce, this time along with fried sweetbread slices and one tiny octopus.

The entrees are thoroughly Hotel Nouvelle. Free-range chicken breast is stuffed with an oddly Iranian mixture of cooked ground walnut mixed with lemon juice, served in lemon butter sauce (nice grilled skin).

Less adventuresome, but excellent, is lamb tenderloin with a garlic and cognac sauce rich with butter and meat glaze. It comes with a wonderful side dish, more or less a ratatouille without the eggplant, but with tomatoes, peppers and squash, crunchily undercooked, flavored with a strong dose of thyme.

Breast of duckling with lingonberry sauce and onion marmalade is very much in our Continental tradition, while the excellent venison (very tender and mild) is rather French, served in a juniper-flavored meat glaze, and each little steak is topped with a chunk of sweetbread.

For those swayed by the steakhouse look, Hasting’s has dishes that can only be described as Le Surf and Le Turf: medallion of veal with prawns and marinated filet of lamb with lobster tail, with the former in meat glaze, the latter in lobster butter sauce.

One thing about the service at Hasting’s seems, at first, just a mannerism. Nearly everything--even spinach salad--is served under one of those metal bonnets called a cloche, which are ceremoniously removed all at once by a crowd of waiters. There is apparently a good reason, though: At a hotel this big, the kitchens can be so far from the dining room that there is real danger of dishes coming to the table cold. Sometimes, in fact, they do.

The only failure I’ve had here is Saint Peter’s fish (otherwise known as John Dory), which was surprisingly bony, mawkishly flavored with ginger, orange and peppercorn sauce--and stone cold.

Quantities of real whipped cream are everywhere at dessert. Take the pastry cart: a layer of honey and almond candy rolled up and stuffed, cannelloni style, with whipped cream, the ends sealed with chocolate, served in vanilla sauce; a chocolate pistachio cake, about half of which is thick, whipped cream with little balls of puff paste in it (in effect, inside-out cream puffs); a sort of mint and chocolate roly-poly, which has been described as the world’s biggest Ho-Ho; a spectacular chocolate cheesecake, decorated with Bullwinkle antlers of chocolate, also comes with whipped cream.

We have Hotel Nouvelle prices, for sure. At dinner, appetizers are $7.50 to $9.50, entrees $17.50 to $19.75. At lunch, appetizers are $6.50 to $9.50 (on the business lunch menu, appetizers run $4.50 to $7.25) and entrees $8.75 to $13.75.

HASTING’S 777 Convention Way, Anaheim

(714) 750-4321

Open for lunch Monday through Friday, for dinner Monday through Saturday. All major credit cards accepted.