Restaurants : HOW’S EVERYTHING? THAT’S THE WAY IT WAS AT TOSH

I recently had dinner at a new place named Tosh, a sort of elegant, sort of overwrought deco jewel box on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. It’s fitted out with an inset crystal chandelier massive enough for a room three times the size (it looked like the spaceship in “Close Encounters” coming in for a landing) and whoopde-do leatherette banquettes the color of grape juice, each high-backed and circular and huge in the way of certain amusement park rides.

Well, never mind the decor. Tosh was on the whole pleasant, sparkly and comfortable enough. The thing was that the man I had dinner with told me the next day that the hostess from the restaurant had telephoned him in the middle of the night.

“Good grief,” I said, “what did she want?”

“She wanted to know how everything was,” he said.

He was, of course, making a joke, the joke being that one too many times during the meal we’d been asked how everything was. We were asked over soup, salad, meat and dessert. We were asked by a waiter, a waitress, the hostess. We were interrupted in our conversation to be asked so many times, that finally I snapped, “Everything’s fine,” in a tone that said, “Will you please get lost?,” then felt guilty for the rest of the meal.

After all, this was a new restaurant. Naturally they wanted to know how everything was.

So here goes.

Everything was pretty good. The martinis were perfect and went nicely with the deco lighting and candleholders and mirrors. The gravlax, salted on the premises, made me think what good gravlax always makes me think: what a clean, pure, wonderful way to eat salmon. Served with points of toasted house-made herb bread, this plentiful appetizer seemed a bargain at $6.50.

A savory hazelnut wild rice waffle served on a bed of chopped greens laced with shredded basil was interesting, but, to my mind, too dense and dry to be delicious. (I had been told it was not for everyone, and evidently I was one of those people.) As for the grilled prawns with endive and avocado, my shrimp were limp.

I loved the wild mushroom soup, though, a rich, creamy pond stocked with bits of morel and chanterelle. But most delicious of all appetizers were the lobster ravioli: three good-sized ravioli, each swollen by the cargo of a large chunk of fresh lobster, this in a rich ochre-colored sauce that tasted like nothing so much as liquid lobster. It was the sort of dish you think about later on and wish you had more of.

After those ravioli, everything else seemed anticlimactic, if perfectly respectable. (It makes me wonder: When the staff asks how you like your lamb loin, do they want to hear, “Fine, but it’s relatively anticlimactic?”) Chicken with achiote sauce seemed another bargain at $13.50--a plump half-bird, grilled, served in a nicely musty Mexican sauce and accompanied by wonderful little golden beets.

Tomato-cilantro-papaya-relish served as a good complement to ahi, but the fish itself was over-grilled. Fresh pasta with bay scallops, pesto and pine nuts made a good course split one for two, but lamb loin with wild mushrooms and rosemary sauce came overcooked and strangely tasteless. It would have been nice to try the soft shell crabs with lemon parsley garlic butter or the Maine lobster wrapped in cabbage with seafood mousse, but on this particular Saturday night, there weren’t any.

Also on the menu: salmon en croute; poached sturgeon in cream and tarragon; breast of duck with blueberry sauce; veal chop with three-citrus sauce--fancy (maybe a little too fancy) food offered here, as well as a good wine list and a hostess who knows her way around it.

As for why they named the place “Tosh,” I wish you wouldn’t ask. But since you have, it’s named after the chef’s dog, a Weimaraner.

Tosh, 1909 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica. (213) 453-3333. Open for lunch, Tuesday-Friday; for dinner, Tuesday-Saturday. Full bar. Lot parking. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $40-$75.