SAMPLING LINKS IN THE CHAINS : Visits to Benihana, Good Earth, Rusty Pelican and Velvet Turtle

Despite the glamour and glitz of the more publicized local restaurants, in one respect the market here is no different than anywhere else: It is dominated by franchises.

Gross sales in the bigger chains far outdistance the most persistent individual performers, and that’s a fact that one simply cannot ignore, for it reflects our collective tastes. But are these restaurants really good? The answer is not so simple.

Upscale chains compete with the individual stars, and in many respects, they do try harder; you can feel the extra effort the minute you pull into the parking lot. Hostesses greet you with cheerful smiles and interiors are designed for maximum comfort. Menus are carefully priced and planned, so that middle-income families can eat out more than once a week, and customer satisfaction is given the highest priority. (Complain about a dish, and it will be snatched away without hesitation.) Furthermore, the chains pride themselves on their consistency. That, they say, is what really brings people back.

“I don’t mind giving up a little quality for a little security,” said a young engineer at one of the places I visited. Apparently, hers is a majority opinion. All of the restaurants I visited were packed.

Still, there are glaring imperfections. No. 1 is excess. It isn’t that portions are too big, it’s the scale involved; oversalted, overcheesed, overdone. Often, a meal in these restaurants is like being elbowed in the ribs by a lounge comedian. No. 2 is impersonality. The staff is often so intensively drilled on what to say to the customer that they sound like Marines in a training film. I must say I find a more informal approach both more attractive and more efficient. Problem No. 3 is atavism. Many of these restaurants act as if the ‘60s and ‘70s never happened. Waitresses dress like showgirls. The menus have more adjectives than nouns. Only a “Cajun” here or a “pesto” there shows the slightest hint of daring from the kitchen. You occasionally wonder if there is intelligent life at the corporate level in some of these organizations.

I recently went in for a closer look. Here is what I found. (Although all are chains, in each case I have included the address only of the specific restaurant I visited.)

In the National Family Opinion Poll in 1985, Benihana of Tokyo was chosen the No. 1 chain restaurant in America. And no wonder; the restaurant specializes in teppan-yaki , Japanese grilled foods, and everything is prepared on a square metal grill around which you are seated. The tables are communal, usually seating six or seven, and the service doesn’t begin until they are filled. We were the last to be seated at our table, so we received a warm round of applause from the others waiting eagerly to eat.

The restaurant is popular with Japanese and Americans alike and the decor is cozy, like a Japanese country-style inn, with many Japanese artifacts, woodblock prints and paper and wood panels all around. Even the waitresses wear pretty kimonos.

The teppan chef, who is usually a good old boy from somewhere in Japan, gets the order from the waitress and then swaggers up to the grill, brandishing his cooking utensils like a samurai. He then starts chopping, slicing, dousing, dicing and flipping morsels onto your plate. These are things like teppan shrimp, hibachi chicken, filet mignon and mounds of grilled zucchini, onions and bean sprouts.

The menu is extraordinarily simple, and unless you get an anti-social group, you’re bound to end up tasting everything that has been ordered at your table. The chef encourages you in that direction with bilingual grunts and whimsical body language. Even the curmudgeonly should find it great fun. It’s not gourmet food, but it doesn’t pretend to be. I’d eat there again anytime. So would the Connecticut dentist who sat to my left, even though he fumbled with his chopsticks for five minutes before finally spearing his scallops.

It’s worth trying some of the simpler appetizers, like smoked salmon or beef sashimi, but I’d pass on the blue drinks with umbrellas in them in favor of cold Japanese beer. Unless you have a yen for green-tea ice cream, desserts are uninteresting.

Benihana of Tokyo, 16226 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 788-7121. Open for lunch Monday-Friday, for dinner nightly. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two (food only), $25-$50.

The Good Earth is a good idea. Take fresh, natural ingredients, unadulterated by preservatives, low in fat and sugar, and serve them at low prices in a family-style atmosphere. It seems almost too good to be true.

Pasadena’s Good Earth is one of the area’s nicest, with beamed ceilings high enough to fly a kite under and an airy, earth-toned spaciousness filled with natural light. If you know what to order, it can be very good.

Soups and salads are excellent; the soups lack that food-processor texture you so often find, and a great variety of salads are dressed in imaginative style with poppy seed or tahini dressings. Also excellent is something called 10-grain bread, which contains, among other things, flaxseed, triticale, sunflower and millet. When I asked the waitress to name them, she brought me a loaf and said, “Here, read the label.” Give her a raise.

Entrees can be problematic, but they are generally good. You can always depend on the brown rice and veggies, a Santa Cruz-style dish of stir-fried vegetables and tofu on a pile of brown rice. Doesn’t it just make you want to sing “We Are the World”? And although the burger contains “no preservatives, hormones, steroids, additives, etc.,” it does come on a 10-grain bun. The guacamole burger, incidentally, is terrific.

Where the problems arise is when the kitchen gets fancy. Olive-branch eggplant is a bowl of lifeless goo buried under a mountain of cheese and sour cream. Cajun chicken is altogether out of their depth.

The Good Earth also offers all kinds of juices, herb teas and fruit smoothies; I guess the ‘60s did happen, after all. Have a smoothie for dessert and, for goodness sake, steer clear of that pastry tray, where everything tastes like it belongs at a lacto-ovo vegetarian picnic. The fruit tart--a dry, short crust blanketed with strawberries, kiwi and a yogurt sauce--made me dream of toaster pastries. Carob crunch cake, which comes smothered in chocolate tofu, is unspeakable.

Good Earth Restaurant, 257 N. Rosemead Blvd., Pasadena, (818) 351-5488. Open daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Beer and wine only. Parking in lot. Visa and MasterCard accepted. Dinner for two, (food only), $15-$25.

“Welcome to the Rusty Pelican,” said the fresh-faced young parking attendant, as he opened the passenger door of my car. “Welcome to the rusty Honda,” I replied. That exchange proved to be the high point of the evening.

Glendale’s Rusty Pelican sits atop a high hill overlooking the Ventura Freeway. A mammoth wood and glass structure that looks like the world’s biggest planter, it definitely has fans; on a Monday evening at 8:45, there was a 45-minute wait for tables in the dining room--and the dining room is large.

As we had no reservations, we were given the option of taking a seat in the bar (where a live band was playing dance music) or sitting on a pleasant outdoor patio. We chose the latter.

Within minutes, we were being served tropical drinks by a tropically clad cocktail waitress and looking at a list of appetizers filled with brochettes of local and Hawaiian fish. Then we noticed an excellent card of wines by the glass, including selections like Lytton Springs chardonnay and Shadow Creek Brut. “No wonder this place is so crowded,” I said to my wife.

But when the brochettes arrived, they were salty and overcooked, and when we were led to our table in the plant-filled dining room, we wondered if things would get worse. They did.

A spinach salad had fine, fresh leaves but the dressing, which tasted like it was mixed in an in-flight kitchen, had been poured on. Lehi, a Hawaiian fish I had never tasted before, came encrusted in an omelet-like batter with crushed macadamia nuts. The nuts deserved a better fate. I still don’t feel as if I’ve tasted lehi. And teriyaki shrimp had enough salt for a small driveway. Only an excellent tartar sauce and a passable chowder seemed acceptable for such elegant surroundings. What seemed even sadder was that the restaurant had so much going for it. Some minor changes might make the Pelican soar. For now, it’s a bird with a wing down.

The Rusty Pelican, 300 Harvey Drive, Glendale, (818) 242-9191. Open for lunch Monday-Saturday, for dinner daily and for Sunday brunch. Full bar. Valet parking. Visa, MasterCard and American Express accepted. Dinner for two, (food only), $25-$35.

With its wealth of brass, etched glass, military art, plush leather booths and softly lit men’s-club ambiance, the Velvet Turtle in West Los Angeles is a beautiful restaurant. Someone has even had the good taste to pipe Bill Evans in on the Muzak. Other restaurants in the chain, I’m told, are similarly well-appointed.

My out-of-town guest was greatly impressed with the wine list. “One nice thing about California,” he remarked before he had even tasted his first bite, “is that you can get a good glass of wine in an average restaurant.” His snobbery proved to be prophetic.

The Velvet Turtle is not a bad restaurant, but some things I tried were disappointing. An appetizer of fluffy ricotta-stuffed ravioli was ruined by a sourish sauce and a clump of garlic that the cook failed to spread around. Bread was doughy, and Caesar salad had too much dressing. A gorgeous-looking piece of fresh king salmon was cooked to a frazzle. Only the pot-roast sandwich, sky high and satisfying, lived up to expectations. My friend and I had to drown our sorrows in glasses of Costello chardonnay and a tannic but top-drawer De Loach zinfandel. Convinced I had caught the restaurant on an off day, I went back for another lunch. I was glad I did.

A second visit somewhat vindicated the kitchen. The turkey club sandwich was delightful, stacked with smoked turkey, crisp bacon and just the right amount of mayonnaise. The New York pepper steak was a bit salty, but they served it rare, just as I asked, and the vegetables were cooked to a turn. Even the coffee, so thin on my first visit, suddenly acquired body. Even in a chain restaurant, apparently, no place can be completely consistent.

The Velvet Turtle, 2255 Sawtelle Blvd., West Los Angeles, (213) 477-4255. Open for lunch Monday-Friday, for dinner daily and for Sunday brunch. Full bar. Valet parking. All major cards. Lunch for two (food only), $25-$35.