RESTAURANT REVIEW : Blue Cactus, Coyote Cafe Progeny, Shines in Torrance

Once upon a time a well-known chef named Mark Miller announced an ambitious new restaurant. Foodies waited eagerly for its arrival . . . and waited and waited. Two years later, Coyote Cafe finally opened for business. As a result of the delay, everybody connected with the place was more or less famous long before a single dish had been served, and when it did finally open, the now-famous kitchen staff almost instantly started skipping off to head kitchens of their own.

Many people were bewildered by Miller’s choice of Santa Fe, N.M. It was an odd place to put an ambitious restaurant, but after all, the Coyote Cafe was planning to serve Southwestern cuisine. Now, however, I comprehend a more hidden, mythic reason: The coyote, you see, is a creature of the outskirts. My proof? The two ex-Coyote Cafe chefs in Southern California have also avoided the crowded restaurant regions of the Westside. One works in Malibu, and chef Daniel Hoyer has just opened the Cactus Cafe in Torrance.

Of the two Coyote cubs, the Malibu Adobe, with its high ceilings and peeled wood columns, looks more striking. But the Cactus Cafe, which is quite handsome in its own way--a more conventional cousin of the Mission style--is far larger, seating nearly 300. I’d say it wins on the food side (desserts aside, at least for the moment). This is a hard-working place that makes its own tortillas. Heck, it makes its own sour cream.

The menu changes every day and I can report only what I’ve happened to find: A plate of empanadas , one filled with a little buttery goat cheese, one with lean, cinnamony chorizo and one with yam and raisins, served with fresh sour cream, a good peppery guacamole and a sort of pear and pineapple chutney; beef tartare full of hot pepper and lime juice, nearly a beef ceviche ; duck nachos , a sort of exotic canape of duck meat, cheese and red peppers.

A thick breast of free-range chicken was grilled and served in a mole sauce, less sweet and more cinnamony than most, with some smoky, roughly grilled squash. The usual bland New Zealand venison came in a very interesting sauce, sweet and sour and seemingly based on black beans. Tender pheasant was marinated in cider and pasilla peppers.

There was a rib-eye steak at dinner that was smothered with grilled hot pepper strips. At lunch a spicy “Southwestern burger” came in a bun containing pimiento chunks (the onions--and even the tomatoes--that came with the burger were grilled). Every entree tended to come with black beans. Obviously, the Blue Cactus is conscientiously being Southwestern and usually with great success (though the swordfish steamed in corn-husk came with a pear and pineapple chutney that had no good business there).

But not everything was detectably Southwestern. Tuna carpaccio is strictly nouvelle cuisine: raw, thin-sliced tuna with sour cream and sevruga caviar. The idea of rabbit stewed in red wine with shoestring potatoes is certainly French, if the selection of vegetables was a little unusual (baby corn cob), and the shoestring potatoes were not crisp, making them like a real shoestring.

So everything is thoroughly bueno, until we get to dessert. The Blue Cactus has big plans for dessert--I’ve heard talk of a taco-shaped cookie of caramelized ground pinon nut painted in chocolate and filled with creme fraiche and pureed fruit--but there seems to have been some last-minute hitch in the plans, because what I had tasted like something bought from a local bakery. For the moment, my advice is: have a good time, but just say no to the dessert.

Blue Cactus, 21321 Hawthorne Blvd. (on Village Lane, Village Del Amo Shopping Center), Torrance. (213) 316-7007. Lunch and dinner daily. Full bar. Parking lot. American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $40 to $60.