RESTAURANT REVIEW : Babalu’s Loyal to the Tropics--Just About Any Tropics

Let’s see whether we can figure this out. Babalu looks like Bette Midler’s 117th dream, a jumble of African, Caribbean, Polynesian and pop-Cubist motifs in pretty much the colors of the ’84 Olympics, all under tropical shack ceilings of bamboo and galvanized tin. The food seems to come from a hitherto undiscovered Caribbean/Southeast Asian frontier.

But you can get Russian potato pancakes. And the menu reads like a sign scrawled on cardboard at an American roadside produce stand: “TurKey LOaF--looks like meat loaF/Mashed pot. SunDried toM. sauce/slaw.” Maybe Babalu is a prolonged raspberry aimed at everything French, Italian and Japanese, and hence at California Cuisine, though possibly not at the California state school system.

True to its produce-stand side, Babalu serves some excellent American dishes. There are crab cakes with a crisp, browned crust (and a dull “spicy island sause” ( sic ) of corn and mayonnaise). The chili is in the mainstream style made with kidney beans--like Hormel’s, maybe, only fresher, meatier and slightly hotter. And that TurKey LOaF is surprisingly good, like a nicely browned Midwestern veal meatloaf that happens to come with cumin-flavored gravy and some sundried tomatoes.

The hamburger is excellent, a sweet, fresh sloppyburger made from meat ground on the premises. However, it’s not a classic burger, not with roasted garlic mayonnaise, a poppyseed bun, New Age French fries that are just about as thin as shoestring potatoes and some equally skinny deep-fried onions. And the coleslaw that comes with it (and with a lot of other entrees) is a thoroughly alien model that seems to contain ginger.

Mostly, Babalu is loyal to the tropics--just about any tropics. You’ve got a conceivably Polynesian appetizer of shrimp deep-fried in a batter full of crunchy browned coconut; some Indonesian chicken satays with coconut-lime curry sauce; a “tropical” chicken with a supposedly Caribbean chutney of grapes, apples and pineapple, heavy on the clove, not to mention--oh, who knows what else is in it? Cumin? Saffron? Allspice?

Some dishes are just anybody’s guess. Tuna mixed with carrots, red onion, yogurt and dill, rolled up in thin Near Eastern bread and sliced jelly-roll fashion--where did that come from? It happens to be very good, in any case.

The Mexican stuff is the most mixed. The “ quesidilla “ is great, though I’ve never before heard of filling a quesadilla with broccoli, cauliflower and caramelized onions. But the tacos are pretty ordinary, and the tamales (in fairness to Mexico, they’re supposed to be “Island tamales”) are pretty stodgy, with nothing but some bits of vegetable to liven up what is basically a steamed mashed potato. For lovers of Babalu’s visual style, though, they’re served on a couple of tropical leaves.

The only things that fit this exotic motif at dessert time are a convincing key lime-meringue pie and a dense coconut flan. The rest of the pastry chef’s work runs to rich chocolate pies (especially notable: the chocolate Bavarian pie) and oddities like a chocolate strawberry shortcake that’s built in layers with cream like a Napoleon and a peach-raspberry pie with a perhaps excessively plain American crust.

Outside of these quasi-French notes at dessert, though, Babalu is oddly consistent. It’s the cuisine of the Melting Wok.

Babalu, 1002 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. (213) 395-2500. Open for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sunday. No alcoholic beverages. Street parking. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $30 to $45.