Japanese-Italian Menu Tantalizes With Some Dishes You Can’t Order

The ‘80s have brought us the crossover restaurant, in which two cultures and two cuisines mingle with sometimes interesting, sometimes uncertain results. Chinois on Main--Wolfgang Puck’s dazzling Chinese/California restaurant in Santa Monica--is an example of how the genre can be interesting. Spats--a Japanese/Italian dining room disco in staid Santa Ana--is an example of how uncertain the genre can be.

The restaurant is situated across the street from Santa Ana Stadium, and it seems to be doing reasonably well at lunchtime. At noon, the room bustles with busy professionals anxious to have lots of Japanese-influenced dishes that don’t weigh heavy as the afternoon grows late. Dinner time is another matter. On a recent Wednesday evening visit, the cavernous room was empty except for the lone presence of a vigilant, unfailingly polite hostess. Waiters were nowhere in sight.

The dining room is decorated in late 20th-Century chic. Elegant appointments like pink marble floors, a mirrored ceiling over the bar and coral brown marble-topped tables make a striking impression. There is a panoramic east wall of narrow-paned glass, strung with tiny show lights and tiled on the bottom. Serious money went into this construction, and, sitting down, one can’t help but imagine that this is a serious restaurant. But then things slowly begin to unravel.

I arrived early, and sat at a table with a view of the TV, wondering what a TV was doing there in the first place. As I watched the Lakers practicing their fast break on the out-manned Phoenix Suns, I noticed that the waiters were watching the game too. When the half ended, one abruptly came to the table and offered me drinks and appetizers.

As I eyed the unusual menu, I noticed that more than a quarter of the dish descriptions were followed by the words “coming soon.” I must admit that I have never seen “coming soon” on any menu anywhere, so in at least one aspect, the restaurant is unique. (Just so you won’t be too curious, here are a few of the dishes you can’t have yet: dim sum Chinese combo, duck salad, angel hair pasta with prosciutto and seafood sauteed with garlic.)

I ordered two appetizers--oyster fresco and broiled beef on bamboo--not knowing that they would be the best two dishes I would eat at the restaurant. The oysters came in gaudy shells with a Japanese dipping sauce and were as sweet and fresh as could be. The beef was even better; the tender cubes arranged on delicate little skewers had the texture of hard butter.

When my friends arrived, the service picked up, but the kitchen slowed down. We ordered two more appetizers: sesame chicken, fried chicken pieces in a sesame batter, and sweet raw shrimp cocktail, a sashimi-like dish of raw ama ebi , tiny Japanese sweet shrimp with a Japanese soy and vinegar marinade. Neither was particularly memorable.

The waiter recommended that we try pasta, because the chef was from Japan and had trained in Italy. But fettuccine with salmon cream sauce was a gummy dish of spinach fettuccine with a sticky cream sauce containing some bland, flaked salmon. Had the salmon been smoked, or even marinated, the dish might have been redeemed. As it was, salmon helper would have been a welcome substitute. At least a dish called Japanese-style pasta was somewhat pleasant. It was soba , or handmade buckwheat noodles, which the chef treated with simple respect.

Friday night, I made a return visit and found the dining room about half full. “Don’t order anything too complicated,” our waiter said, “because at the rate the kitchen is going you could be here all night.” That proved to be the best advice he gave us all night. Appetizers recommended for speed of preparation were sub-par. Bufala mozzarella was rubbery and tasteless and the tomato that came with it was unripe. Prosciutto with papaya wasn’t much better.

Soup and salad come with main courses, and ours were the high point of our dinner. The salads, with a good, Oriental-style dressing made from sesame oil, contained quail egg, kaiware , little radish sprouts and Japanese cucumber. The soup, a vegetable broth with carrot, celery and onion, has a refreshing natural taste.

But the main dishes we tried were overdone and under-conceived. Chicken breast with ham and white cream sauce was cooked to a frazzle and far too salty. Broiled salmon with spicy orange sauce wasn’t spicy at all, but rather full of capers and oddly placed pieces of orange. What’s more, the sauce completely covered the plate--cruel and unusual punishment for what once was a fine piece of fish. Even the steak, an excellent filet mignon, came blanketed in a strangely flavored mustard sauce. After I removed most of the sauce, I enjoyed every bite.

You’re on safer ground at Spats if you stick to the more Japanese items on the menu--sashimi, salad and tempura, for instance. All are reasonably good, without the pretense of being Western.

Desserts are an afterthought here. All there is at present are a plain cheesecake and a raspberry-filled chocolate cake, and neither seemed particularly fresh when I tasted them. I presume more are “coming soon.”

Appetizers are $4.25 to $6.95. Salads are $3.50 to $7.95. Entrees are $8.25 to $19.50.