RESTAURANT REVIEW : Collage Menu Takes In Yesterday, Today

Once upon a time, there was an odd old gas station in Long Beach, designed to look as if it had been built in the days of the Mission Fathers. A few years back, with the pumps disconnected, it became a neat, comfortable, rather odd restaurant called the Filling Station (cute name, if you didn’t think about it too long). I once had a “Mexican blintz” there, which was cream cheese and jalapenos wrapped in a flour tortilla.

After a while, the restaurant was simply known as the Station. Now it has cut loose from its petroleum-dispensing past entirely. The pumps have been taken out, there are Winemaker’s Night dinners, and the name has been changed to Collage.

Collage: that is, an artwork composed of bits and pieces. Its slogan is “Cuisine of Yesterday and Today.” On the today side, a little California goat cheese, a little Southwestern chipotle pepper, some Cajun popcorn and the occasional sun-dried tomato. Yonder on the yesterday side, sweetbreads, steak au poivre , frog legs and veal Calvados. And somewhere between yesterday and today, slightly dated dishes, e.g ., rack of lamb with a half-hearted swirl pattern in the basil and roasted garlic sauces.

Furthermore, the kitchen makes its own breads, sausages and ice creams. It also sends out little tidbits, such as bruschetta (tomatoes in olive oil on toast) before the meal and palmier and meringue cookies afterwards. Rather Westside-like, you’d say.

Or rather, sort of Westside-like. There’s something still struggling to emerge here. The exotic pasta fillings (red chile for the ravioli adovado , Chinese chicken for the ravioloni Marco Polo) sound interesting but are hard to detect, while pollo gremolato , chicken in a mild rosemary beurre blanc , is buried for dead under a thick, bitter thatch of citrus peel. And the sausages (the “Tunisian” lamb sausage with cumin and jalapenos is the best; the turkey tastes of nothing but orange peel) are so dry and crumbly I fear somebody has decided to make them extra lean, which is tricky business in the sausage game.

However, while it may stumble in the process, Collage is still better trying to be up-to-date than at making the old-fashioned French/Continental dishes. The only one of them I could remember 20 minutes after eating it was poulet fermiere , with its peasant-like bacon flavoring and garnish of cabbage and reasonably meaty duck sausage.

Altogether, the Southwestern dishes come off best. Santa Fe black bean “cakes” (actually one cake the size of a pancake) topped with rich sour cream and tomato salsa (“smoked” tomato salsa, whatever that is) are a worthwhile variation on refried beans. The Southwestern chicken sandwich, mildly flavored with chipotle , comes on unexpected but pleasant herb bread.

Desserts are very well in hand. Collage makes its own ice creams (flavors like cinnamon and caramel) and serves them on a very good bitter chocolate shell. The creme brulee has a wonderful texture, and a surpassingly thick and dark caramel crust. There’s a praline cake with delicious toasted almond and chocolate butter cream fillings.

This is the weakness of a collage, I guess: Some parts are bound to be better than others. I hope Collage has time to make some changes before the glue sets.