Gelson’s: Grocery Store as Movie Musical

Halliburton here, your on-the-spot reporter at the new 40,000-square-foot Gelson’s in Marina del Rey. I’m surrounded by miles of aisles, skylights above me and and lots of pink neon.

“This is serious ,” the guy behind me says looking over the takeout section. “How’s a man to decide? It all looks great.”

A woman in tennis clothes, sampling the smoked salmon pate and the lemon pasta, answers him. “You have to come back every day for a month. I’ve been here three nights in a row.”

I haven’t seen adults so giddy over food since I was at the short-lived DDL Foodshow on Columbus Avenue, which was the best food museum/pickup place in New York.

“Way overpriced,” someone next to me says.

“So what’s new,” his friend answers, ogling the Brie en croute and the brunette nearby. “Let’s take samples, then we won’t have to buy lunch.”

The Gelson folks are generous. But really. If you tasted every one of the more than 60 offerings (fewer at the other stores) you would have no room for lunch, dinner and maybe even breakfast the next day.

Neatly divided into three sections, the food-to-go department includes a freshly dressed fish case and sushi bar; hot foods, cold salads, meats and pates; and what I’ll call a “wok-a-rama,” a changing display of 36-inch woks filled with combinations of seafood, vegetables, chicken and meat.

There are ready-to-go packages of just-made sushi and a sushi chef is there to cut special orders at your command. But except for the nori -wrapped vegetable sushi--neat little carrots, refreshing radish sprouts and burdock root--I suggest you bypass the pedestrian sushi altogether and go on to the other things.

o In the event you’re tired of taking out fully prepared meals and want to engage in the alchemy of fire yourself, the ready-to-cook fish section has first-rate offerings. There is a luxe salmon filet daubed with orange dill butter florets (at $10.99) and a reasonable $6.29-per-pound delicious, bacon-wrapped, delicately sized whole (boned before your eyes) trout. I watched a bachelor ask a passing bachelorette if she thought the cornmeal-coated catfish looked good. It did.

Most of the hot foods and a large percentage of the salads are available at every Gelson’s. I sampled the wares at the Pacific Palisades and Encino stores, and despite the fact that each store prepares its food on site, found them to be fully comparable to the new prize child in the family. It’s to Gelson’s credit (and my surprise) that, given the volume, much of the food has real personality. They have the edge over every other chain I’ve tried.

The prices go from the $3.29-per-pound light-handed herb potato salad to the aforementioned salmon mousse pate, an $18.99-per-pound fiasco the consistency of overcooked scrambled eggs. No need at all to spend that much money in the pursuit of a delicious dish. Lemon pasta with tender chicken (all of the chicken variations we tasted were moist and fat-free), chervil and pine nuts ($6.29) was devoured quickly. Lusty garlic pepper chicken, $5.49 a pound, would make a full-blasted way to celebrate the beginning of spring; lemon chicken was a lighter, though no less delicious, way to go.

Gelson’s is prime-cut and deluxe-produce land and this freshness consistently comes through. The bay scallop ceviche ($6.99 per pound) is radiant, the carrot, orange, walnut salad (no fat, no sugar) is, better than average, crunchy and sweet. There are many pasta dishes to choose from, one of the best was noodles with French green beans and sun-dried tomatoes, dressed with a wonderful edge.

Country pate, strong on the liver and cracked pepper, was worth the $10.89 a pound as were the small rounds of $7.99-per-pound Brie en croute. Orzo salad had too much dill and too sweet a vinaigrette. The coleslaw is as classic as one you would find at a New York delicatessen, with no vinegar chokehold.

In the hot-food department, the sparkling ginger/soy/sesame Oriental “drumettes” are meaty, fine, finger food, the pork back ribs (ask them to remove just a tad of that slathering sauce) are ‘50s Cantonese restaurant-good. The food in the wok-a-rama looks pretty gray to me, but the chicken and peppers ($4.99 a pint and 99% chicken at that) sauteed in a reasonable amount of fresh oil turned out to be feisty stuff.

You can order “Elite Complete Meals to Go” by calling 24 hours ahead. (We had 6 ounces of tender filet and a plain roast chicken, both with a pasta primavera and a fruit salad to do home state produce proud.) The meals come in double-decker boxes, high-styled and commodious enough to hold your Westminster Kennel Club prize Lhasa Apso.

Don’t forget to cruise over to the coffee bar for truffles and espresso or freshly made Belgian waffles. This is life as cornucopia, grocery store as movie musical. Ah, what a little surplus capital can do.

Gelson’s Market, at Del Rey and Maxella avenues in the Marina Marketplace, Marina del Rey. (213) 306-2952. Open daily 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Full catering and takeout also available in Encino, (818) 906-5785; Pacific Palisades, (213) 459-4793; Century City, (213) 557-1524; North Hollywood, (818) 760-6654; Tarzana, (818) 996-6048; Newport Beach, (714) 644-8660; and Westlake Village, (805) 496-0353. Mastercard, Visa and Gelson’s charge cards. Easy parking.