RESTAURANT REVIEW : Please Yourself With Toscana’s Pleasing Pasta

Toscana makes a great first impression, robustly Mediterranean: plate after plate of roughly grilled vegetables right by the old wood-burning pizza oven, a cork-topped bottle of olive oil at every table, loud scents of garlic and rosemary filling the room.

No wonder it’s so crowded. It looks as if the flower of Brentwood must eat here every night, and reservations can be a problem. True, the soup called ribollita alla toscana, an extra-rich minestrone, doesn’t seem to have the bread that is supposed to be cooked up in it, and those grilled vegetables all get the same olive oil sauce. But what matter when you can get a refreshingly bitter salad of arugula, radicchio and endive in mellow olive oil, or pizzas as good as a cheese-rich pizza Margherita where for once the basil aroma comes through loud and clear?

The pastas are pleasingly full of variety. On one hand, there is comfort food like angel hair pasta in a gentle tomato sauce with peas and bits of carrot and zucchini mixed in, or very soft (indeed, practically mushy) gnocchi in startlingly rich pesto. On the other, there are adventures like ravioli in cream sauce set off by appetizing strips of radicchio, or pennette alla carrettiera with its vigorous sauce of anchovy, tomato, garlic and capers, virtually a pasta alla amatriciana without the red pepper.

With the entrees, though, some of the excitement fades. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you can overdo that robust combination of garlic and rosemary--usually whole sprigs of rosemary stuck into the meat, as with the arrostiti misti (beefsteak, boneless lamb chop, boneless pork chop, chicken breast).

And apart from scampi e fagioli, white beans permeated by the oddly simpatico aroma of shrimp, when the kitchen strays from its rosemary and garlic mode the results are a little pallid. The veal chop with butter and sage pales beside Prego’s (the butter is not browned), and the bed of cucumber and tomato slices that accompanies the sea bass ( accompanies is the word; it’s arranged around the fish rather than under it) seems to wonder what it’s doing there.

And salsicce all’ uccelletto, which sounds like it’s going to be sausage with something like those white beans that are so good with the shrimp, turns out to be a frumpy dish of red beans and sausage in tomato sauce, practically cafeteria food.

The meal turns out to have peaked with the pizzas and pastas. By dessert time we get the feeling we’re not expected to care. The best dessert (apart from Eiger’s ice cream) is a tart filled with raisins, candied citron, walnuts and pine nuts, something between a tart and panettone.

But for the rest. . . . An Italian apple strudel. A chocolate tart that seems to be a brownie in bondage. A watery tiramisu made without liqueur. And the kiwi tart, just a pastry shell with some whipped cream and kiwi, is a shockingly lazy, perfunctory idea.

But what a great place Toscana is. If only you could just walk in and smell it, have some appetizers and a pasta, and then go somewhere else for an entree and dessert. It could be the perfect Mediterranean meal.

Toscana, 11633 S. Vicente Blvd., Brentwood. (213) 820-2448. Open for lunch and dinner daily. Wine and beer. Valet parking. American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only: $35 to $69.