RESTAURANT REVIEW : Diverse Cultural Influences Mesh at Singapore Express

Singapore Express: a gossipy evening paper full of Asian bathing beauties, right? A bullet train that commutes to Kuala Lumpur? Something involving gasohol-powered rickshaws and diamond lanes?

Of course not, not in this column. It’s a sort of fast-food Singaporean restaurant in Marina del Rey, though it is au courant enough to call itself “a Pacific Rim Cafe.” It may feel particularly on the rim these days, since it’s just around the corner from the Marina Marketplace super mall on Glencoe, which is just getting up steam.

In any case, it is indeed an au courant restaurant. No mom and pop coziness, no bamboo and travel posters on the walls; everything’s spare and geometrical, all in black and white, with severe straight-backed chairs and angled milky glass panels on the wall lamps. The only bamboo on hand is unobtrusively stuck on the ceiling.

The final signs of its being au courant is that a number of dishes get the American Heart Assn. heart symbol beside them on the menu. And Singapore Express delivers in the Marina area (free for orders over $15).

But of course, Singaporean cuisine is au courant by nature, future shock food from a couple of centuries back: Malaysian (basically Indonesian, but with a bit of a Thai accent--heavier on the fish sauce, for instance), Indian and Chinese. You may find the odd Thai or even Filipino item on the menu.

Actually, there’s not so much that’s really Indian, but the best of the appetizers is: curry puffs, which are essentially the same as samosas.

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These are particularly good. The crust is light and unexpectedly flaky, and the filling of vegetables (carrots, peas, tomatoes), either by themselves or with beef or chicken, is agreeably spicy. They’re far better than the samosas at most Indian restaurants.

There are also some curries, but definitely of a Southeast Asian hue, such as the chicken curry in coconut milk. The lamb curry is curiously mild, tasting more of gamy lamb than of the mild tomato and lime juice flavoring of the broth, to say nothing of the very discreet curry spices.

There’s more that seems Chinese, naturally, since Singapore is three-quarters Chinese. Nonya chicken salad, for instance--egg noodles mixed with bits of chicken and carrot in a sesame-peanut dressing, all topped with fried noodles.

There are also egg rolls, a little stiff but with a filling that is certainly meaty. You get a sweet and sour garlic sauce with them that has an aroma curiously like raspberry. And “angel wings” certainly have a Chinese quality: chicken wings generously stuffed with a meaty but somewhat plain mixture of pork, mushrooms, sprouts and cellophane noodles. Fortunately, it also has that sweet and sour garlic sauce.

The Filipino chicken adobo is also pretty plain but enjoyable. The chicken is cooked in vinegar, soy sauce and garlic but tastes like mild, soft, boiled chicken .

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Largely, of course, the food is Indonesian in coloring. Gado-gado is pretty well known to us by now, a mixture of cold cooked vegetables (carrots, potatoes, green beans) and salad stuff in peanut sauce, here a lemony one that is less impressive than some of the other peanut sauces here.

I’m thinking of the peanut sauce on the satays. You can get chicken, beef, shrimp or lamb satays, or a combination of the first three. They’re the ordinary little bamboo skewers of grilled meat--the beef, surprisingly, being the best--but the peanut sauce has not only garlic and red pepper but particularly a good dose of ginger in it.

All very easy to take for the ordinary eater, Pacific Rimmer or not. But another Indonesian dish, the soup called laksa lemak, shows the Dark Side of this cuisine, its equivalent of Europe’s ripe cheeses and odoriferous tripe dishes.

The menu somewhat misleadingly describes it as noodles, shrimp, fish cake and mint in “a mildly spicy coconut broth.” What they don’t say is that this broth is full of some highly fermented Southeast Asian fish sauce, slightly bitter and fishy beyond the power of words to describe. If you didn’t grow up on this sort of thing, the main thrill about it may be that you can later boast of having tried it.

But it’s all a matter of choice, really. You pay your money and you pick your rim.

Suggested dishes: curry puff, $1; nonya chicken salad, $3.95; beef satay, $4.50.

Singapore Express, Oakridge Marina Center, 4248 Lincoln Blvd., Marina del Rey. (213) 578-6668. Open for lunch and dinner 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and noon to 9 p.m. Sunday. Beer and wine. Parking lot. No credit cards accepted. Lunch for two, food only, $6.45 to $8.95.