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RESTAURANT REVIEW : Mangos South Pacific Serves Up a Tasty Experiment

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Here it is. You read it here first: absolutely the newest new cuisine in town! Are you ready?

Nouvelle Polynesian.

True, Mangos South Pacific Grill does not use that term. Possibly chef Colin Colville, who has cooked in a rather rarefied atmosphere (the Regency Club, La Couronne), is not even aware of the old Polynesian Cuisine, a fantasy style of cooking meant to evoke the Magic of the Islands that was the hottest thing in L.A. restaurants 30 or 40 years ago.

Basically, it’s Cantonese appetizers, Indonesian-like entrees and savage rum drinks with evocative names. We’re too hip for that now, of course. Instead, what we find at Mangos is largely of Indonesian and Sichuanese (not Cantonese) inspiration, plus crazy-California pastas and sushi. Once in a while, here in today’s South Pacific, one even sees the word Cajun . In place of rum, of course, there’s Chardonnay.

Well, these are some of our favorite things, and anyway Manhattan Beach could use a few more experimental restaurants--rather than any more clones of Manhattan Coolers, for instance--and the result is very pleasant. The menu changes from time to time, but you might start out with a big mass of marinated regional mushrooms accompanied by tiny grilled eggplants the size of your thumb, all in soy and vinegar. Or skewered bits of swordfish with a loudly garlicky peanut sauce and some lightly pickled Chinese cabbage on the side.

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One of my favorites is the semi-absurd Sichuan chicken wings: If I don’t miss my guess, these grilled wings have simply been coated with jalapeno jelly, but they’re fun anyway. Among the salads, which seem consistently good, there’s a spinach model in a slightly sweet dressing memorably dosed with brutally hot Chinese mustard.

Pear chutney has a faintly bogus ring, but it’s perfectly sensible with the pork chop in a sweet-sour tamarind sauce. There has also been a fascinating tamarind chicken with an exotic scent of ground coriander. One dish that did strike me as bogus was scallops on “corn ratatouille,” which is basically corn relish with some zucchini and tomato in it. It’s a little like having scallops in fruit salad.

It was with a snapper sandwich at lunch that I saw the words Cajun tartar sauce on the menu; tartar sauce with Tabasco in it, as it happened. The result wasn’t bad, a generous grilled fish sandwich on a good French roll. A sort of peppery coleslaw came with it. Interesting.

The pastas I’ve tried were also interesting . . . interesting for a couple of bites, that is. Unfortunately, they tended to taste like one thing all the way through, which is hard to carry off on a starch dish. Fettuccine (technically, fettucce riccie : broad fettuccine with rippled edges) came in a smoky-peppery cream sauce with wild mushrooms. It was interesting to start with, but like a life sentence to finish a whole plate. A very rich sauce of peanuts and mint gave the chicken tortellini a flavor oddly like Medieval food, a pleasant novelty at first that seems mawkish and ghastly after about six bites.

The desserts are really pretty good. The very eggy creme brulee has a crisp sugar crust, and among the ice creams the vanilla bean has a particularly luscious flavor. The espresso ice cream is perhaps a shade too authentic, what with those fine coffee grounds peppering it.

The South Pacific has been a stage for our fantasies for decades now. Mangos, with its rattan chairs and occasional panels of corrugated metal, not to mention one of the great sunset-watching windows of Manhattan Beach, belongs to a venerable tradition. But if only Chardonnays had names to compare with those of the old rum drinks. Ah, if only you could order a glass of 1986 Estate Bottled Missionary’s Downfall.

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Mangos South Pacific Grill, 1300 Highland Ave., Manhattan Beach; (213) 545-2690. Open for lunch Monday through Friday, for dinner seven nights; weekend brunch. Beer and wine. Parking lot. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $30 to $64.

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