RESTAURANTS : At Hassan’s Cafe in Newport Beach, He Minces Lebanese Lamb, Not Ideas

The cooking of Lebanon is a hybrid of Turkish, French and local Middle-Eastern influences. Hassan Hassan, a third generation restaurateur, is a leading exponent of this style in his modest, Newport Beach restaurant, Hassan’s Cafe. Hassan cooks with the confidence of someone who knows this cuisine inside out and has no need to fool with proven formulas: he minces lamb, not ideas.

Hassan’s grandfather had a restaurant in Beirut, and his father, Abu Hassan, was a master chef for dignitaries and foreign guests of the Lebanese government. Most of the recipes he uses come from his father, with a few modifications to accommodate local ingredients.

The restaurant is relaxing. As soon as you walk into the dining room things slow down: Hassan softly pipes in mournful, penetrating music, and when you sit, you actually sink into high-backed leather chairs.

Swords, tapestries and Saracenic trinkets hang from the white plaster walls, which are painted with frescoes. Fanous , Arab lanterns of intricately carved wood, are suspended over the tables. The only thing missing is a water pipe.

The one absolute must here is mezze , appetizers served for two or more in a variety of little dishes. Mezze is one of the world’s great noshes, spread out over your table like an Indonesian rijsttafel , with a spectrum of flavors as wide as a Lebanese cedar. I had to blink when they all came out at once.

Start by dipping your pita bread into the mutebel , a remarkable puree of smoky eggplant. It’s a creamy, almost French-style pate, with a tiny pool of olive oil floating in the center. Hassan told me that the edges of the eggplant are burned slightly to give it the right flavor. “Don’t try it yourself,” he cautioned.

The mutebel went so fast that the waiter brought another dish. It really is wonderful stuff. So is the better-known hummus , another dip, made from garbanzo bean and sesame paste ( tahini ). Tabbouleh is a salad of finely chopped parsley and bulgur wheat, flavored with mint, and you can scoop it up with the pita too.

But that is only the beginning. Warraq enaab are vine leaves; here they are delicately stuffed with rice and spiced exotically with sumac and clove. Sofihah is a tiny sliver of baked pita, with a topping of minced lamb. Kafta be akobbez looks like a fried cheese ball, but the casing is cracked wheat and the filling is ground meat. Fataer is like the Greek spanakopeta , a little pastry triangle filled with spinach. And of course there are falafel, stuffed potatoes, olives and feta cheese, all merely to whet your appetite.

As with any Arab host, Hassan puts a premium on hospitality. In other words, you’re going to hurt Hassan’s feelings if you don’t down a big plate of food after your mezze .

The most interesting main dish is called kibbeh nayya , raw ground lamb mixed with cooked bulgur wheat, spices and olive oil. It’s a pancake-flat Middle-Eastern version of steak tartare, somehow even richer than the prototype, and to my thinking more delicious. Kibbeh , incidentally, is a generic term to describe any meat dish that is minced and mixed with cracked wheat. It can be served any number of ways. Hassan also makes kibbeh be sineeya , baked triangles with considerably more wheat in the mixture, filled with onions and pine nuts. I didn’t care for this version. The outside was dried out and the inside was too oily.

Broiled dishes are more familiar, safer ground for a first visit. Lamb shish kebab is trim and tender, with nicely charred chunks of tomato, onion and bell pepper on the skewer. Farrahj muhammar is a real beauty--charcoal-broiled chicken breast in a marinade of olive oil, garlic and lemon, wrapped up in a pita. And befetak , the noble steak, gets the full treatment thanks to the same marinade as the chicken. It’s quite tasty, albeit nothing like what you would find in anybody’s back yard.

Hassan also plays theme and variations on a number of kafta (Lebanese meat ball) dishes. Kafta kebab are plain broiled patties, on a skewer. Kafta be sineeya comes cloaked in a rather tired tomato sauce. The best of the three, kafta be tahini , are the patties blanketed with a toothsome sesame sauce. It goes perfectly with the mounds of buttery rice pilaf that accompany all the main dishes.

Now I know Hassan is going to take this personally, but his Arabic coffee is terrible. He stood over me while I drank the stuff, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him it tasted like turpentine. You’re all right if you have American coffee, or better yet, the mint tea. It’s not as sticky-sweet as it is in a Moroccan restaurant, and it goes well with the baklava and honey cake that Hassan serves for dessert. He also makes something he calls Lebanese-style cheesecake, which is really the honey cake cut in half with a runny cheese sauce in between. Have the baklava instead.

Hassan’s is moderately priced. Mezze for two is $12.50. Other appetizers are $3.50 to $5.95. Main courses are $10.95 to $15.95. There is an odd assortment of wines from countries including Chile, Lebanon and France, and some California selections. I would stick to the French and California wines. Full catering services are available. A belly dancer performs on Friday and Saturday night.

HASSAN’S CAFE

3325 Newport Blvd., Newport Beach

(714) 675-4668

Open for lunch Tuesday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., for dinner Tuesday through Sunday 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Closed Monday.

All major credit cards accepted.