World on a Platter : A representative sampling of enough exquisitely ethnic : restaurants to satisfy Orange County epicures of every taste

A new breed of ethnic restaurant is exploding in Orange County: Familiar but under-exploited cuisines are having themselves a field day. Thank the media revolution. Thank the Concorde. Thank your lucky stars.

Small ethnic places with relatively exotic pedigrees (say, Vietnamese, Cuban or Thai) have been satisfying from the outset. Their cooking came to us largely intact, with few preconceived notions about our tastes. The more familiar cuisines haven’t been as reliable. There was a time when French, Chinese and Mexican restaurateurs doctored their mothers’ recipes indiscriminately, the better not to offend our pristine palates. But a new generation of owners knows that doesn’t attract a crowd anymore, and their approach is slowly changing.

Eating in one of their restaurants is like being on native soil. Ambience is seductively authentic. Menus can be written in other languages, the better to capture the essence of dishes English cannot describe. An increasing number of chefs and ingredients are home-grown. The result is food that is helping to dispel notions about some of our favorite cuisines--and food that is more appealing than ever. See for yourself.

FRANCE

Pascal Olhats is moving up in the world and he’s doing it his own way. He has come a long way since working at Lyon’s Paul Bocuse and he knows quality when he sees it. His restaurant, called Pascal, is a class act.

Until recently, most of his work has been confined to his smart, ultra-modern kitchen. That’s where Olhats first developed la cuisine reelle, an interpretation of Provencale cooking, the food of France’s south coast. It drew critical raves and a steady clientele.

Today, something is different. The chef has moved out of the kitchen at lunch to schmooze the business crowd and keep an eye on his staff. The food has changed too, and has gotten better. Call it experience.

Olhats has recently hired Laurent Talon, a young chef from Brasserie Flo in Paris who has a painter’s touch. Though the emphasis is still on Provence, the food is more impressionistic, lighter than ever. A bouillabaisse with pasta at lunch tasted almost Italian.

There’s also an amazing lamb salad with an apple walnut dressing, a shank of veal sprinkled with shallot and tarragon that tastes wonderfully fresh, and a palette of vegetables like spinach and yellow tomato that would have made Renoir’s mouth water. Where is all the butter and cream? “We are saving it for a rainy day,” answers the owner with a mischievous grin.

The restaurant still retains the look of a sunny country cottage; the ambience is casual rather than stiff. You have to come in at night to get Olhats’ signature panier des crudities, a wicker basket filled with raw vegetables, and appetizer accompaniments of tapenade (a Provencale olive pate) and anchoyade (anchovy butter) that are served before dinner begins. Then you can eat food cooked by Pascal himself.

The owner is still in the kitchen every night, sauteeing fresh sea bass, dipping strawberries in meringue and preparing the special wine dinners he hosts with frequency. Plus ca change , as they say. You may argue that Pascal is not Orange County’s best small French restaurant, but you will have to agree it is most resolutely French.

Pascal, Plaza Newport, 1000 Bristol St., Newport Beach. (714) 752-0107. Open Mondays through Fridays 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and Mondays through Saturdays from 6:30 p.m. Dinner for two (food only) $35-$60. All major cards. JAPANESE

Until recently, sushi has been the acceptable form of Japanese cuisine available locally, due to an absence of Japanese chefs and a general lack of awareness about what the Japanese really eat. Now, a restaurant called Kitayama has come along to rock the boat.

Sushi may be fun to eat, but it is just a snack food in Japan, no more representative of a national kitchen than heroes or hamburgers. But thanks to an influx of Japanese business in the area, demand for upscale Japanese cooking finally reached the flash point. So a company called Kodaniya Inc. (owners of Tokyo Kaikan in Los Angeles) decided to do something about it. The result is Orange County’s best Japanese restaurant.

First off, it is a restaurant blessed with great beauty, a mock temple replete with white fir, traditional lamps, elegant screens and a garden courtyard. If your date isn’t impressed, then chances are the relationship won’t last. And then there is the exquisite food, prepared by a team of eight Tokyo chefs imported expressly to work in this restaurant. Their artistry is beyond reproach.

Come for kaiseki, a multi-course feast where the chefs really get a chance to strut their stuff. Kaiseki is a parade of artfully presented, bite-sized morsels which represent various stations of the Japanese kitchen. Zensai, appetizers, might be an exquisitely sauteed scallop, wrapped to look like a plum, or a faux wild chestnut made from tiny yellow noodles. Fried, steamed, stewed and vinegared courses may range from nouvelle French to rigidly Japanese. It’s an overwhelming experience.

The one caveat here is a Japanese-language menu which changes every day, the real core of Kitayama’s kitchen. This is a restaurant where you’ll just have to gamble on things you may never have experienced, and break away from the tempura and teriyaki which the less accomplished restaurants thrive on. Odds are, you’ll hit the jackpot.

Kitayama, 101 Bayview Place, Newport Beach. (714) 725-0777. Open Mondays through Fridays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., daily from 6 to 10:30 p.m. Dinner for two (food only) $25-$100. All major cards. MEXICAN

You certainly can make a case against calling Kachina a Mexican restaurant. David Wilhelm, the consultant (El Torito G-R-I-L-L) who conceived the restaurant, would be wont to do so. The chef, Thomas Tran, is Vietnamese. So sue me.

All Wilhelm and Tran have done is to take some of the very best ingredients used in the Mexican kitchen, and some of the very best regional recipes used in classic Mexican cookbooks, and improvise on them with skill and wit. The result is another of the area’s best restaurants.

If you aren’t sufficiently dazzled by the trendy elegance (lots of Southwestern art, glowing, almost translucent lighting, adobe-style walls of burnt ochre), then try this on for size: Blue corn taquitos with smoked chicken and green chilies in avocado sauce, grilled swordfish with desert sunset sauce and pink grapefruit salsa. If these dishes had any more color, you’d have to wear sunglasses.

But my favorite of Wilhelm’s creations is the gulf shrimp with green corn tamale. Wilhelm has long made great tamales but this has to be his crowning achievement, a steaming hot, pudding-soft clump, the kind of side dish they only dream about south of the border. He blankets the tamale in a pale green sauce that tastes of wild herbs and desert air.

Another wonderful dish is the goat cheese relleno with crisp cornmeal coating and papaya red-onion salsa. It’s crunchy--like its look-alike, the Zagnut candy bar--and you crack it like a pinata. The cheese just dribbles out like molten lava. With the jumbled and eccentric salsa, you have early Jackson Pollock, edible art. It’s typical of the kitchen’s style.

Kachina may not serve food like abuelita used to make, but old gringos like me could care less. Pass us a jalapeno muffin, and we’ll follow you anywhere. This food is here to stay.

Kachina, 222 Forest Ave., Laguna Beach. (714) 497-5540. Open nightly from 5:30 to 10 p.m. Dinner for two (food only) $35-$60. All major cards. AMERICAN

American cuisine can be ethnic too, especially when our local specialties are given a broad overview. Some might bristle at hearing Trees referred to as American, but that is the way managers describe it and I’m inclined to agree. It’s a bit upscale for down-home fare; prices on the hefty side, lots of fussy art on the walls, and soft lighting that looks as if it comes from a design studio in Milan. There’s nowhere else like it in these parts.

The menu can be fussy too, with an odd assortment of Chinese, Thai and Italian appetizers that look oddly out of place amid the meat loaf, pan-fried oysters and chicken-fried steak to be had from the rest of the menu. But the fact is, the menu attempts to unify the American kitchen with honest versions of regional dishes from all four corners. And while the cooking at Trees is occasionally spotty, the food tastes mostly like you expect it to. That must account for its almost mystical popularity.

Every time I’ve been there the place has been packed. And that says something. Anyone willing to pay $18.95 for crab cakes and $14.95 for a turkey dinner has to be considered a devotee, when like dishes can be had for modest prices at more humble restaurants.

I found the selfsame crab cakes somewhat mushy, although properly flaky and nicely flavored. But the turkey dinner, served Sundays only, is definitely one to grow on. This is tender, terrific turkey, with a great, grainy corn bread stuffing.

Come weekdays for various Americana specials. Mondays you can experience a tasty, delicate chicken-fried steak that Dolly Parton probably wouldn’t touch. Tuesdays there is great pork loin with homemade applesauce. Again, Trees bills itself as an American restaurant. So by all means pass on those Oriental appetizers. Spring rolls taste as if they have been through a de-flavorizing machine. I’ve had better pot stickers in Panama.

They also make a few uninspiring, un-American desserts that suffer from being too busy. Frozen apricot souffle in a crusty almond tuile is an exception. Finish with it. There is an excellent wine list, with good American wines.

Trees, 440 Heliotrope Drive, Corona del Mar. (714) 673-0910. Open daily from 5 p.m. to midnight. Dinner for two (food only) $30-$60. All major cards. CHINESE

Despite the proliferation of Oriental restaurants in Orange County, Chinese cooking here remains the most unsatisfying and rigidly compromised of the world’s major cuisines. Seafood Paradise I and II are about the closest you’ll come to Hong Kong around here, giant seafood emporia serving the bright-lights, big-city cuisine that packs the house in Monterey Park and L.A.’s Chinatown. They are definitely worth a visit, if you don’t expect perfection.

Seafood Paradise II is an exuberant, noise-filled room with shiny brass, florid chandeliers, and extras such as a fish tank stocked with lobsters, prawns and seasonal fish like tilapia and steelhead. Well over 50% of the restaurant’s regulars are Oriental.

Tables are stuck closely together, customers herded toward them like cattle. Service is generally friendly and helpful but the overflow makes for erratic attention. Waitresses scurry through the dining room with live crustaceans writhing in their hands, fighting through tables on their way to the kitchen. Waiters often seem harried and confused.

The kitchen is pure Cantonese, which means plenty of light sauces, steam cooking and natural flavors. There are marvelous cold dishes such as smoked fish, wine marinated chicken; try something called pre-salted duck that tastes like a tender version of Smithfield ham. You can’t miss here.

Seafood is turned out in every imaginable way--sauteed giant clam, braised sea cucumber, oyster sauce abalone, kung pao frog. If Kermit doesn’t tickle your fantasies, try a variety of shrimp, squid, scallop, crab or live fish preparations, but remember that when fish are freshest, the Chinese steam. MSG is not a dirty word here, so you’d better consult the waiter if there is a problem. It can easily be omitted.

But even if you are not a seafood lover, you’ll be right at home. The menu is crowded with duck, beef, chicken and noodle dishes. Try orange peel chicken, sauteed pieces lightly dusted with cornstarch, redolent of pungent flavors. Hong Kong steak is another delight, served sizzling on an iron plate.

Seafood Paradise I, 8547 Westminster Blvd., Garden Grove. (714) 895-7964. Seafood Paradise II, 8602 Westminster Blvd., Westminster. (714) 893-6066. Both are open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Dinner for two (food only) $20-$40. Visa, MasterCard and American Express accepted. ITALIAN

I’ve saved the best for last, because there are more good new Italian restaurants in Orange County than any other kind. This year alone, Viva Italia, Sapori, Bagatta, Baci and many others have opened. Many more are to come.

Sorrento Grill in Laguna Beach is a high-concept, slightly yuppified interpretation of northern Italian cuisine, but the overall quality of the food they serve just cannot be denied. Walking in, you get an appetizing whiff of meats and fish as they grill over mesquite embers, a sensation no other Italian restaurant in the area offers.

Chef Roseanne Ruiz is not Italian but she is a real creator, to my mind Orange County’s leading woman chef. Watch Ruiz ply her trade in her stunningly designed open kitchen, churning out ethereal pleasures such as tuna carpaccio with wasabi creme fraiche , and crusty Tuscan foccacia straight from the oven.

Ruiz buys produce from Chino Ranch in Rancho Santa Fe, and there are no better tasting vegetables anywhere. Her signature dish of yellow, green and ripe red tomatoes is not available in winter, but she has added some new items to console regulars. Crostini, thinly sliced sourdough broiled over mesquite, rubbed in garlic, drizzled with goat cheese and draped with Chino’s eggplant, ought to keep the wolf from the door well into spring. Tagliairini with snow peas and pancetta sounds inspirational. Chicken saltimbocca with angel hair pasta and wood ear mushrooms is.

Manager Stacey Van Hanswyk says the restaurant is now open for lunch, when you can expect the same ear-splitting decibel level and the same wonderful level of cooking you find at dinner. (Ruiz is at the helm the entire day.) A convection pizza oven has been added, churning out a variety of calzones and pizzas with daily toppings. You may never have to eat a meatball sandwich again.

Sorrento Grill, 370 Glenneyre St., Laguna Beach. (714) 494-8686. Open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and Tuesdays through Sundays from 5:30 to 10. Dinner for two (food only) $35-$60. All major cards.