RESTAURANT REVIEW : French Outpost in Beverly Hills Lacks Daring : The brave little Le Gourmand attempts to import a bit of the Continent, but alas, the food is missing a <i> je ne sais quoi</i>

The woman eating French food is wearing a beret, an actual beret, and the sort of broad-striped shirt that was fashionable in Paris a couple of decades back. She’s a vision from the ‘50s or early ‘60s, when not many Americans had been to Europe and people with this sort of yearning for la belle France sometimes dressed a la francaise at restaurants.

These days, of course, France is much closer. In fact, it wouldn’t be hard to find genuine French people within two miles of here at this very moment shopping for expensive blue jeans up on Rodeo Drive. But Beverly Hills is Beverly Hills, and two miles can be all the distance in the world. Down here, a couple of blocks from the Santa Monica Freeway, Le Gourmand Cafe is all the France there is.

Le Gourmand has all the marks of a brave little outpost, with the accent on the little: six tables in the tiny dining room, plus one in back of the kitchen. The decor is a hodgepodge of handmade baskets, folk art dishware, garlic braids and even a Chianti bottle or two (a little hard to explain on strictly French grounds). The room is upgraded from time to time, negligible paintings, for instance, being replaced by sleek black and white photos of Paris streets.

An outpost. A sign on the wall announces that Le Gourmand will serve a breakfast or dinner for two in your home. It even offers sidewalk dining, for anyone who cares--or dares--to dine romantically in the roaring traffic of La Cienega. Two little tables go out on the sidewalk every day, so some people must.

The earnest young chef, who sometimes waits his own tables, is clearly doing what he can, but there are certain limitations when you’re an outpost. The wine list is short; the menu, which is going through minor alterations all the time, is very cautious.

But the coffee is good and the bread very decent for this neck of the woods. A simple salad in thick tarragon sauce is garnished with an artichoke leaf topped with a rosette carved out of a piece of carrot. The appetizers are honest, if completely without surprises. There’s a smooth and flavorful duck liver pate, served with old-fashioned toast points and a bit of cucumber salad.

The onion soup must have a splash of wine in the broth; the onions are well and truly done, and the cheese tastes like a particularly nutty Gruyere. The veloute soup, a puree of vegetables, is largely broccoli, and better than it sounds. The lobster bisque, though it has a pure lobster aroma, is a little less than it sounds, like lobster-flavored milk.

Perhaps there’s a subtle war against calories behind the lobster bisque, because the veal blanquette (veal stewed in white sauce, possibly with a bit of orange peel in it) is not as rich as veal blanquette usually is--when you find veal blanquette on a menu at all.

It’s Le Gourmand’s best seller, though, a soothing sort of dish served on rice. Sometimes there’s a veal Marengo special, much like the veal blanquette but a little more flavorful, with tomato and both black and green olives.

Altogether, the entrees are the most cautious part of the menu. The best is the entrecote with mustard sauce, a small European-style steak and not particularly tender, but it has a pleasant sauce. It’s like a mild, thin bearnaise sauce, with a bit of mustard flavor cut by a bit of tomato paste.

The duck with orange sauce, though, is much too cautious. It comes in a dim orange-flavored cream sauce, not terribly sweet but not at all distinctive, and the lack of sweetness is no great virtue when there’s a canned peach on the plate. The shrimp with garlic is more or less the familiar scampi served on rice.

The desserts are fairly elemental, though sometimes there’s a stylish paper-thin apple tartlette made with paper-thin apple slices. You can always get a nice pair of pears poached in red wine, flavored with cinnamon. The creme brulee, though, has a feeble excuse for a sugar-crust layer--its spotty brown surface looks like a Visitor’s scalp in “Alien Nation.” The peach custard pie is extremely eggy in flavor, topped with peach slices. In fact, Le Gourmand has a sort of peach motif. They give you a sip of peach schnapps with dessert.

And one last dessert seems to be part of the war on calories. The chocolate mousse might have no butterfat at all--foamy and frothy and tasting of cocoa. The lady in the beret likes it, and in a way I do too, but not because I think it’s French: it’s like a rather dense milkshake.

Recommended dishes: duck pate, $3.50; veal blanquette, $9.95; entrecote with mustard sauce, $11.95; poached pear, $2.75.

Le Gourmand French Cafe, 1737 S. La Cienega, Los Angeles. (213) 836-6885. Open for lunch from noon to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday, for dinner from 5:30 to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, till 11:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Beer and wine only. Parking lot. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $33 to $43.