Keeping Abreast of Spa Cuisine at Drew’s

Before the era of French chef Michel Guerard’s cuisine minceur , spa meals were either ornate multi-course affairs prepared for weary aristocrats and tycoons or Spartan dies of things to vigorously chew or virtuously drink. These days, spa cuisine has come to mean prettily displayed thimblefuls of raw, grilled, poached or steamed low-fat, low-sodium foods invariably encircled by reduced vegetable stocks and fruit purees.

The spa cuisine menu from Drew’s, an American Cafe in Encino is of the warm grilled breast of chicken salad/angel hair pasta school, 100 years away from the sanitarium. If you’re dieting in Tarzana, Encino, Sherman Oaks, Studio City or the Valley side of Bel-Air, you can get Drew’s spa cuisine delivered to you from Dining In, a service offering food from 19 restaurants.

Chef Drew Wendelken has a good thing going with his “vegetable salsa,” a chunky mix of tomatoes, cucumbers, marinated mushrooms and red onions. It turns up, in slightly altered guises, throughout the menu. Sometimes it’s called “fresh vegetable dressing,” sometimes “chopped vegetable vinaigrette.” Served with an appetizer of succulent grilled Norwegian salmon ($7.50), it might have doubled as gazpacho.

The warm grilled chicken breast appetizer ($8) is charred and delicious and served with a little pot of the sparkling vegetables. Drew’s doesn’t believe in Thumbelina meals: This fine chicken appetizer is the portion size of a main course at a spa.

All the entrees come with a very fresh, plain green salad. So don’t bother to order the “fresh vegetables of the season” appetizer. It is essentially lettuce, tomatoes, chives and finely diced mushrooms--not worth six bucks. I’d also suggest you refrain from choosing the Italian dressing unless you like the texture of glue and the taste of dried herbs. Unctuous flat blue cheese dressing isn’t much better.

There’s something almost Southern about the slow-cooked vegetable medley supper ($12). A combination of spinach, tomatoes and oyster mushrooms, it tastes like a rich, smothered stew. Spa vegetables with angel hair pasta ($12) is a tasty, if soupy, tarragon-flecked variant made sweet with well-cooked onions.

Vegetables reappear tucked inside a very fresh filet of white-fleshed fish. Nutritious yes, carefully prepared, indeed. But for $17, not enough verve.

All of Drew’s cooking is salt-free. Not all of it, however, is spa cuisine. One night I ordered a chicken breast dinner ($15) that was supposed to be served with steamed vegetables. Lo and behold, a breaded filet arrived bathed in Drew’s inevitable (spinach-onions-tomatoes) vegetables. I’d clearly wandered over to the more caloric side of the page. And I got hooked.

I tried several “Creative American” dishes on Drew’s other menu. A breast of duck salad ($9) was plain and moist with slices of divine crisp skin. My taste whetted for duck, I ate Drew’s “famous roast duck breast” ($16) with a refreshing raspberry-cranberry sauce and an apple corn bread stuffing so rich it demands a spa jog the next day.

Seafood medley ($21) was also tasty and rich. Large real shrimp, salmon and sea bass commune with sauteed onions and a smooth, shamrock-green spinach puree and homemade ravioli.

Spa entrees come with a salad, a bowl of fruit and a small loaf of bread. “Creative American” entrees additionally come with “house potatoes.” One night, however, some diet gremlin at Drew’s included a mysterious platter of crunchy, deep-fried string potatoes with my spa order. I thought “ Cuisine minceur be damned” and ate every last one.

Drew’s, an American Cafe, 16260 Ventura Blvd., Encino; (818) 501-8051. Delivery available through Dining In, (818) 986-3287. Lunch available Monday through Friday (orders must be placed between 11 a.m. and noon, $30 minimum). Dinner available 5 to 10 p.m. ($15 minimum). Major credit cards accepted. $4-$8 delivery charge, depending on location.