RESTAURANT REVIEW : Fluke’s: As Surprising as a Whale in the Soup

East Amar Road is way out there, practically all by itself. The map shows a blank to the north of it, and to the east its path just meanders through the northern fringes of Walnut awhile until it runs aground somewhere in Pomona. We’re talking deep, deep West Covina here. We’re talking Woodside Village.

Chain-restaurant territory, you’d probably guess, but the mini-mall at East Amar Road and Nogales Street features a restaurant of more than passing interest. In the first place, Fluke’s has a terrific mural of whales disporting themselves underwater somewhere near Maui. It’s practically worth a drive just to see that.

But mostly, Fluke’s is a restaurant with a distinct personality despite its outback location. The specialty is seafood, though in fact the best entree happens to be marinated broiled chicken served with a little pot of lively coriander sauce that is rather like curry without the turmeric. There must be cilantro--coriander leaves--in the marinade, but the coriander-seed sauce is what you remember.

The appetizers include a very pure version of crab cakes that are like little thin crab pancakes. They come with chives and lemon juice or a slightly mustardy tartar sauce on the side. On the whole, though, the appetizers have Italian tendencies.

The best of them can be ordered on a combo appetizer plate. Long spears of calamari steak are fried in a chunky-style breading. Mozzarella sticks, rather thin and broad slices of cheese, come in a different but also pretty crisp breading. “Fluke’s flippers” are merely a cutely named version of buffalo wings, but the barbecue sauce on them is bracingly vinegary without being harsh.

The soup of the day is likely to be clam chowder, the buttery kind that tastes as if the white sauce was made of chicken rather than clam stock, and I’d take it over the gazpacho, at least in seasons of the year when it’s impossible to get really ripe tomatoes.

Most of the entrees are fish and often enough are remarkably good. Corn meal might be a coarse thing to bread a delicate fish like sand dabs with, but the garnish of capers and pickled artichoke hearts is very apt. King crab legs are usually available, big and generous (and strictly market price).

On the other hand, the red snapper Veracruz is the usual uninspiring business of tomatoes, capers and olives, but to be fair, most of our Mexican mariscos restaurants don’t do a very impressive job on this dish. The cioppino is prominently featured on the menu but the tomato broth is faintly on the watery side.

The lunch menu lists the usual American sandwiches (served, however, with fresh potato chips and an interesting coleslaw with pickles and dill in it). Even the fish sandwich gives a quaintly hamburgerish impression. The breaded mahi mahi filet is served on a big sesame bun with lettuce and tomato, and even some melted American cheese.

So far, pretty good, but the desserts are less fun than the rest of the meal. The banana-split cake is a silly idea: banana and cream layers in a chocolate cake. But it works better than the regular chocolate cake, which has plenty of chocolate but is so dense it’s downright impossible to cut when ice-cold, as it tends to be.

Fluke’s is quite an ambitious restaurant for this neck of the woods. I hope the good people of West Covina appreciate what they have here.

Fluke’s for Fine Food, 2530 E. Amar Road, West Covina. (818) 965-3996. Open for lunch Monday through Friday, dinner Tuesday through Saturday. Beer and wine. Parking available. American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $30 - $54.