Special Deliveries From the Creative Gourmet in West L.A.

I once read a paper in an anthropology journal on “Shopping on Fairfax.” The author, who had clearly done her fieldwork, noted that the majority of customers would look at the offerings on the counters and shelves, then take the butcher, the fishmonger or greengrocer aside and ask for a “nice” piece of meat, fish, chicken or fruit to be pulled from the back or from an unpacked box. Who wants the “ordinary”? We all want the “special,” the cream of the crop.

The Creative Gourmet, which delivers to homes and offices throughout the Westside, carries this state of mind.

What’s a “nice” takeout meal? It doesn’t mean knock ‘em down fabulous ; it means plentiful, fresh, with some extra touch. The Creative Gourmet’s presentation alone puts it into this class: You’ll find black plastic ware, hard black patent-leather-look plates, decorated napkins, mints, sandwiches wrapped like favors for a Sweet 16 party, cookies tucked into shiny black “nice store” shopping bags.

The Creative Gourmet’s large menu (you can call and have it sent to you) abounds in salads that make a full-sized lunch. The fruit salad, a lush still-life against those black plates, is a real doll of a meal--and clearly depends on what’s hot at the market that day. Mine came full of really sweet pineapple, large potent strawberries and raspberries, baby apples and pears, a little pot of yogurt with real blueberries and a short course in melons, one more beautiful than the next. Called Fruit Paradise, it’s $7.95.

The Greek salad ($7.30), normal and “nice” with ripe feta and calamata olives, was out of the ordinary for one reason: a mountain of oregano-suffused bow-tie pasta underneath the salad soaks up the dressing in a gorgeous midnight-raid combo kind of way.

The Caesar ($3.95 and $5.95) and the Salade Nicoise ($7.95) are both impeccably fresh and generously portioned, but the former was salty and topped with packaged croutons while the latter, with a wonderful creamy vinaigrette and a good 7 ounces of moist tuna, used dumb canned olives.

The mixed green Garden Patch ($3.95 and $5.95) arrives with a lilting raspberry vinaigrette and, supposedly (not in my order), a piece of “gourmet cheese.” Plain, lightly marinated zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots ($7.95) were admirably crunchy and served on a delicious large platter of basil-laden long-grain rice.

The “nice” quotient fell considerably with the turkey primavera ($8.95), a great mass of salty processed turkey, frozen peas and carrots, perfectly respectable fettuccine and altogether too much mayonnaise. Curry chicken ($8.95) was full of deeply flavored real chicken, cut fruit and too much rich sour-cream-based dressing.

Shanghai shrimp ($11.95), full of big fat sweet juicy shrimp, peanuts, carefully cut vegetables and a large tangle of chive angel hair pasta, was “nice.” Jade scallops ($11.95) came with a generous portion of moist scallops, more of that unusually good long-grain rice served with the vegetable plate and, unfortunately, an odd medicinal-tasting orange sauce.

If I had to have lunch at my desk, I think the look alone of the sandwiches would cheer me up: Their long, soft rolls come wrapped in glitzy pink tissue paper with an olive, sailing like a flag off a yacht, at one end. A “Santa Fe” roast beef sandwich ($5.75), niftily spiced with cumin (but not one whit of the mentioned cilantro), has the merest filaments of mild jalapenos: It’s more Phoenix than Santa Fe. The Seafood Treasure ($5.75) with itsy shrimp, faux crab and a slaw with a commercial tang, tastes like the kind of unfortunate “ladies” sandwich I would have with my mother when we went to try on coats. The salmon mousse and nearly ineffable dill dressing in the Chic Conspiracy are a rich mix that, on top of the dark roll, taste like a dead ringer for soft pumpernickel bagel and lox cream cheese.

A bag full of just-baked oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies is unimpeachably, totally “nice.”

The Creative Gourmet, 10640 Woodbine, No. 104, West Los Angeles. (213) 841-CHEF. Lunch delivery Monday-Friday, dinner seven nights. Orders taken 10:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. American Express accepted. Delivery area from La Cienega Boulevard to Ocean Avenue, from Sunset to National boulevards. Fee varies according to location. Special diet requests available.