A Few Winners in Palato’s Standard Italian

My oldest friend in the world just came to visit. A serious eater (we met in sixth grade over lunch), she keeps a computerized record of restaurants, which can be retrieved according to location, cuisine and certain dishes. Type in “North Beach” (she lives in San Francisco), “Moroccan” or “raspberry flan” and a list appears on the screen.

Last week, she joined me on my take-out rounds. We ordered food from Palato, smack in the heart of Hollywood. “Listen,” I said, “the menu doesn’t look adventurous but maybe it’ll be good.”

“Chicken Parmigiana, veal picatta , chicken Florentine. Nothing new,” she read. “Pasta marinara, pasta Bolognese, minestrone, shrimp cocktail . . . hey, look at this: salsa dimecina . And what’s ‘Pavy’s Persian soup’?”

The minestrone turned out to have a commercial tang, and a clam chowder contained, maybe, one cubic centimeter of clams, but Pavy’s Persian soup ($2.50 or $2.95 depending on size) had a thick potent stock. Piled high with spinach, lentils, red beans, noodles and garbanzo beans, it was a rich, satisfying mess of pottage. If I computerized my restaurants, I’d definitely put it on my “hearty soup” list.

But I wouldn’t put any of the salads on my list, even though all of Palato’s are plentiful and fresh. “They do have big portions,” my friend said as we sampled a lackluster antipasto (thick slices of salty prosciutto, processed turkey, slices of American and very neutral Swiss cheese, $4.95) and a Caesar salad ($5.95 and $6.95) with watery dressing and pieces of plain bread in lieu of croutons. The spinach salad ($4.95) had spanking fresh spinach, crisp bacon and cheerful little slices of egg but was thoroughly, nakedly, undressed. The house salad ($2.95) was as generic as they come.

In sixth grade, my favorite lunch was chicken salad with celery on rye bread. My friend preferred hers mushy, with loads of mayonnaise (no celery) on white. Palato’s ($5.95, including a bowl of soup) is the mushy kind, the texture of tuna fish. She loved it (“an oldie but goodie,” she said); I did not.

The pasta department is a mix-and-match scene with 14 sauces to choose from and angel hair, fettuccine, penne, linguine and spaghetti to put them on. All come in two sizes (the smaller adequately serves two people as a side dish) and range in price from $6.95 for the smaller portion of “ aglio olio “ and “marinara” to $10.25 for a large portion of pasta puttanesca ( no capers, no anchovies, not much basil or garlic--and canned olives, i.e., no verve).

The salsa dimecina is quite simple and wonderful: It’s a fine lace of cream and garlic perfectly punctuated with really nutty walnuts. The fresh spinach, garlic and olive oil sauce, alla spinaci Romana , while barely garlicky, had lovely little snippets of well browned onion. The Bolognese tomato-and-meat sauce was sweet, barely seasoned, yet comforting.

Of Palato’s house specials, my friend said, “nice-sized but not so special.” She was right. Chicken rustico ($9.95) had a long-simmered but bland tomato sauce on a large bed of fettuccine. Veal picatta ($12.95) came with crunchy vegetables and a light very lemony slip of a glaze; it also came soggy. Chicken Florentine ($13.95) was the most flavorsome: a mix of spinach, onions, mozzarella, white wine and the barest trace of garlic.

Not everything on the menu is always available. For instance, we asked for but missed out on Palato’s special cold soup, its rice pudding and the walnut torte. We did get a very creamy chocolate mousse/hazelnut/marshmallow cake, however. And Palato delivers--right on time, the night we ordered.

Of course, there is one advantage to picking up your own food: One night, we went to pick up our meal and gawked with pleasure at the real fire blazing in the real fireplace. My friend’s hungry, computer-organized head began to whirl. “You know what I’d file Palato under?” she said. I know her so well I can read her mind: “Fireplace, Hollywood. Salsa dimecina. Pavy’s Persian soup.”

Palato, 6840 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. (213) 469-3312. Open for lunch Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; dinner Tuesday through Sunday, 5:30-10 p.m. (until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday). Mastercard, Visa and checks accepted. Local delivery available.