RESTAURANT REVIEW: MOONANGEL : Turkish Delight : To get into the Middle Eastern mood, begin with a plate of Abraham Aymelek’s house salads.

This might be Casablanca.

The guy who ushers you into the place is dressed in an ill-fitting, double-breasted gray suit over a black shirt. A lock of hair falls across his forehead. You are looking at the coffee and wine bar. And the language that you are listening to is French.

No surprise, for Mustafa, who is usually behind that bar, is Moroccan. Combine the French conversation, the Moroccan barkeeper and the Brazilian having a drink, and what you end up with is a promisingly exotic flavor.

But the mood doesn’t last. The innocent white-tableclothed rooms that make up Moonangel--Santa Barbara’s new Turkish and Mediterranean restaurant--quickly put an end to any thoughts of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

So does the food. For Abraham Aymelek, the owner-chef, is Turkish. And what he cooks comes mostly from the eastern end of the Mediterranean. So let’s switch the fantasy to the Orient Express and Old Istanbul.

One way of initiating the palate into the Middle Eastern mood is to order a plate of the house salads. This sampler has five selections; the standouts are the patlican salatasi-- an eggplant dish that is a mousselike combination of firmness and softness--and the sweet and tart grape leaves stuffed with rice.

Another standout is borek, the spinach pie that is found throughout the Middle East. These are usually individual pies, but Moonangel’s is a wedge cut from a single large pie. The restaurant’s version is made with feta cheese and served with hot hummus, the chickpea-based Middle Eastern staple. It has just the right kind of hang-together, cheesy consistency.

The first time I tried Moonangel’s borek, I was sitting at the wine/coffee bar--a fortunate move, since I’ve since discovered that the service is better there than it is at the tables. Table service at Moonangel is . . . shall we say, lackluster?

But Chef Aymelek is an ambitious, enthusiastic person who likes to come out on the floor to encourage his customers’ appreciation of his cuisine. This includes, of course, the usual meat on skewers (marinated lamb or chicken), served with piles of pita bread.

At dinner the dishes can be traditionally Turkish, such as mantarli kuzu , a lamb and mushroom stew that has came out of this kitchen more than once in an overcooked, dried-out state. Or they can be Mediterranean, such as the poached seafood blanketed in paper, which is steamed in a wine-based, seasoned broth and arrives very gently cooked. In this one, the chef is extremely generous with the shrimp, scallops and fish.

Lunch is another matter. In my experience those bargain buffet lunches--the kind that are generally advertised outside of restaurants on big cloth banners--are best avoided. Moonangel is an exception. The buffet features about a dozen Middle Eastern salads and as many as five hot dishes, most of which change daily. On one afternoon there was a salad of cooked leeks and carrots in which the sweetness of the carrots merged with the tanginess of the leeks to create a distinctive effect.

Middle Eastern desserts can be cloyingly sweet. Moonangel’s are no exception. They are best eaten with the tiny, emphatic cups of coffee, which cut the sweetness.

If you close your eyes as you sip this intense coffee, you almost imagine that you hear “As Time Goes By” playing in the background.

* WHERE AND WHEN: Moonangel, 302 W. Montecito St., Santa Barbara, (805) 962-8949. Lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, dinner 5:30-11 p.m. daily, brunch 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Sunday. Beer and wine. All major credit cards. Ample free parking adjoining the restaurant. Lunch for two, food only, $15. Dinner for two, food only, $32-$50.