Welcome to the Deli California : The Broadway Deli in Santa Monica: Pastrami, lox and creme brulee.

The deli is the quintessential New York invention--but California has just made it its own.

It couldn’t happen to a nicer institution. Traditional delis, after all, are those dark, crowded, noisy places where the waiters first insult you, then shove sandwiches so big you don’t know how to get your mouth around them in your direction. Finally, they insist you eat a piece of cheesecake. When you stagger out the door, it takes days until you’re hungry again.

But delis have their upside. Big menus. Long hours. Reasonable prices. A democratic attitude. Delis are places where you can take both your parents and your children secure in the knowledge that everyone will be happy. They’re always ready to provide take-out on a moment’s notice. They make you feel at home.

Suppose somebody took all these good qualities and then gave them a California twist? Suppose the menu was big but the food was light? Suppose the room was big but the ambience was airy? Suppose the waiters were actually nice? What if the take-out had an upscale attitude? You’d have the perfect restaurant for the ‘90s. You’d have The Broadway Deli.

It’s a Monday afternoon and the place is packed. An intense business conference is taking place in one booth; two ladies are lunching in the next. Over there a baby slumbers in a portable seat while a 2-year-old clambers across the adjacent chairs. Over here at the counter, every seat is taken. At one end, an older woman sits contentedly chewing on a lox-topped bagel, periodically taking sips from an enormous cup of coffee. She shakes her head from time to time, as if she can’t quite believe the quality of the smoked salmon (the Scottish smoked salmon, in particular, is very good). Next to her a Chinese man is devouring a chicken pot pie topped with a light puff of pastry. “This is so good,” he says to his companion, “that I have it every time I come.”

She nods, but doesn’t say anything; her mouth is full of macaroni and cheese. This is great macaroni and cheese--more cheese than macaroni, the sort of stuff that gives you a satisfying chew. It is an astonishingly large portion, but this woman seems to have no trouble polishing it off.

Next to her a teen-ager is tucking into a stack of French toast. The French toast is the fat puffy kind made with thickly sliced bread drenched in an egg mixture and lightly fried. The kid has a side of Italian sausage too, and since I’m sitting next to him I find myself eyeing it covetously. I know from past experience that this is truly terrific sausage--the kind that’s filled with little chunks of meat, instead of a homogenized mush--with a slightly sweet tang. But I control myself; I am eating a hamburger--and it’s a big thing, on a home-baked bun. More important, it rates among the better burgers in town. So does the Caesar salad, a big, garlicky, cheesy blend of greens and dressing that would make any salad lover happy.

Next to me is a man eating a pastrami sandwich and luxuriating in a huge bowl of fries. He looks happy. The man sitting beside him is slurping up a bowl of shiitake mushroom barley soup. When the waiter comes along to ask if he’d like anything more he shakes his head. “This is a meal in itself,” he says. Not bad for $3.75.

The person at the far end of the counter is having a glass of white wine and a dish of creamed spinach. Seems like an odd lunch to me, but she sips her wine, takes little bites of the spinach and stares at the cook behind the counter who is constructing sandwiches with enough heft to make the grade at any New York deli.

The point of this recital is not just that the menu is so large that there is truly something for everyone, but that the menu gets a real workout. Glance around the room at any given time and you will find the tables laden with dishes from all parts of the menu. Go to a traditional deli and you’ll find half the diners chowing down on sandwiches; come to this California Deli, and you’ll find that people are eating everything.

This is a place that feeds California hungers. In what might be the supreme irony, this deli serves the single best pork I’ve had in a local restaurant: moist, sweet, tender honey-rosemary pork that is cooked on the rotisserie. Another irony: the only two dishes that I really didn’t like were blintzes with a soupy filling that seemed a poor substitute for the pride of the Jewish kitchen--and matzo ball soup that would make any Jewish mother wince. The soup was fine but the matzo balls were leaden.

The quality of the food here should not come a big surprise. It is the brainchild of Bruce Marder (West Beach Cafe, Rebecca’s, DC 3), Michel Richard (Citrus) and veteran restaurant investor Marvin Zeidler. Although tensions between the three are reportedly high (one kitchen source says that serving three masters is impossible ), they are all imaginative men who care deeply about food.

You can see this for yourself in the shop in front--which stocks all manner of wonderful food. One of the best small cheese selections in the city. An encyclopedic collection of dried pastas. Three kinds of anchovies. Six kinds of prosciutto. Nine kinds of ham. Jodi Maroni sausages. Produce so perfect it tends to look fake (including beautiful earth-filled baskets of salad that is still alive.)

The deli bakes its own bread (the peasant bread is very good). It makes its own pastries--eclairs, tirami su , lemon meringue tarts. Look in the dessert case, however, and you’ll find one thing missing. It must be deliberate. This is a California deli--and they don’t do cheesecake.

Broadway Deli

1457 Third St. Promenade, Santa Monica. (213) 451-0616.

Open Sunday through Thursday 7 a.m. to midnight, Friday and Saturday until 2 a.m.

Recommended dishes: Caesar salad, $8; hamburger, $7.50; honey rosemary pork with French fries, $11; macaroni and cheese, $8; shortribs and greens, $12.50; tapioca creme brulee, $4.