Zuni’s Built on Solid Southwestern Ground

We know we’re in a shopping mall, of course, but wow, it looks like a cave in here. Bulbous stone walls with ersatz hieroglyphics painted on them--it’s like wandering into an archeological dig.

David Wilhelm, that master of the Southwestern genre, can obviously do wonders with a liberal budget. And thanks to the success of his three other Orange County theme-ride restaurants--Kachina, Bistro 201 and the recently opened Barbacoa--the man definitely had some money to play with in Zuni Grill.

To my mind, Zuni is the most impressively designed of all his restaurants, from the colorful free-standing sculptures done by Robert Wilhelm (David’s brother) to the Diva lights dangling from the ceiling like hallucinogenic stalactites.

The dining room is a vast, cool chamber, the stone on the walls the pale brown color of desolate hills in Utah or New Mexico. After the sun goes down, the effect on the eye is staggering.

Out on the patio, though, we have to settle for a pristine view of the traffic on Barranca Parkway. Oh, well. It’s actually a whole lot less noisy than in the cave.

The restaurant has been open a couple of months now, and it looks is if it will be Wilhelm’s most popular venture yet. It’s easily the most cheerful and accessible of his restaurants, and the prices are less than forbidding. Wilhelm has taken his colorful Southwestern dishes and gone mass market with them.

Naturally, commercialism has its drawbacks. The service, provided by enthusiastic young people in unisex cowpoke costumes, can be erratic. On two occasions courses came to my table piecemeal, due to discrepancies in the cooking times (or so the waiters explained). Well, what do you expect from a restaurant where Zuni Hat ($12) and Zuni T-Shirt ($15) are two of the more prominently displayed items on the menu?

The food is basically quite good here, served on earthenware plates in a rainbow of Day-Glo colors, though there are occasional slips.

On the whole, Zuni Grill is a more focused operation than Wilhelm’s more ambitious Bistro 201, or Barbacoa, which attempts too many different styles at once. Here Wilhelm is on solid Southwestern ground, and the result is a restaurant with the slickness of a potential franchise, and a splash of originality thrown in for good measure.

Many appetizers, for example, are impressively conceived. One consists of hickory-smoked salmon, twisted in a little curl that stands up on the plate and holds a dollop of sour cream, accompanied by a squash cake that is a subtler version of a potato pancake, soft and sweet.

In the blue corn and black bean nachos with mesquite-grilled steak, on the other hand, the corn has a powerful bite, and the rich, inky-black beans nicely offset the smokiness of the steak.

There is a downside to this compulsion to innovate, though. Some dishes would be better simplified.

The chili relleno with crispy cornmeal coating, for example. It’s delicious at Kachina, but falls flat here, mostly victimized by a gooey mass of cheese that runs out of the top like Mt. St. Helens. The cornmeal coating tends to be overcooked (I had the dish twice) and a papaya red onion salsa is nothing more than an unpleasant curiosity.

The queso fundido is even worse. It’s a dish of soft melted cheese mixed with spicy duck sausage, and ought to be tasty. But the sausage is too pungent and the cheese too oily (there’s a miniature slick around the edges).

None of the dishes under the heading Southwest Specialties has any such problems. The green corn tamale, a Wilhelm signature, may be a little sweeter and mushier than I recall it being at Kachina. But the meats, such as honey-roasted pork and grilled filet of beef with tumbleweed onions, are just great here, smoky and juicy, blanketed with ruddy chili sauces that enhance their flavors.

The pork is crusty on the outside, and the taste of honey is faint (in marked contrast to the sticky-sweet pork I had when the restaurant first opened), and crumbles on the fork like a dream.

The creamy bed of polenta it comes on is too sweet, but the rest of the dish is terrific: two distinctly different chili sauces and a chunky avocado relish. In contrast to the pork the beef is on the dry side, fan-sliced and surprisingly tender. I could eat it by the pound.

There are more familiar dishes on this menu--soft tacos, enchiladas, burritos and so on--most of them given colorful twists. But the biggest surprise of all turns out to be the humble cheeseburger, rising to greatness with the aid of a jalapeno barbecue sauce, a wonderfully springy bun and a thick chunk of really freshly ground meat. It’s the dish I’ll remember best from this restaurant, in spite of the contrived iridescence of the others.

Those familiar with Wilhelm’s other restaurants will notice that dessert is again his most consistent course. The warm chocolate bread and butter pudding, imported square by square from Kachina, is as fudgie, seductive and comforting as ever. Apple saddlebag with cinnamon ice cream is another wonder, draped in an exquisitely rich caramel sauce. And the caramelized orange-honey cream with strawberries is rich to the bursting point.

So if you plan on buying one of Wilhelm’s T-Shirts on the way out, you might want to make it a size bigger than usual. On second thought, better go with the hat.

Zuni Grill is moderately priced. Appetizers are $3.95 to $8.95. Southwestern specialties are $6.95 to $15.95.

* ZUNI GRILL

* Crossroads Shopping Center, 3966 Barranca Parkway, Irvine.

* (714) 262-0864.

* Open for lunch Monday through Saturday 11:30 a.m. through 3 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m. through 3 p.m.; for dinner Sunday through Thursday 5 through 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday till 11 p.m.

* All major cards accepted.