RESTAURANT REVIEW : Noodles to Pizza, Nicola’s Kitchen Matches Thai Cuisine With Italian

Thai-Italian cuisine. Now there’s a conversation stopper.

Not that it doesn’t provoke some comment. Nicola’s Kitchen, the new restaurant where this unlikely hybrid is being aired out, has quite a few people talking, and from what I’ve heard the response has been pretty enthusiastic.

The concept, if you insist upon calling it that, was developed by novice restaurant owners John Saffell and Chalermchai Wongwaiwit, and in their hands it makes sense. Actually, a number of restaurant gurus predicted unusual bi-ethnic combinations during the ‘90s and places such as this must make them insufferably smug. Do you think they could have predicted that in this case the chef would be from Mexico?

No matter. The food at this restaurant is mostly fresh and delicious, with hardly a dish that falls flat on its face. When you dig in, you see that it’s not all that unlikely a marriage. Both Thai and Italian cooking feature fancy noodles, garlic and aromatic herbs, and both share a creative and natural approach to the use of seafood. And no one here is taking any real chances. It’s not as if they were trying to crush peanuts into olive oil or anything.

The restaurant’s design is pure California. The dining area has a black-and-white floor, an open kitchen and African-influenced oil paintings (of all things) hanging on mustard-yellow walls. It’s a light, airy room, especially pleasant in the early evening, when sunlight still streams in through the oversized front windows. Service is also on the sunny side, performed by an efficient team of young people with a casual, informal manner.

Italy dominates the first courses, which consist primarily of salads (although blackboard specials such as steamed mussels or crostini with fresh mushrooms are usually still around in the early evening). There’s a good house Caesar with a fearless amount of garlic, and one they call insalata Nicola. It’s romaine topped with raisins, pine nuts and a contrastive, tart vinaigrette.

But I’d shun them both in favor of the chopped antipasto, one of the best salad ideas I’ve seen in quite a while. It’s a spinoff of the chopped salad that Jean Leon has popularized in his successful La Scala Presto chain, but actually, it goes Leon’s salad one--make that several--better.

Just about everything you expect in a dinner house antipasto has been chopped into what must be half a head of iceberg lettuce: pepperoni, salami, good prosciutto, garbanzo beans, provolone and many other components. The salad is served in a giant mound, and when eaten in tandem with the addictive house bread (pizza dough baked with garlic, leek, basil and oregano) it makes one of the best lunches in the Valley.

Thailand comes later. The menu features what it calls “California Style Pizza,” meaning thin crust and no tomato sauce. Thai chicken pizza heads the list, and is undoubtedly the restaurant’s star dish. It’s topped with addictively crunchy “sesame chicken,” which is lightly floured white meat studded with sesame and sauteed (the restaurant also serves this as a main course), then smothered in sliced red onion and cilantro.

The other Thai pizza, coconut shrimp, doesn’t do nearly as well. The cloying shrimp make the whole thing too sweet, in spite of a valiant effort of mint, spicy red and green bell pepper to counterbalance them. For more Thai stimulation, you’ll want to proceed to the pastas.

Only two pastas here have the exotic stamp of Thai influence, but both will satisfy the Italian in you as well. The delightful linguine with Thai grilled shrimp is slightly oily and fragrant with lime, cilantro and yellow bell pepper. The noodles used here are thick and chewy, and a pile of large shrimp mixed in have been blackened nicely in garlic and oil. Spicy cappellini with chicken, sesame oil and mint works well in theory, but the practice needs to be more perfect. My cappellini came out overcooked, the noodles snagged together in unappealing clumps.

Italian dishes are numerous at Nicola’s, but on the whole unremarkable. There is a decent lasagna, a stuff-it-yourself calzone and several familiar pasta dishes, such as Alfredo, linguine primavera and ravioli. Chicken is really the only meat served, and the restaurant provides it in force. Best is that good sesame chicken and a few dishes that ape the veal dishes of more traditional Italian restaurants: chicken piccata, Marsala and parmigiana. The herb chicken, roasted and served with vegetables, can be quite dry.

When it’s time for desserts, you’ll find some originality. Tiramisu is here by popular demand, but I’d prefer the spongy raspberry cake with mascarpone cheese, or Snickers cake--a white cake with a rich caramel and peanut filling, topped with chocolate icing.

Those crafty Thais. You knew they’d get peanuts in there somewhere.

Suggested dishes: chopped antipasto, $7.95; Thai chicken pizza, $7.50; linguine with Thai grilled shrimp, $11.95; sesame chicken, $6.95 (half order); $10.50 (full order).

Nicola’s Kitchen, 20969 Ventura Blvd . , Woodland Hills, (818) 883-9477.

Lunch and dinner 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Friday, 4-10 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.

American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Beer and wine only. Parking lot in rear. Dinner for two, food only, $20-$35.