Restaurants : HERE’S LOOKIN’ AT YOU : Spring Rolls, Won-Ton Soup, Chow Mein-- Familiarity Breeds Teen-Age Contentment

In a week of serious Southern California eating, only three things thrilled my visiting 16-year-old niece. The first was Granita--less for the food (although she did say that the lemon granita was “the best dessert I’ve ever eaten”) than for the sight of Tom Hanks sitting at the next table. It was, she said, an important moment in her life.

The second thrill was strawberry ice cream from Haagen-Dazs; how this particular pleasure had managed to escape her for so long is a mystery to me, but she went home determined to stake out the nearest Haagen-Dazs emporium.

The third thrill was dinner at Typhoon. After I had treated her to what I thought was a superb meal in Monterey Park, she was relieved to get what she identified as “some real Chinese food.”

By real Chinese food, you understand, she means the stuff that’s served in suburban Kansas. If you’re old enough, you’ll recognize it right away by the sweet, sticky sauces that suffocate so many of the dishes. See that sauce sitting next to the vegetable spring rolls? That clear, gooey, pink puddle? “This,” said my niece eagerly, “is just like the food at home!”

She was happy with the shrimp chow mein, too--it tasted familiar, she said. A definite relief to hear after she had exclaimed, “Yuck, what’s this ?” about the dish on the table. “This” was kim chee-- garlicky, spicy, pickled cabbage that made me every bit as hopeful as it made my niece uncomfortable. There were other dishes that gave me hope--a plate of lightly fried squid served with a clear vinegar sauce, chicken satay that had been marinated in coconut milk, and a dish of barbecued Korean short ribs that were plain and meaty, charred on the outside, still pink at the bone.

I was eager to be pleased by Typhoon. It’s an entirely likable restaurant that sits perched above the runway at the Santa Monica airport. Looking down at the small old planes, it’s easy to imagine Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart out there lurking in the shadows. Although the restaurant itself is perfectly modern, even a little spare, it manages not to ruin the illusion. There is something about the room--the big curved windows, the Pacific weather map that occupies one wall, the small red airport lights shedding a warm glow across the tables--that makes you feel that you are in a faraway airport, waiting for the next plane to Lisbon.

The service contributes to the effect; it has a sort of Rick’s Cafe quality. Refugees from everywhere seem to have washed up here. Our waitress one night was from Poland; “I really love these Thai noodles,” she said as she put down a heaping platter. Another night it was an Asian man, who praised the shrimp tempura. Everybody who works here is extraordinarily pleasant; the people all seem anxious to please and eager to praise the food. Ask any one of them which dishes are the best, and the answer will be encyclopedic.

But it will not necessarily be one you can trust. The Polish woman was enormously enthusiastic about the Japanese eggplant--which turned out to be chunks of greasy eggplant with onions and bell peppers in a sweet and heavy sauce. My niece loved it; everybody else at the table watched in astonishment as she gobbled it up.

In fact, she gobbled up everything in sight. For, despite the pan-Asian emphasis of the menu (dishes from Japan, Korea, Thailand and the Philippines all put in appearances), most of the food is relentlessly middle-American. Order shrimp with spicy chili sauce, and what you get are overcooked curls of shrimp in a sauce that is a little sour and quite sweet, with just a touch of chili sauce thrown in for heat. Order shiu mai , and what you end up with are dumplings that bear as much resemblance to Swedish meatballs as they do to the airy offerings of a good dim-sum house.

And yet there’s something comforting about ordering dishes you remember from your childhood--crunchy spring rolls, bland won-ton soup, kung pao chicken that has more garlic than chiles--especially when you can do it in a room as wonderful as this one. Typhoon is a sort of new wave Trader Vic’s: hip, young, not very expensive. In the open kitchen, energetic chefs scrape away at woks. At the large bar, people in casual clothes sit sipping silly concoctions, surrounded by visual puns (hangars hanging on the wall). There are beautiful lamps over the cozy booths and nice graphics everywhere you look.

And so I find myself drifting back to Typhoon. I like the way the place feels. I find myself sitting at those big panoramic windows with a cherry-topped drink, watching planes from the past fly in. I order chicken satay or fried squid and follow it with a nostalgic dish of chow mein. Sometimes I order the Burma ribs, which can be very, very hot--and an excuse to order a second drink.

I like to imagine that I’m in some forgotten outpost, waiting for the mail plane to arrive. But most of all, I just like to sit at the window, participating in the drama of flight. If I concentrate really hard, I can imagine that my niece is in that little plane coming in, and I order some spring rolls to celebrate her return.

Typhoon, 3221 Donald Douglas Loop S . , Santa Monica; (213) 390-6565. Open Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner; Sunday for brunch. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $20-$40.