RESTAURANT REVIEW : Shy, Modest Bamboo Sports a Memorable Menu

In the middle of holiday madness, two friends and I sneaked out for dinner to Bamboo, a tiny new neighborhood restaurant on Venice Boulevard, just west of Overland. We were relieved to find ourselves in a quiet, unpretentious, familiar sort of place. Bamboo is yet another all-in-the-family spin-off of Cha Cha Cha, the jazzy nouvelle-Caribbean restaurant in the easternmost regions of Hollywood. (Bamboo’s chef-owner, Jose Mendoza, is cousin to Cha Cha Cha’s co-founder Toribio Prado.)

The small, deep-lavender room is simply appointed; small, wooden chairs surround the tables and a few quiet paintings hang on the walls. The Gypsy Kings, L.A.’s universal restaurant music, discharge familiar syncopations over the sound system. In fact, if I had one overall criticism of Bamboo it would be that there’s nothing new here, the restaurant has no kick or spark of its own.

And yet, at the same time, the food is memorably good and the prices are gloriously affordable. The Caesar salad, which rivals the Gypsy Kings for ubiquity in L.A. restaurants, is bright-tasting and lively; the Bamboo salad, chunks of fresh mozzarella, Roma tomatoes and Maui onions, is good and juicy. The peppery corn chowder is chock-full of sweet sweet corn.

But my favorite appetizer is the barbecue vegetarian pizza; an excellent, chewy thin crust is heaped with smoky and pleasantly charred asparagus, corn, zucchini, tomatoes and shredded fresh basil. It’s a one-dish time capsule of summer, when you throw everything from the garden on the barbecue: just delicious.

By comparison, the Caribbean Cajun shrimp pizza is just OK; well-spiced and pretty, there are a good number of fat, sweet shrimp distributed over its surface.

Entrees are all fresh-tasting and of manageable size. Each comes with rice, a small cup of beans and a choice of great, buttery whipped potatoes or sweet plantains fried to the most tempting degree of crunchiness.

Bamboo’s rather spirited answer to steak is churasco , a thin swatch of spicy, marinated New York steak that goes especially well with a mound of whipped potatoes. A skinless breast of chicken is livened up with a big-flavored black pepper sauce. Bahia Shrimp, in a rich coconut-milk sauce with tomatoes and peppers, makes a good tropical antidote to the last days of the year.

Dessert can be something of a letdown--not because they are poorly made, but rather, because you get the same old same old flan and apple tarte tatin , all acceptable but predictable.

The lunch menu is slightly lower in price from the already reasonable dinner menu and includes a few breakfast dishes-- huevos rancheros and a good plate of chilaquiles . Milanesa a la Bamboo is like a Latin-Italian version of the Midwest’s notorious anything-for-a-crunch pork tenderloin: a thin piece of meat breaded, fried and, in this case, topped with melted mozzarella and tomato sauce.

While Cha Cha Cha is a hot little spot, Bamboo is definitely the shy, quiet cousin. If I lived near Bamboo, I’d find my way there with some regularity. It’s precisely the place to go when you just want a bite to eat in the neighborhood and you don’t want to make a big deal about it.

But if I had to drive any sizable distance, I’d need more--more innovation, more seduction, more surprises than this modest little enterprise has to offer.

Bamboo, (213) 287-0668, 10835 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles. Lunch, dinner seven days. Beer, wine. MasterCard, Visa. Parking in lot. Dinner for two, food only, $25 to $46.