RESTAURANT REVIEW : Stoney’s: A Multicultural Mishmash

Stoney’s is a rethinking of the casual neighborhood restaurant--it’s a Chinese, hamburger and pasta place all rolled into one. The owners, Stoney Chen and Jane Elliot Smith, have come here from London, where their restaurant T’ang served a mix of Asian and Continental cuisine. Such multicultural cooking in a relaxed, friendly setting seems especially appropriate for Los Angeles, and I had high hopes that Stoney’s would pull it off.

The walls have been rubbed silvery gray and hung with many large paintings. A statue of a golden goddess reclines over the front door. The tables wear white linens topped with white butcher paper. The dinnerware, especially the crockery, is giant-sized. As in any moderately priced neighborhood establishment. Stoney’s has a broad-based comfort zone. There’s a guy in jeans and hiking boots at one table; at another table, a dandy in a slick suit with a silk hankie in his breast pocket.

Prefacing the dinner menu proper, there is a page of “Eastern Specialties.” Unfortunately, virtually everything I selected from it was a disappointment. The Chinese dim sum, which according to the menu were filled with shrimp and chicken meat and served with a soy dip, were peculiar little bundles of tasteless meat served with a red sauce that tasted mostly like sweetened ketchup. The sesame spare ribs were pleasantly crispy and so sweet they were virtually candied. The homemade Chinese noodles, which came with a few green beans and a few stalks of Chinese broccoli and four shrimp, were bland beyond measure.

A similar flatness of flavor was symptomatic of all the Eastern specialty entrees. The ingredients were perfectly decent, but the coaxing and building-up of flavors that is the essence of good cooking were curiously absent. The sizzling lamb, the black-bean shrimp and even the “bang-bang” chicken with its lemon grass and lime leaf were as humdrum as anything you’d find at an old-style Cantonese joint at around half the price. The rice, which came with some dishes, was dried out and barely warm. Oddly--and, in fact, luckily--the black-bean shrimp came not with rice but with some pretty good mashed potatoes.

The menu itself is underwritten and confusing, and the service staff, while cordial enough, didn’t offer any guidance. There was a recurring problem of redundancy: One night I ordered “The Vegetable Garden” starter, a plate of mostly pea pods and carrots, only to receive more generous heaps of the same pea pods and carrots with my pork-chop entree.

The best things at Stoney’s were the most basic, most ordinary dishes. The pork-chop dinner--one juicy, tasty pork chop and a small scoop of those good mashed potatoes--was just fine--even if there were no caramelized apples on the plate, as promised on the menu. A well-herbed hamburger came with French fries and a small salad. The coffee was terrific. A light, fluffy piece of cheesecake was especially appealing.

On the other hand, tandoori chicken breast was dry and served with more of that lifeless, cool rice. Squash soup was lumpy and bland (10 seconds in the food processor could have made it a textural pleasure).

Stoney’s may yet be able to pull together a better showing. I hope so--a good multicultural neighborhood restaurant in a big multicultural city is a great, timely idea. But without some truly good cooking, that’s all it is.

Stoney’s, 11604 San Vicente Blvd., Brentwood, (310) 447-6488. Lunch Monday through Friday, dinner Monday through Saturday. Beer and wine. Valet parking. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $26-$54.