Scarlet Loco Keeps Its Sense of Humor as Life Passes By

* SCARLET LOCO

Front and Ash streets, San Diego

234-2000

Lunch Monday-Friday, dinner Tuesday-Saturday; closed Mondays

Entrees $8.95 to $16.25. Dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $35 to $65.

Credit cards accepted

Thousands of downtown-bound San Diegans pass by Scarlet Loco every day, which, perhaps, makes it the most bypassed restaurant in the city.

The location at the busy intersection of Front and Ash has proved rather less sizzling than partners John McCarthy and Andrew Schneider had hoped, although Chef Schneider’s cream of poblano chili soup is hot, if not too aggressively; the heat hovers tentatively at the back of the tongue, like an almost-remembered word that dances just beyond reach.

Schneider’s cooking is, without doubt, quite pleasant, which makes the sometimes unpopulated vistas in the dining room seem all the more forlorn. But the fact that this is one of downtown’s best spots at which to enjoy a really quiet dinner underlines the truth that, while just a few years ago this side of Broadway was the only side of Broadway on which restaurants could operate, the surging Gaslamp Quarter now predominates.

The Canadian-born McCarthy, who runs the front of the house and has played various roles on the local restaurant stage for more than a dozen years, recently said of his location, “This is the gateway to downtown San Diego.” The description fits, since it is just a few blocks south of the Civic Center exit from Interstate 5, and doubtless many a motorist whizzing past has noticed the building, which is painted white with irregular black splotches and looks something like a Cubist cow.

Both exterior and interior, in fact, exude a sort of purposeful cow chic, designed by artist Doug Wilson, all a part of Scarlet Loco’s cowabunga humor that presumably cheers McCarthy and Schneider on those nights when they are the restaurant’s sole staffers and, even then, feel a bit superfluous. The sense of humor, which begins with the menu covers (black-on-cream, centered by the logo of a cow peering from behind a palm and marked with notes that indicate the various colors the reader should imagine decorate the cover) extends to the menu’s language, which groups dishes under such headings as “The Spaghetti Western” and “The Mild Wild West.”

Schneider’s cooking, described as “contemporary Western cuisine,” proceeds seriously enough and probably deserves more attention than it gets. Flavors tend to be robust but well-blended, and there are savory notes to most dishes that much modern cuisine lacks. For example, the entree of boneless chicken breast “smothered” with mushrooms and beer-based gravy is light enough, but savory in the style of down-home cooking.

Acomplimentary snack of hummus-like dip with jicama, carrot and celery fingers arrives early and, to a degree, sets the tone for an eclectic appetizer list that opens with a smoked-duck quesadilla and trundles along to salmon cakes with salad greens and aioli ; colorful “rolls” of layered roast beef, basil leaves and roasted peppers, and a pasilla pepper, treated in the chile relleno style but given a suave goat cheese stuffing. The amusingly named “prairie pizza” makes a particularly good shared appetizer, featuring a puff pastry base, rich and flaky, supporting a topping of pesto, fresh tomatoes and a rich, molten, flowing mix of Jack and goat cheeses.

Besides the poblano pepper soup, decorated with snippets of crisp tortilla and diced red bell pepper for texture accents, Schneider usually offers a brew du jour , recently a smooth tomato-basil cream, sparked with a little garlic and bell pepper and topped with a few fresh croutons for bite. This was quite nice, Provencale in its way, but not too assertive. Salad choices run from the simple house blend (in the sharp Dijon dressing, for preference) to a more substantial toss of marinated vegetables, cucumbers and tomatoes, and the entree-size salad of fresh tuna with Napa cabbage, snow peas, a sprinkling of almonds and a sesame-ginger dressing.

Among the pastas (listed under the “Spaghetti Western” heading) the angel hair with mussels, tomato, bacon and saffron broth basically repeats a starter of New Zealand green lip mussels offered sans noodles.

The entree list divides itself between the relatively informal “Mild Wild West” dishes and the more sophisticated “City Slickers.” The first category is eclectic, to say the least, and follows swordfish tacos with grilled pork chops in a “rich scarlet” barbecue sauce; this in turn is followed by pan-fried catfish coated with Ritz crackers (Schneider can indeed take a folksy approach) and smoked-duck enchiladas sided by rice and beans.

Several of the more classic offerings are proven favorites from the menu with which the restaurant opened in early 1991. Two of these, sampled previously and found agreeable, are the crisp, Thai-style duck with gingered honey sauce, and the simple, hearty rib-eye steak with fried onions and whiskey-flavored butter. Newer choices include a fairly classic saute of veal sweetbreads with leeks, mushrooms and sherry-and-thyme flavored cream sauce, and pine nut-coated pork tenderloin in brown sauce sharpened with balsamic vinegar.

The sweetbreads seem outside the menu’s general motif (McCarthy said he keeps this special, delicate meat on the menu for “older people who understand this kind of food”) and are quite conservatively French in style--which means succulent, meltingly tender and demurely flavored. A startling sauce or treatment would be ill-suited to sweetbreads, the non-evocative name assigned to the thymus gland. The pork tenderloin, tender and savory, gets a good bit of flavor from its pine nut cloak and even more from the espresso-dark, bittersweet sauce. The slivered vegetables and creamy potato gratin that accompanied the entrees were not especially well done.

Schneider’s desserts largely take the tone of the menu and are rich and full-flavored. Without question, the creamiest of the lot is the chocolate chip cheesecake, crowned with an extra-rich upper layer and very smooth in the mouth. The hot, buttery apple tart offers more restrained flavors.

JUST A TASTE / HIGHLIGHTS OF OTHER NELSON REVIEWS

PACIFIC CORAL REEF, 585 Harbor Lane, San Diego, 595-0800. The newest restaurant on the bay front emphasizes seafood and takes a moderately Pacific Rim point of view that would come across more clearly were the kitchen less timid in its use of flavorings. With the exception of the soups, however, most items seem well-prepared, including the tasty appetizer of won ton-wrapped shrimp and the tempura-edged ahi medallions. The Caesar salad gains interest from the crumbles of smoked ono that replace the usual anchovies. The kitchen certainly knows how to broil seafood, and good examples would be the ono with papaya sauce and the tiger prawns in a moderately spicy Thai peanut sauce. Meats also come off well, notably the lamb chops in hoisin-spiked sauce and the chicken breast in a sweetly tangy honey-mustard sauce. The desserts, made on the premises, include a respectable flan. Entrees priced from $9.95 to $16. Moderate to expensive.

THE GREEK TYCOON, 3731 India St., San Diego, 295-0812. The ability to enunciate such words as moussaka and baklava is sufficient to get one through a meal at this casual new restaurant, but the less familiar dishes are the more rewarding, especially the appetizers included on the immense pickilia mezedakia combination platter. The assortment of treats includes tiny, mint-flavored meatballs, lemony dips based on red caviar and cucumber, slabs of briny feta cheese and triangular phyllo pastries with assorted fillings. The entree list includes the usual roast lamb and chicken, a dull souvlaki , respectable moussaka and assorted Greek pastas. Entrees from $7.95 to $11.95. Moderate.