RESTAURANTS : THE TROPICAL TRADE-OFF : The Food Was Never Authentic, but Trader Vic’s Drinks Have Always Been the Real Thing

Trader Vic’s?” say foodies of a certain age. “Is that still around?” Their eyes stir with memories.

Not so long ago, Trader Vic’s in Beverly Hills was widely considered one of Southern California’s top restaurants. I remember flying down from San Francisco for some wine-and-food-society banquet there 15 years ago, back when people in San Francisco would scarcely admit there were any restaurants south of the Cow Palace. The trader himself, the late Victor Bergeron, had introduced a number of once-exotic ingredients, such as Kentucky limestone lettuce and Madagascar green peppercorns, to Los Angeles (and not only to Los Angeles, of course, because by then there were 15 Trader Vic’s restaurants worldwide; there are now 18).

But at the same time, the original Trader Vic’s in Oakland, which had opened in the mid-’30s, created the phenomenon of Polynesian cuisine, which foodies of a certain age tend to remember with a blush. Every Trader Vic’s is a South Pacific-themed restaurant, a romantic rendezvous where you eat among palm fronds and tropical bric-a-brac. Polynesian cuisine--particularly at the chain’s many imitators--means Cantonese appetizers, entrees cooked in coconut milk, and savage but quaintly named rum drinks garnished with paper parasols.

To be sure, none of the imitators had the sophistication of Trader Vic’s. It made French dishes along with the Polynesian stuff, and 10 years ago it was already baking Parmesan cheese into a crisp wafer, much the same appetizer found at Italian restaurants today under the name frico. There was always something a little uneasy about this mixture of culinary sophistication and trade-winds hootchy-kootchy, something from the days when men who were interested in food swaggered and cussed a lot to show they weren’t stuffy. The mix is still uneasy--in this gracious, upscale place, you are treated to incongruous bacchanalian cartoons of beachcombers partying with hula maidens on the menu cover.

Or rather, on both menu covers--the cocktail menu is almost as large as the dinner menu. Many classic rum cocktails are still here: the zombie (rums, orange, lemon and grenadine), the fog cutter (rum, brandy and gin with orange, lemon and orgeat) and, of course, the notorious scorpion (much like a fog cutter, but with a gardenia floating in it).

These drinks have a perennial appeal; around 7:30, the bar is usually filled with sharply dressed young people tossing back menehune juices and navy grogs. But let’s wander out into the dining room, under the Polynesian long-house ceilings festooned with war canoes to a seat near the window that opens onto a tropical garden.

The dining room still does respectable business, not all of it with aging gourmands. Or with guests from the Beverly Hilton next door, for that matter; you hear people who must be regulars advising their friends to order the strawberries for dessert. (Trader Vic’s has always been known for serving high-quality ingredients).

Now open the menu. Notice the size, the heft; the entree list alone numbers almost 60 items. Among the appetizers, you can get something old, like Cosmo’s Tidbits; crab Rangoons (crab won tons, basically); deep-fried prawns; cha siu (sweet pork) and chewy, lacquered oven-smoked spareribs. Or you can order something nouvelle, such as ekolu na Hanalei (seared ahi tuna coated with crushed pepper), thin slices of smoked salmon or some strikingly good smoked shrimp. Whether new or old, most appetizers come with a butterfly-shaped bowl of cocktail sauce and hot Chinese mustard.

You can choose between chuka salad (crunchy seaweed, abalone and shrimp tidbits, very contemporary and Japanese) and turn-of-the-century French creamed morel mushrooms on toast. The Filipino egg rolls (lumpia) have an unexpected delicacy. There are problems in paradise, too: The coriander chicken is less exciting than it sounds, merely chicken chunks wrapped in bacon, and the dry, chewy conch fritters taste of nothing in particular.

The entree section is divided into Trader Vic’s specials, which can be anything from veal with morels to ham and eggs Hawaiian style (a huge ham steak with sliced pineapple, fried bananas, curlicue potatoes and an egg any style), a dish that dates from the Trader Vic’s menu of 50 years ago. A section consisting mostly of fried rice includes pancit guisado , luscious soft noodles with chicken and sweet pepper.

You can also order curries, most of them either a mild Indonesian style based on cream or a medium-hot Indian style with grainy texture and a brooding, oily aroma reminiscent of Indian pickles. The big fun with the curries is the sambal dish, with about a dozen condiments: peanuts, raisins, coconut, mango chutney, something like passion-fruit jam and a lot more.

The largest entree section consists of meats from the restaurant’s unique Chinese ovens, which seem to give everything a solid, chewy texture and a pronounced smoky aroma. The Indonesian lamb roast, served with the meat practically separated from the bones for your convenience, has an elusive soy-and-spice flavor.

The rest of the menu is basically Cantonese. You can get delicate but absurdly overpriced ($29.95) lobster in white sauce with snow peas and water chestnuts (served on boring rice from the Uncle Ben’s school of rice cookery) or Kona crab dau see , somewhat at sea in garlicky black bean sauce, or a dozen or so other Cantonese dishes.

Apart from the banana fritters, the mud pie (made with rum, not chocolate, and ice cream filling), a good cheesecake and a selection of tropical fruits on ice, the dessert list mostly involves flaming sauces on ice cream. Or semi-flamed; quite a lot of rum survives the ordeal, and three servings of Trader Vic’s rum ice cream or the cherries jubilee, or perhaps just two of the Kona ice cream with passion-fruit jam and rum, might get you a DUI citation.

Although Bergeron has been called the father of Pacific Rim cuisine, what is served here isn’t a cuisine. It’s Americanized just a little, tending to sweetness and mildness. When Bergeron was alive it reflected his vigorous tastes, but today the result doesn’t hang together. It’s just a sampler of exotic food.

Americans do a lot more traveling now than they did 37 years ago when Trader Vic’s opened in Los Angeles, and so do people from the other Pacific Rim countries--some of whom come here and open restaurants. One way or another, we’ve tasted the originals of a lot of these dishes by now; we want either a wider range of authentic dishes or some inventive fusion of cuisines.

But though foodies blush, I can’t help still liking the Trader’s. None of the genuine ethnic places has the comfort, the ambience, the experienced waiters or even a single Hawaiian war canoe. Or makes a perfect zombie.

Trader Vic’s, 9876 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills; (310) 276-6345. Dinner served daily. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards. Dinner for two, food only, $45 to $75.