RESTAURANT REVIEW : Main Street Cafe Is Truly World Apart

Dining at the World Cafe can be like a dream. I don’t mean to say that it’s dreamy, but rather that the experience, like dreams, can be disjointed, odd, unpredictable, surprising and occasionally gratifying. Consider this evening:

We sat at a table between two thresholds. The room was full of post-modern oddments--a patch of painted ocean on the wall, a white grand piano, kinky decorative pipes, a stray porthole.

A waiter came up to our table and stood there as if we knew him--he was just waiting for us to recognize him. Then, as if he suddenly remembered his role, he asked if we would like something to drink. Water, please, we said. This was clearly not the right answer, for he wandered off and went table to table, talking to people. After a long time, somebody brought us bread and big olives--big thirst-makers. After another long time, the waiter came back to take our order.

“What’s on the three-vegetable salad?” we asked.

“Three vegetables and a salad,” he said.

Sometime after this edifying exchange, our ice water finally arrived. The waiter reappeared and told us eggplant was one of the vegetables on the three-vegetable salad. The salad arrived, a circular display of onions and two kinds of squash with some lightly dressed baby greens heaped on top. No eggplant. We also had spinach pancakes: four dark green, heavy discs tasting intensely of spinach and cheese. Even topped with sour cream and a bit of golden caviar, they were at best curious. Before we were done with our appetizers, the entrees came. After a moment of confusion, the runner slid the remaining appetizers onto one small plate, arranged them neatly with his fingers.

The dish called Seared Pepper Crusted Tuna With Eight Treasured Rice was topped with a big white snarl of curly deep-fried rice noodles. “A bird’s nest!” said the runner. Under the bird nest, the tuna was so encrusted with coarsely cracked pepper I could taste little else. Treasures in the rice included mushy beans, vegetable bits, a few strands of seaweed. A vegetarian mixed-grill pizza--upon which eggplant figured heavily--was cheesy, basic and unfortunately soggy.

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There was a long stretch between dinner and dessert. When our waiter rematerialized, we ordered coffee and tapioca pudding. After another interminable pause came two tepid cups of decaf. We drank them in hopes of a fresh, hot refill--to no avail. When our waiter drifted past, he waved his hand over the table like a wand and said, “Oh! Pudding’s coming up.”

When the runner brought the large-pearl tapioca in a jumbo martini glass, we spotted something dark at the bottom of the glass. “Raisins or something,” said the runner. The raisins turned out to be chewy sour cherries. In fact, the light, fluffy tapioca was over-run with them. The runner came by again just to find out what was in our tapioca. “Do you like it?” he asked?

“No,” we admitted.

His hand formed into a fist, which he shook. “Well, I’m just gonna go back there and let the chef know about it,” he said.

The waiter picked up our credit card just as he began one of his long, talky peregrinations around the room. We felt as if we’d sent a little part of ourselves on a long, uncertain journey. When we were finally able to leave, and walked out onto the sidewalks of Main Street, the sensation was one of waking from a long, peculiar sleep.

I originally visited the World Cafe because Robert Gadsby, formerly of Xiomara in Pasadena, was cooking there. But by the time I paid my first visit, Gadsby had already reworked the menu and moved on. The cooking being done in his wake seemed broader, far less precise than his work at Xiomara.

At lunch I enjoyed a meaty grilled swordfish sandwich, though to tell the truth, I ignored the hunk of dense baguette on which the fish was served. The one good recommendation made by our elusive waiter was the spicy bow-tie pasta with cilantro pesto and juicy chunks of chicken. I also was won over by an unlikely dish of crab lasagna, in which fried eggplant stood in for the noodles. But of course, on every visit, there was the spotty service to deal with. This is not a restaurant for the hurried or impatient.

World Cafe, 2820 Main St., Santa Monica, (310) 392-1661. Lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sunday, brunch Sunday. Full bar. American Express, MasterCard, Visa. Parking nearby. Dinner for two, food only, $32-$68.