RESTAURANT REVIEW : One Chef’s Vision : Drew’s American Cafe offers an eccentric menu with architectural influences.

Drew Wendelken has a vision. If you want to sample his highly personal, extremely quirky take on traditional American food, go to Drew’s American Cafe. You’ll probably either love it or hate it.

Wendelken is the sort of chef known as a “young American chef,” meaning that his food proclaims his vision at every turn. He fancies decorating the rims of plates with tiny jewels of sliced fruit, obscuring his entrees under a flurry of shredded egg whites and piling up various components of his dishes to make them look like high-rise buildings. This is part of his vision and he’s entitled to it. It definitely adds to the experience if, say, you want your meat loaf accompanied by a crust that makes it look like an apartment complex in a snow squall.

You’d never guess that this restaurant would be so eccentric just by looking at it. It’s a cozy-looking, L-shaped neighborhood haunt, replete with clapboard and white brick. The ceiling is a relaxing forest green, and some of the walls are actually salmon.

You want cozy? Better plan on doing a lot of whispering because tables at Drew’s are, shall we say, intimately placed. You could ask to be seated in the plant-filled outdoor patio, which hangs directly out over a quiet stretch of Ventura Boulevard, but it’s probably too cold to dine out there on winter evenings, so right now you’re better off inside, whispering.

The best tables for a private tete-a-tete are the ones situated on the long end of the L, right by the rear door, but most people choose to huddle in the main dining room. It’s kind of cute in here, with muted lighting, a mirrored wall and a distinctly East Coast ambience. When easy-listening jazz is being piped in, dining in this room feels like sitting out bad weather in an airport lounge in somewhere like Rochester, N. Y., or Erie, Pa.--definitely nowhere in our time zone.

Drew’s has an ardent staff--they’re so eager to please that they twice poured iced tea into my Coke glass--and they like to refer to the food as “American cuisine with touches of California.” I’m not convinced. Wendelken comes from Stony Brook, N. Y., and his food doesn’t remind me of anything I’ve ever seen around here.

Look at his baked chicken with corn bread stuffing and fresh fruit sauce. The person who orders it might reasonably expect half a chicken with stuffing crammed into the cavity, drizzled with, say, an orange sauce. All right--let’s be radical, maybe an apricot sauce.

Nope. It’s a huge pile of light, celery- and sausage-infused stuffing topped with three elegant slices of white meat chicken, sitting in a red pond of raspberry sauce. Come again?

“Our famous duck breast” is sort of the same idea, except that this time, the stuffing is mingled with shredded duck meat, the large slice of duck breast on top wears a sombrero of crisp duck skin and the fruit sauce doesn’t clash so mightily. I prefer my duck straight, thank you.

But for those who appreciate the architectural nuances of dining, his meatloaf is almost a sure bet. It consists of three huge, Stonehenge-style slabs of a grainy, deliciously fatty beef and pork meat loaf with a pastry crust, topped with a rich mushroom gravy.

A few dishes are a bit more traditional than these. Sometimes just a bit: Homemade ravioli with chicken and shrimp are not pasta pockets with a chicken and shrimp filling as the name implies, but good, chewy spinach ravioli served with sauteed shrimp and slices of chicken. Grilled fish over penne Provencal turns out--surprise!--to be exactly what it says. The kitchen makes the dish with either Dover sole or salmon, and I’d choose salmon, a stronger fish and a better choice to stand up to the robust, tomato-rich sauce.

Drew’s doesn’t serve appetizers per se, because the entrees are part of a complete menu that includes salad and dessert for one price. On his “Special Menu,” you can get warm salads with ingredients like duck breast, chicken and fish, piled up halfway to the ceiling, and for $1.50 extra, you get a thick soup such as chicken bisque or a hearty tomato-vegetable soup that must be 50% spinach.

Lighter dishes, such as fresh vegetable with angel hair, are offered on Drew’s “Under Ten Dollars Menu.”

These also come with simple desserts like a homemade chocolate brownie drizzled with Hershey’s syrup, fresh fruit plate or vanilla ice cream mashed up with walnuts. Drew’s dessert vision, thankfully, is a little more accessible to the masses.

Where and When Location: Drew’s American Cafe, 16260 Ventura Blvd., Encino. Suggested Dishes: grilled fish over penne Provencal, $14.50; homemade ravioli with chicken and shrimp, $15; Drew’s meatloaf, $12.95. Hours: Lunch Monday-Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; dinner Tuesday-Sunday, 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Beer and wine only. Parking in structure on Libbit Street. Price: American Express, MasterCard and Visa. Dinner for two, $27 to $45. Call: (818) 501-8051.