Take a Taste on the Wild Side in Aurora’s Cozy Glow

More and more restaurants are impersonal operations with all the warmth and personality of your average Gila monster. Not Aurora, a Fullerton restaurant where Gila monster is about the only thing they don’t serve.

Chef and owner Leo Holczer has one of the wildest menus this side of the Kruger Game Reserve. Certain times during the year, particularly fall, bring with them special menus studded with such mind-boggling dishes as--and I’m not making any of these up--musk ox with porcini, beaver Dianne and caribou St. Hubertus (don’t ask).

But Aurora’s regular menu is eccentric enough. You can always get spicy Cajun alligator, gnocchi with sliced elk and venison with spaetzle. And familiar foods may be juxtaposed in unfamiliar ways, such as Wiener schnitzel and scampi.

In spite of the oddities, Aurora’s appeal is far more elemental than the mere experience of brushing up against obscure links on the food chain. There’s a sheer warmth about this restaurant, the genuine feeling that you have been a guest in someone’s home. That’s what people seem to miss most about dining out in the ‘90s and that, ultimately, is what brings most people back here.

Aurora is a classic mom-and-pop operation; it’s named for the Holczers’ daughter, 13. Aurora’s ever present Mom, Shelley, who is also the restaurant’s bartender, hostess and bookkeeper, is a former opera singer from Traverse City, Mich. She’s gracious and outgoing, constantly twittering about in the dining room, chatting up the guests. (If you ask nice, she might even sing for you. She did for us, accompanying herself on an electronic Autoharp.)

Service at this restaurant is a big plus. This is one of those places where the team has been in place for a long time, and you can tell. The tuxedo-clad waiters work together like a family. There are few slip-ups.

Naturally, the restaurant is cozy to a fault. Aurora is a low-ceilinged, dimly lighted Continental-style salle where you instinctively yearn for a Manhattan and an earful of Christmas music. (Cute little cut-out snowflakes hang from the ceiling throughout the holidays.)

The best tables, situated along the walls between the bar and the two dining rooms, are equipped with soft brown leather booths. The back room is filled with hokey oil paintings and lots of stained-glass windows to deflect the restaurant’s soft light. Out in front is a classic oak bar, adjacent to which is the restaurant’s enormous, walk-in wine cellar.

This is of special interest because the Holczers are wine buffs. Aurora has received the Wine Spectator’s Best of Excellence award for several years running. The leather-bound wine list is both reasonable and extensive, heavy on old Cabernets, Barolos and Bordeaux.

Start a visit to Aurora in the bar, a de facto social club often full to capacity with the couple’s friends. The chef is Italian Swiss and as jovial as that commercial icon of the ‘60s, the Little Old Winemaker. One evening, a Swiss gentleman identified only as Fred regaled the entire bar with a burst of uninhibited yodeling. Holczer, standing there schmoozing some favored guests, feigned embarrassment, but anyone could see he was beaming with pride.

He’s proud of his cooking, too. Alligator Baton Rouge is the first appetizer listed--and not because of alphabetical order: Holczer is proud of having introduced this delicacy to California in 1983. It’s best described as a denser, less pungent version of crab, and I wonder what it would taste like without its highly spiced sauce. Maybe the chef is afraid that plain, it would make people queasy.

There is no such conundrum regarding more familiar starters such as fried Emmenthaler cheese in a tomato coulis, pan-fried artichoke hearts or the chef’s light minestrone, not to mention solid versions of hot wilted spinach salad, Caesar salad and good, al dente pastas. But it’s the main dishes that make this restaurant distinctive -- hearty platefuls of meat, poultry and seafood in rich sauces, usually served astride great, eggy spaetzle and a variety of baby vegetables.

My favorite, without question, is Holczer’s elk loin with wild berries in a red wine sauce, a dish always available here. Elk is perhaps the most tender, most delicate of all game meats. It’s dark and juicy, just slightly more firm than calf’s liver and loaded with flavor. The sauce it comes in is subtly informed with apple and berries; the meat does most of the talking.

Partridge is another specialty, available often. Think of it as a plumper version of pheasant. Holczer prepares it a l’Alsacienne , nested on a bed of red cabbage alongside those delicious, melt-in-the-mouth spaetzle. But though the presentation is pleasing, the bird itself is not--it’s more rubbery than chicken, less flavorful than duck. With so many good dishes on Aurora’s menu, I wouldn’t bother with this one.

Do try the osso buco , a fork-tender veal shank filled with incredibly delicious marrow. It comes with full-flavored saffron rice in a light, lively tomato sauce. The Wiener schnitzel is also a winner. The huge and almost greaseless veal scallop fills your plate like a catcher’s mitt.

By now you’ve figured that there is something for everyone on this menu, a menu some are bound to find disconcertingly large. The focus is narrowed considerably at dessert time, though. You have a choice of such good things as souffles, apple strudel, crepes with mascarpone cheese and tirami su.

All are good, but the souffles, Grand Marnier and chocolate, deserve special praise. They’re uncommonly light, as ephemeral as cirrus clouds, and served with hand-whipped cream. While you are eating one, Holczer is bound to come by your table and thank you for being a guest in his home. Don’t wait to be invited back. It’s a standing invitation.

Aurora is expensive. Appetizers are $5.85 to $9.95. Soups and salads are $3.85 to $7.50. Entrees and special dishes are $14.50 to $25.50.

* AURORA

1341 S. Euclid St., Fullerton.

(714) 738-0272.

Lunch Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; dinner Monday through Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m. Closed Sunday.

All major cards accepted.