RESTAURANT REVIEW : A Game of Chicken at Dan Tana’s

On a Saturday night, every table at Dan Tana’s is full, the bar is packed and there are about 10 people jammed around the front desk, all waiting for tables. So much for our 9 o’clock reservations. We find a place to stand, watch the hockey game on TV and pick out a couple of movie stars and a quiz show personality among the clientele. Someone in the crowd hollers over the noise: “I can’t remember the last time I was in a restaurant with Chianti bottles hanging from the ceiling!”

Dan Tana’s is 25 years old this year and still going strong. In a town where capellini alla checca has become as endemic as the hamburger, Dan Tana’s remains a bastion of well-simmered meat sauces, fettuccine alfredo and steaks the size of paperback bestsellers.

After 20 minutes, we’re led to a red rolled-leatherette booth in the smoking section on the bar side of the restaurant. We still have a good view of the hockey game. The ceiling overhead is steeply pitched, the beams burgeoning with clusters of those Chianti bottles. The tablecloths are red-and-white checked. The bread is a crusty sourdough. It feels like 1968.

Our waiter, a handsome older gent, wins our hearts. I look down the long list of chicken dishes on the menu--chicken Vesuvius, chicken cacciatore, chicken Lisbon a la Jimmy. What I really want is chicken piccata, but I don’t see it.

“Are any of these chickens cooked with lemon, white wine and capers?” I ask.

“Ah, you want chicken piccata,” he says, and starts to write down the order.

“That’s not on the menu,” I say.

“Oh,” he says, “don’t pay any attention to the menu.”

Dan Tana’s is fun. And the cooking here is some of the best of its kind. If ever there was a place to order Caesar salad and spaghetti and meatballs, this is it.

The Caesar, made in the dining room, is a classic: juicy, garlicky, lemony. The croutons get just the way I like them--slightly soaked on the outside, still crunchy within.

The antipasto plate is a throwback to the ‘60s: gummy white cheese, garbanzo beans, salami, hard tomato, a spoonful of caponata.

The house salad is crunchy, chopped iceberg lettuce with a good vinaigrette. Among the appetizers, Dan Tana’s serves good, classic versions of fried calamari and steamed clams. The fettuccine alfredo is piping hot and delicious, but grainy as it cools.

On one visit, the man at the next table ordered spaghetti with meatballs and once I saw his heap of pasta with two apple-sized meatballs, I was sold. There’s a kind of visual contagion to the dish--a man who came in after me, eyed my portion and ordered it too.

As spaghetti and meatballs go, Dan Tana’s is pretty good. The meatballs are dense cannonballs of protein, the meat sauce . . . well, I’m sure that back in the good old days Dan Tana’s was a contender.

Entrees can be ordered a la carte or as a dinner with antipasto, soup or salad, vegetable and coffee. I like ordering a la carte, that way I can get a whole plate of spinach or broccoli sauteed with garlic and olive oil, or a heap of potatoes Beckman (not on the menu), which are puffy fried potatoes with dark, crisp fried onions.

Grilled meats are excellent, particularly the chicken and the lamb chops. The chicken is crisp on the outside, luscious within. The lamb chops, two sizable clubs, four ribs thick, are perfectly medium-rare.

The biggest disappointment is the scampi: the portion is generous, the accompanying spaghetti tossed with garlic and butter is delicious, but the shrimps themselves, though sweet, are tough.

The chicken piccata, however, is perfect: tender, lemony, one of the few truly inspired uses for capers.

It’s a challenge with such hardy food to save room for dessert. On one visit, I did split a bland, creamy custard Anna with a friend. On this Saturday night, unwilling for the evening to end, we are game for dessert, but can’t catch our waiter’s eye. He’s off charming other tables. After a half hour, our coffee cups dry, we relinquish our table.

Standing on Santa Monica Boulevard, waiting for the valet, it’s a shock to see late-model cars and scantily clad teen-agers. We feel as if we’ve been someplace else, far away, a long time ago.

Dan Tana’s, 9071 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, (310) 275-9444. Lunch Monday through Friday, dinner seven nights. Full bar. Valet parking. Major credit cards. Dinner for two, food only, $38 to $110.