RESTAURANT REVIEW : Masquers: Mixed Food, Mixed Show

The new Masquers Cafe is not the notorious old Hollywood haunt full of dark wood and Chandleresque atmosphere, the alleged birthing ground of the Screen Actors Guild and the location of the first New Wave show in Los Angeles. Located on 3rd Street, three blocks east of La Cienega, the new Masquers is not even in Hollywood.

It’s not a bar--yet (a liquor license is pending). But the storefront supper club is named in memory of the famous, recently bulldozed landmark.

The cafe’s owner, Harris Smith, championed a crusade to save the original, right up until the bulldozers arrived. And while the 3rd Street Masquers lacks the ambience and history of the old club, it does have its own charms.

The tables are dressed with white linen, white butcher paper and a single red rose. Walls are rubbed a disquieting dark, dental pink. There are photographs on the walls of languid women and an acoustic group singing love songs on a small stage.

Masquers has entertainment six nights a week; early in the evening, on different days, you might encounter dinner theater, improv, a poetry reading, R&B; or rock ‘n’ roll. Later on, there might be jazz, Caribbean music, comedy. There is no cover charge, only a $4-per-person minimum. Bookings shift and change, so it’s good to call ahead--unless you want to take your chances.

I’d been taking my chances at Masquers over a period of several weeks. I came in one night following a dinner theater and found the place full of older folk. They drifted out as a mildly Christian acoustic group took over the stage. Another evening, we ate quickly to escape a couple of folk-rockers whose music wasn’t so much terrible as over-amplified.

Currently, it seems, Masquers is a forum for variously talented, good-looking musicians and comics showcasing for their friends and interested booking agents. Eventually, the cafe will no doubt build up its own audience. Meanwhile, the different acts draw in their own followings and a few unsuspecting passersby like myself.

On a hot summer Tuesday night, I stop in for a late dinner with a friend. We settle into a booth. Brad Parker’s and Steve Cochran’s mellow, wiseacre rockabilly is great.

The fuzzy-haired waiter brings us menus, pulls out a chair and sits down with us. The menu is a single photocopied page written in a minimalist style, which reminds me of the menu at the now-defunct Trinity. Clams 6. Caesar 6. Penne 8. Chicken Skewers 11. No further explanation is given. Masquers’ chef, in fact, hails from the Trinity kitchen. But the connections, we’re told, stop there. The food at Masquers is not meant to be a bit Trinitarian, but Mediterranean/ Moroccan.

Our now-resident waiter advises us on our order, or tries to. The item listed as penne, he says, has black olives in it. And the pizzas are good.

Spinach pastel turns out to be an acceptably flaky, flavorful spinach pie. Eggplant caponata is a heap of good stewed vegetables to be scooped up with pita bread. The baby mixed salad has a sweet, decent dressing but shouldn’t be ordered along with a sandwich. The sandwich comes with the same salad--something the underwritten menu and our encamped waiter both neglect to tell us. The Caesar is salty.

Our friendly waiter is right about the pizza, at least. The cilantro-chicken pie has a sturdy, satisfying crust, juicy chunks of chicken and onion, and a pleasurably pervasive cilantro presence.

The laconic penne turns out to be a salty puttanesca. Fettuccine with ground broccoli in cream sauce would be delicious with a fraction of the salt. The grilled chicken, also, is salty to the point of being inedible. And I’m a rabid salt lover. . . .

The roasted lamb sandwich is disappointingly tiny--the chopped meat, while occasionally gristly, is so succulent you just want more.

Desserts and pastries are in need of serious help. The apricot-cheese pastry was hard and stale, the cheesecake waxy, the apple tart sodden and dull. Espressos, cappucinos, lattes are the by-product of a sorry encounter between man and machine. Man and guitar seems a better bet.

* Masquers Cafe, 8334 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles, (213) 653-4848, 653-4849. Open Mondays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. to after hours. No alcohol. Cash only. $4 minimum per person. Dinner for two, food only, $12-$55.