RESTAURANT REVIEW : Two Alejo’s: Twice the Pleasure

Early Saturday evening, I call to make reservations at Alejo’s in Marina del Rey.

“We don’t take reservations,” says a voice. “But don’t worry. We’re not that busy tonight.”

Famous last words.

By the time we find Alejo’s in a strip mall between a doughnut shop and a Fat Burger, there are people clogging the doorway and clustering out on the sidewalk.

We park. A man offers to wash our windshield. Another man says he is the valet: We don’t have to give him our keys or anything, he says, but we do have to pay the $2 fee. I squeeze through the crowded doorway and put my name in a spiral notebook. Eight parties are ahead of us. I look wistfully around the narrow restaurant, at people happily digging into spaghetti and meatballs, linguini and shrimp, lasagna and fat cannelloni.

We wait. Some of the hovering people have uncorked the wine they’ve brought--this Alejo’s branch doesn’t sell wine. We read most of the Sunday paper and watch the valet’s harrowing parking style--it’s worth $2 not to let him drive my car.

Forty minutes later, we’re thrilled to be seated. The owner and his wife, the mom and pop of this classic mom-and-pop establishment, gaze down from a large photograph on the wall. The crowd is casual, comfortable: Venice art types, film students on double dates, older married couples and even a few serious foodies taking the night off from first-press Tuscan olive oil, parmigiano Reggiano and mixed baby greens.

At first, I think the young woman next to us has forgotten to button her blouse all the way down; then I realize we’re supposed to admire the fine gold hoop threaded through her navel.

We encounter a similar wait at Alejo’s on a Thursday night. Another night, a Tuesday, we decide to try the newer Westchester Alejo’s, a larger, roomier, newer version of the northerly store, just 10 minutes away. Here there’s more of a beach-city crowd--more family-oriented, more tanned, less pierced. There are no lines, no people spilling out onto the Westchester sidewalk, but our waiter isn’t convinced he’s going to get off so easy: “I’m waiting for the rush to hit,” he says and eyes the door.

The food at the two Alejo’s is inexpensive, mountainous, ferociously laced with garlic. They share a printed menu, the same items appear on chalkboards announcing the specials and you pretty much have the same experiences at both places.

A basket of good, chewy bread arrives, accompanied by chopped garlic and olive oil in equal measure. And therein lies the night’s first staggering blast of garlic. We dip, bite, and whooooo ! Everyone at my table cries out. Yikes! Man alive! I haven’t had garlic in these doses since Raffaelo’s in West Hollywood closed--or maybe since I first started cooking in college and thought that no amount of garlic was ever, ever, too much.

The Caesar salad is decent--garlicky, of course. A generous serving of roasted peppers with anchovies on the side is one of the better appetizers. The calamari salad is tired; and I’ve had fresher-tasting fresh mozzarella. I do think that the pizza in Westchester is noticeably better than in the other store; the Westchester crust is bubblier, chewier. A small Pizza Margherita, at $3.95, is a bargain.

The appeal of the Alejo’s lies in the restaurants’ reigning unpretentiousness; they hearken back to a time when Italian food was not fashionable, but hearty and appealing and a known good value. Alejo’s is the sort of place you’ll remember more for drinking Chianti and long conversations about Nietzsche or film noir .

Those huge piles of pasta are unexceptional composites of standard marinara sauce, soft spaghetti, big bland meatballs, acceptable sausage. The roasted chicken is overcooked, the pasta primavera is a sodden swamp of tomato sauce and vegetables cooked to mush. The chicken piccata was tender, lemony, heaped with garlic . . . and sadly, caper-less!

We have our best luck ordering specials. Sea bass cooked with garlic and basil is decent; the shrimp diablo are devilishly spicy. And there’s a passable eggplant-and-chicken casserole called Mama Mia. Mama Mia, indeed.

* Alejo’s Presto Trattoria, 4002 Lincoln Blvd., Marina del Rey, (310) 822-0095; 8343 Lincoln Blvd., Westchester, (310) 670-6677. Lunch Monday through Friday, dinner seven nights. Beer and wine at Westchester location only. MasterCard and Visa. Dinner for two, food only, $16-$42.