Glide’er Inn Soars on Nostalgia

Glide’er Inn is the quintessential roadhouse, and in 1993, something like a time machine.

Driving up to the restaurant on this quiet stretch of Pacific Coast Highway, you see cars parked around the perimeter of the building, just as Packards and Stutz Bearcats were during the ‘30s, when the Glide’er Inn opened. Never mind that now the cars come from faraway lands like Japan and Germany, or that an adjacent parking lot now holds the overflow.

Inside, the historical continuity is even stronger. The oddball narrow dining room has changed little in 63 years, or so we are told. Literally hundreds of model planes have been suspended from the ceiling in here since the very first days (you feel as if you’re looking at one of those newsreels filmed during the evacuation of Dunkirk). The walls are thick with captioned photos of early American fighter planes, giving the room the nostalgic, mannered look of a small-town museum.

The theme of Glide’er Inn is, of course, aviation, as you have already gathered from the full-size aeroplane suspended over the roof. When the restaurant opened in 1930, the huge Seal Beach ammunition dump had not yet been built, and this part of PCH was one long landing strip. In those days, customers could actually fly up to the restaurant--could literally glide ‘er in --in their two-seater planes, and park them alongside the sports cars. It must have been quite a scene.

The scene at Glide’er Inn today is lively as well, although there always seem to be more patrons in the bar than in the restaurant proper. No matter. It all belongs to a Czech woman named Karla Benzl, who happens to be only the second owner this place has had. (She bought the restaurant from original owner Mike Arnerich a few decades ago.) The specialties here, as the ancient neon sign outside the restaurant proclaims, are steak and seafood. Nothing fancy--just good, honest food, the sort of stuff our parents and grandparents ate.

I should mention that tables at Glide’er Inn are extraordinarily private, walled off from one another like cubicles in a library. The dining area is a maze of blond wood and corridors. You may be able to hear your neighboring diners, but you can’t actually see them.

My first dinner here was memorable. Sand dabs were available that evening, and the waitress wheeled them over to the table on a rickety cart and boned them in front of my very eyes. Boning fish like sand dabs and rex sole at table may be commonplace in San Francisco--particularly on Fisherman’s Wharf, where it is a regular industry--but in seven years of reviewing Orange County restaurants, this is the first I’ve seen of it. (By the way, those sand dabs, lightly dusted with flour and fried, are terrific.)

Most people who dine here do come for the seafood, Benzl says. Fresh fish are written up on a chalkboard and the catch changes daily, anything from orange roughy to Pacific red snapper to mountain trout. Come for lunch and you can get anachronisms like a rich, sherry-flavored seafood Newburg or a mountainous crab Louie salad--two more San Francisco-style dishes not often seen in these parts. At dinner, the very ‘40s menu lists stuffed Pacific lobster, lobster Newburg, even frog legs.

All dinners come with soup and salad, and also with garnishes such as boiled potatoes with parsley butter, rice pilaf or chewy fettuccine with butter and Parmesan. There are good soups: a beefy French onion, served simply with homemade croutons and a sprinkling of cheese, or a choice of clam chowders--a creamy white model or an unctuous red chowder, both made with fresh whole clams.

The appetizers aren’t fancy here. In fact, they seem primarily intended for the crowd hunkered down in the bar: oyster shooters, shrimp cocktails, steamed clams in a too-lemony broth, a silly seafood sampler (Gulf shrimp, oysters, crab legs and clams on the half shell, all on a giant mound of ice).

Among the main courses, a good one is the Fisherman’s Plate combination--if you don’t have a problem with deep-fried food. This is an enormous platter of sole, scallops, shrimp, clams and oysters, all squeaky-fresh, rolled in homemade breading and fried to a golden brown, perfect for dipping in cocktail and/or tartar sauce. Another possibility is the Captain’s Platter, though at $38.95 for two it’s a little pricey. It consists of lobster any style, shrimp and scallops on individual brochettes and halibut almondine (an oversized slab) with all the trimmings.

Seafoods aren’t the only things to eat here, though. You can always get thick prime rib and juicy steaks (I had a trim, tender New York on a recent visit). Benzl doesn’t serve many dishes from her native Czechoslovakia, but she has put Wiener schnitzel, veal Smetana and chicken Smetana on her menu as tributes to the Europe she once knew. Besides, they’re throwback dishes in their own right.

The Smetanas , in this case, don’t take their name from a famous Bohemian composer but from the Slavic word for sour cream. They’re sauteed veal or chicken in a light sour cream and mushroom sauce. The dish with the better known name Wiener schnitzel is three lightly breaded veal medallions. It’s a far cry from the pancake-flat crisp-fried veal scallop this dish is supposed to be, but tasty nonetheless.

For dessert, you can choose among three homemade cakes: a bundt cake that might be made with poppy seed or lemon, depending on the day; a Black Forest chocolate cake; or a lemon cake with lemon frosting--all sweet, simple and satisfying.

But it’s strangely out of character to have one of the restaurant’s good cappuccinos with your cake. The moment I began sipping mine, I felt as if I was thumbing my nose at history.

Glide’er Inn is moderate to expensive. Appetizers are $1.50 to $10.95. Seafoods are $11.95 to $16.50. Steaks and veal are $8.45 to $16.95.

* GLIDE’ER INN

* 1400 E. Pacific Coast Highway, Seal Beach.

* (310) 431-3022.

* Lunch and dinner daily, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

* American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted.