RESTAURANTS : Steaking a Claim and Winging It

The parade of regional foods marches on.

Just check out Brookhurst Street in Fountain Valley, where you can eat at either Boston Chicken, which attempts to work yet another wrinkle into the rotisserie chicken concept, or Philly’s Best, which serves one of the iconic American sandwiches, the cheese steak.

Cheese steaks are practically a religion in Philadelphia, right up there with the Phillies, Bill Cosby and the Liberty Bell. Think of a long Italian roll, sliced, lined with cheese and stuffed with pulverized meat and greasy onions; in short, an aerobics instructor’s nightmare. There’s a certain amount of controversy about the cheese, by the way. Depending on which Philadelphian you talk to, you have to use either provolone, aerosol cheese spread or white American.

The first cheese steak I ever had was at a place called Pat’s Steaks in South Philly, and without claiming to be a connoisseur of this pleasingly greasy treat, I take my cap off to Philly’s Best’s owner, Bob Levey; his sandwich beats Pat’s. It comes on an Amoroso brand Italian roll flown in from Philadelphia, with a white American cheese lining and a heap of fried onions on top of the meat. The cooks here are constantly chopping and grilling the flat, ultra-thin slabs of meat, which a manager tells me is cut from the rib eye.

Some people ask for marinated sweet red peppers on their sandwich, a condiment the restaurant sells in large glass bottles. I prefer my cheese steak au naturel , along with a bag of tangy, lightly spiced Wise barbecue potato chips and a Frank’s Wishniak black cherry soda, two more items Levey also has flown in from his hometown.

That isn’t the end of the of Philadelphia imports. You can get delicious chocolate-covered Goldenberg’s Peanut Butter Chews (six to a wrapper) and goofy little packaged desserts from a company called Tastycakes, such as kreme-filled stuff with names such as Coconut Junior and Peanut Butter Kandy Kake.

Philly’s Best doesn’t count on cheese steaks alone, however. The hoagie, otherwise known as the submarine, is another sandwich taken seriously in the City of Brotherly Love. I tried the shop’s Italian version--a salty sandwich made with capicollo , salami, provolone, mortadella, lettuce, tomato, a spritz of peppery olive oil and a mound of sliced raw onions. Mmmm. (Hope you don’t have a heavy date.)

Decor is simple and nostalgic. Walls are blanketed with Eagles, Phillies and Sixers memorabilia, as well as photos depicting famous sons of the city, such as basketball star Dr. J and former talk show host Joey Bishop.

Philly’s Best is inexpensive. Sandwiches are $3.99 to $5.25.

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Boston Chicken is the first Southern California branch of an outfit that already has more than 400 branches nationwide, with plans to double that by the year 2000.

I wish them luck, but so far I can’t tell what makes this concept so special, or at all peculiar to Boston. I happen to come from Boston, and I never saw a spit-roasted chicken there (outside a supermarket) until I moved away. This is good chicken, mind you, cooked on vertical rotisseries heated by white bricks, so it’s reasonably juicy and tender, and it has a tasty brown sugar and garlic glaze that makes the skin stick to your fingers.

Well, so it’s good. With nearby Claim Jumper and the newly opened Kenny Rogers Rotisserie Chicken just down the street, Boston Chicken, which opened in the spring, faces a stiff test in its first few months.

“No problem,” opined a young manager when I asked how the chain planned to deal with the competition. “No one else around here offers 22 fresh side dishes, all made on the premises. Besides, our chicken tastes better.”

Er, maybe. And it needs to be said that these sides have their ups and downs. The best of them are a delicious cranberry relish and a fine puree of butternut squash, two items dear to Yankee hearts. The cranberry relish is notable for crunchy nuggets of plump walnut, which add a welcome complexity. You can also get creamed spinach and garlic and dill new potatoes, both safe choices.

But I wouldn’t recommend the salty, yet insipid, stove-top-type stuffing, and I can’t say much for the baked beans, either, which are sugary enough to make your teeth hurt. All chicken orders come with a good, dense loaf of corn bread, made with so much shortening it doesn’t need butter.

You might want to try the crusty chicken pot pie as an alternative to the roasted chicken. It has a rich top crust tasting faintly of cheese, and the filling is both shredded and chunked white meat, peas, carrots, potatoes and a well-crafted veloute sauce with a lingering fragrance of tarragon.

I’m happy to report that the uniformed young staff is unfailingly cheerful and polite, and that the dense, ultra-chocolatey fudge nut brownies are great. But I still don’t think the words Boston and chicken go together like Philly and cheese steak.

Boston Chicken is inexpensive. Individual meals are $3.99 to $5.99. Specialties are $3.99 to $4.99.

* BOSTON CHICKEN

* 18951 Brookhurst St., Fountain Valley.

* (714) 964-0012.

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

* MasterCard, Visa and ATM Cards.

* PHILLY’S BEST

* 18691 Brookhurst St., Fountain Valley.

(714) 968-2448. Also one at 4250 Barranca Parkway, Irvine. (714) 857-2448.

* Both open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-7:30 p.m. Sunday.

* Cash only.