RESTAURANTS : Pizza Takes the Cake Among Eclectic Fare at Grill

Who’d be zany enough to put pineapple salsa, smoked Gouda, fresh papaya, chili peppers, ginger, lime juice, toasted coconut and Canadian bacon on a pizza and call it Maui Wowie?

Craig Hofman, owner of Cornerstone Grill, that’s who.

Maybe you remember this handsome brick-and-wrought-iron edifice when it was Brea’s much-ballyhooed special-occasion restaurant, Magnolia’s Peach. That peach-oriented restaurant was notable for such oddball dishes as broiled chicken crowned with peach sauce, as well as its Bellini cocktail (champagne mixed with peach juice).

Hofman, who recently acquired this property, has completely renovated the interior, adding a pool parlor and, for die-hard sports fans, throwing in 16 TVs, mostly on a bar patio above the dining areas. From a design standpoint, Cornerstone Grill is loaded: lush carpeting, long blue velvet curtains, Op Art upholstery, irregularly shaped wooden tables, a shiny refinished floor.

Despite the multitude of TVs, Hofman doesn’t want his clientele to think of Cornerstone Grill as a sports bar or hangout. The concept here is that weather-beaten favorite, the creative American grill: pizzas, pastas, rotisserie items, salads, upscale desserts. The result is the perfect restaurant for those who get a sudden urge to watch the Rams while dining (or vice versa), or for anyone who likes to shoot a friendly game of nine-ball while waiting for a table. It may be less than perfect for those who expect minor miracles out of kitchens.

Hofman, of course, is the man responsible for Hof’s Hut, a popular local chain of coffee shops, and an upscale eatery called Hof’s Grill, located a short stretch down Imperial Highway from the new restaurant. So a lot of his food ideas are well-known to Orange County restaurant-goers.

Pizza is as good a starting place as any on Cornerstone Grill’s ambitious, outsized menu. The medium-thick crust is laced with honey, so it has a mild sweetness. Toppings range from conventional to a walk on the wild side, with mixed results.

The Maui Wowie mentioned above turns out to be sweet, all right, but far less cloying than the description might lead you to expect. The dominant flavors are smoky Gouda and salty Canadian bacon, with the coconut and papaya playing minor notes on the taste buds. “It’s a huge seller,” confided Hofman by phone.

Chicken with candied garlic pizza is a more appealing surprise, the roasted garlic cloves and tiny pieces of rotisserie chicken working a harmonious duet. Sticks and stones pizza is basically sausage and pepperoni, the twist being that the pepperoni is cut into thick, crunchy, irregularly shaped sticks.

My instincts rightly warned me the pastas would be slapdash and overcooked. Spicy melanzane is a good idea: normally penne pasta, roasted Japanese eggplant, olive oil, plenty of flaked red chili, marinara sauce. Inexplicably, though, our penne (one of the hardest pastas to overcook) was replaced by mushy linguine.

The Thai pasta--topped with rotisserie chicken, an overpowering peanut butter sauce, bean sprouts, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots and straw mushrooms--is another adventure in mushy linguine.

Anyone fond of chicken flavored with peanut butter would do better to order the Chinese chicken. This is a bargain at $7.95: an enormous bird, three kinds of fried noodles, a mountain of Napa cabbage, spinach and cucumber, a fistful of sesame and more.

All the salads are entree-sized, from a classic Cobb to an unusual blackened halibut Caesar--a dish that fails to prove that grated hard cheese and fish flavors go well together. There are good hearty homemade soups like spicy vegetable, the kind of fare that made Hof’s Hut a success.

The entire menu is available at both lunch and dinner, but during the noon hour most people choose one of the restaurant’s giant sandwiches. You can’t lose with the hot roast turkey: tender meat on grilled sourdough with some of the best mashed potatoes and country gravy in town. The thin-sliced tri-tip, though, is sugared to death by candied onions and a sticky-sweet barbecue sauce.

That barbecue sauce works better on the tender, meaty baby back ribs, a sure bet here. You can also get a nice piece of hardwood-grilled pork tenderloin, served with apple sauce and mashed potatoes. Just tell them to lose the candy-like raspberry sauce the meat rests on.

At eclectic restaurants such as this one, stir-fries are often too salty, so we asked our obliging waiter to ease up on the salt in the chicken stir fry. He did, but this melange of nearly a dozen vegetables and well-cooked rice still had a problem--an unfortunate sweet soy aftertaste.

You’ll be safer with pricey entrees like the 20-ounce Porterhouse ($18.95) or a charbroiled piece of fresh fish (prices quoted daily). The steak would have elicited a major rave, in fact, had the accompanying baked potato not been mealy.

The dessert list is short and (of course) sweet, an abbreviated version of the Hof’s Hut pies and cake list. The rich chocolate blackout cake is great, and so is Aunt April’s brown-sugar-happy apple crisp.

Should those dessert choices miss, fall back on the Maui Wowie. Have them hold the cheese, peppers and bacon and you’re home.

Cornerstone Grill is high-end moderate. Pizzas are $7.95 to $8.50. Pastas are $7.95 to $10.95. Specialties are $8.50 to $14.95. Desserts are $3.95.

* CORNERSTONE GRILL

* 600 Brea Mall Drive, Brea.

* (714) 990-2094.

* Open Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 2 a.m., Sunday 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.

* All major cards accepted.