Restaurant Review : Pasta’s Not the Thing at Fritto Misto

On a Friday night about 9:15, Fritto Misto in Santa Monica is overflowing: The wait, says the friendly host, is 30 minutes. After leaning against trees, wondering if any of Fritto Misto’s staff belong to the Culinary Workers and Bartenders Union across the street, after giving the evil eye to a table of loungers who have long since finished their desserts and paid their bill, a party of five decides to walk around the block. They stroll through a neighborhood of quiet apartment houses to a corner Winchell’s where the men, who are starving--it’s already way past their dinner time--can’t resist some amuse-gueules . The party returns in time to hear Fritto Misto’s host call their name.

The five are ushered into one of two white, well-lit, modestly appointed dining rooms. Windows are dressed in lace, wooden chairs have woven straw seats. Ceramic platters on the wall and cobalt drinking glasses add spots of concentrated color. A freezer by the door is packed with the house specialty: bags of former tenant Florentino’s frozen fresh pasta.

The neighborhood crowd is relaxed, good-humored: Dinner won’t strain anyone’s budget, and no one rushes you. The table of loungers, for example, stays for hours. The host works the room, talking to anybody and everybody. The party of five repulse several of his advances without being, they hope, too unfriendly. But they’re amused and content enough with their own company.

The five order a round of appetizers and salads. The namesake dish, fritto misto , is a plate of shrimp, calamari, vegetables (well, rather more vegetables than seafood) all dipped in a good, spicy breading, fried to an endearing toasty-brown, and served with a red tomato cocktail sauce and roasted garlic mayonnaise.

Salads come in two sizes; five people barely did justice to two excellent large salads, one a mixed baby greens with Gorgonzola and walnuts, the other a crisp Caesar. So far, the five agree, everybody’s happy--impressed, even.

Then come the pastas.

Fresh pasta (as opposed to dried) is not in and of itself an excellent thing. It can be quite temperamental and difficult to handle. If over-kneaded, fresh pasta can be tough. Otherwise, it can be fragile and easy to overcook, at which point it gums together and/or breaks into bits.

Portions are enormous here, but this does not mitigate the fact that Fritto Misto’s cut pastas--spaghettini, linguine, fettucine--have all the symptoms of overcooking.

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Basil spaghettini, actually a long, squared noodle, is a snarl of soft 2- and 3-inch noodle segments stirred up with chopped tomatoes and lots of flavorless, scentless slivered basil. A red sauce with Italian sausage and roasted peppers is dense, rich, spicy-hot and inundates a pile of sodden, clumpy linguine.

Ravioli, on the other hand, have a thick, floury, chewy dough. So-called jumbo ravioli, bright green squares filled with an utterly unrecognizable ground substance, are actually smaller than other ravioli; their sauce, with cream and caramelized onions, is tasty but there’s way too much of it.

Mild buffalo mozzarella, a delicate cheese, is hard to locate in its namesake ravioli, given the thick, undercooked dough and heavy, cooked-down marinara.

Pasta, as some of the five found out later, is not necessarily handled better on other occasions. Fritto Misto’s biggest seller is the Cajun seared chicken: fiery blackened chicken chunks and a rich, bland garlic cream on, yes, falling-apart red bell pepper fettucine.

Each strand of black and white pasta is two-toned and far more resilient than the other pastas: Served with plump, sweet shrimp in garlic butter, this pasta seems like a chewy, shredded seaweed.

Dinner, which started out so felicitously with fritto misto and salads, was now mired in enormous plates of disappointing pasta. All around us people were tucking into the same food with relish--surely, one of life’s mysteries. Still, the party of five left happy, thanks to absolutely perfect banana cream pie: cold, with flaky crust, fresh bananas, mild custard, unsweetened whipped cream.

* Fritto Misto , 601 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica , (310) 458-2829. Open for lunch Monday through Saturday. Open for dinner 7 days. Beer and wine served. Major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only $24-$52.