RESTAURANT REVIEW : Cafe E2: Try the German Specialties

Imagine a German street-side cafe--dark wood, tiny wooden tables, tile floors, sturdy tableware, sky-high beer glasses, customers smoking with abandon. Plop it down on the corner of Broadway and Ocean in Santa Monica, and you have a pretty good idea what the new Cafe E2 is all about. The clone of Cafe Extrablatt in Munich, E2 is also owned by German journalist Michael Graeter, who has paved the wall of this new cafe with memorabilia from all his assignments--everything from signed celebrity head shots to the covers of girlie magazines.

Push through the heavy revolving door on a Saturday evening, and it truly is like leaving the country. In the bar, one hears French and German, and catches the unmistakable musk of Gauloises. We request a seat in non-smoking.

Away from the bar, the restaurant is empty. We’re given a seat by the window, but the floor’s at such a slant, it’s nervous-making. We finally settle into a nice corner banquette.

*

The menu comes on a kind of rattan frame with a handle whose purpose is unclear--although at one point it does come in handy for semaphore in summoning a waiter. The front of the menu gives a list of restaurants where, “should you feel in the mood for something other than (E2’s) plat du jour, “ you might consider going instead. The list includes Citrus, Chinois and several neighbors. This, we’ll soon realize, is dangerous advice. If the owner and chef aspire to have E2 included in the same league as the restaurants listed, they have some serious work ahead.

Our waiter, a cheery fellow with a long gray ponytail, repeatedly enthuses that the chef, Michael Baumgart, is a four-star chef. In fact, Baumgart used to work for a Michelin three-star chef in Germany. But one glance through the menu, with its poor organization and concept, and it’s hard to believe he worked in a three-star kitchen at all--or any other professional kitchen.

It’s not that the food is all bad. German specialties and most things involving potatoes are quite good.

Some breakfasts are pre-packaged: the Karl Valentin Breakfast, for example, comes with white sausage, pretzel and a small beer. The American breakfast includes a glass of milk and a “peace” of bubble gum.

The Munich Breakfast’s boiled egg is a 3 1/2-minute masterpiece and the pretzel is chewy, although we find it hard to believe it was baked that day. The promised house-made marmalade is a berry jam, and the pate, while delicious, is the size of a poker chip.

Ordered a la carte, omelets and eggs, served in cute cast-iron frying pans, do come with toast. This is one meal where it’s a bad idea to order potatoes: They’re deep-fried chunks.

*

At dinner, the best items are those snacks and entrees that are German specialties. Weisswurst , white sausages, arrive in a small tureen of hot water. The casing is inedible, but once peeled away, the meat itself is fluffy and wonderful with mustard. Fleischpflanzerl are plump, gently spiced, slightly flattened Bavarian meat balls. Leberkas , a hot veal loaf, is like a sublime, airy bologna. These last two dishes come with an absolutely delicious, vinegary hot potato salad.

Much ink is given to the house-made Bauer bread--it can be ordered with chives or tomato or veal toppings--but the dense, pale bread is downright dull.

Homemade potato gnocchi in a cream sauce with chives is heaven: potatoe-y and addictively chewy. A sufficiently crisped Wiener Schnitzel is nothing to rave about.

Other entrees, however, are awful. Nix on a lobster special, a tiny-tailed creature served with a small plate of lukewarm white rice and a smattering of wild rice. Broiled chicken breast arrives very dry, already chopped up on a too-pungent wine-y onion sauce with, thank goodness, crusty, lovely roasted potatoes.

While a yogurt parfait is like a form of creamy Jell-O, the pumpkin cake is pure weirdness: a sugared pastry filled with chunks of unsweetened pumpkin.

Better, here, to stick to the German specialties. Better yet, try a restaurant listed on the front of the menu.

* Cafe E2, 101 Broadway, Santa Monica. (310) 260-3333. Open every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Full bar. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $25-$80.