RESTAURANT REVIEW : Newsroom Cafe Takes the Healthy Route

The handsome new Newsroom Cafe on North Robertson in West Hollywood is a true child of the ‘90s: a health-food bar and grill cum coffeehouse, the Daily Grill gone organic, a juice bar gone corporate.

Huge rusted letters announce its presence on the street: This Newsroom is larger and more ambitious than the original Santa Monica store. The vast, noisy dining room/bar is a cheery yellow. (When the blender’s in use even the most passionate conversation is vanquished.) The O.J. trial plays on overhead monitors. The newsstand component has here shrunk to a few vestigial shelves. Still, this place is a lot of fun.

Sitting on the patio, shaded by rust-brown umbrellas, we can gaze smugly down at the Ivy’s patio, where diners there, no doubt, are consuming butter and red meat, and wine from inorganic grapes.

The large, brown, single-sheet menu is printed in columns like a newspaper. In the upper right-hand corner, a mustachioed man exhorts us to “STOP POISONING YOUR BODY WITH BAD FOOD.” This is not, however, as punitive or limiting as it sounds. He is not exhorting you to stop poisoning your body with caffeine--the Newsroom features about 20 coffee drinks, including the “depth charge,” a shot of espresso dropped in a cup of house coffee. Nor are customers meant to stop poisoning their bodies with alcohol--there’s beer and wine, plus 12 vodka preparations and nine tequila offerings, including a five-shot sampler for $20.

There’s also a vast selection of fresh-squeezed juices and tonics. And while the service is generally convivial and efficient, there’s often a lapse when it comes to juice: Even if ordered as a cocktail, juice is squeezed to order and can arrive after the entrees. I loved the creamy, tropical Hawaii 5-O, with pineapple, papaya and banana, and the eye-opening Ginger Rogers with apple, carrot and ginger. But plain grapefruit juice is too sour to drink (until doctored with evil sugar), and the pale green Moon Juice is made with melon that also isn’t at a peak of ripeness.

There’s a “juice pharmacy” and Chinese herbal tonics too: The Immune Rocket Booster’s medicinal ingredients (echinacea, flax seed oil and golden seal) are mitigated to some degree by vegetable juices and ginger (so you don’t really need to hold your nose to drink it).

The Newsroom strives to prepare food that’s low in fat, sodium and oil--with mixed results. At breakfast, there are no-fat eggs, steamed in the espresso machine. More satisfying is a vegetarian tamale with juicy salsa, a poached egg and a side of fried red potatoes.

A barley and mushroom soup one day shares the same muddled blandness with a red bean, potato and greens soup a few days later--and both are improved by some dreaded salt and pepper, available on request only.

Salads are large and fresh. Five variations of the Caesar all lack anchovy or egg--according to this kitchen, romaine lettuce is a Caesar’s active, defining ingredient. The “Numex,” with fluorescent red tortilla strips, pepitas and white-bread croutons, does not inspire.

Watery shrimp and bits of grilled, sweet vegetables make up the “grilled vegetable chop chop chop.” For a simple, clean meal, there’s the Indonesian Gado Gado salad, with chewy, mixed rice (red, black, brown and wild), greens and smoked tofu--but go easy on the sweet cashew-ginger dressing.

Some of the best entrees are virtuously low in fat: “Asian Persuasion” turkey meatloaf comes with a delicious ginger-spiked ketchup; and penne pasta, layered and baked like lasagna, has a lot of flavor. No-fat grilled chicken with pasta, however, should only be ordered by those deeply committed to watching their fat intake--nothing but its low-fat gram count recommends the dish. And steer clear of the hideously muddled “Noodles diablo”: overcooked udon with black beans, tomato sauce, ginger, chile and mooshed-up broccoli.

A gritty peach polenta cake has a good fruit flavor, but the maple lemon-pear cake tastes primarily of baking soda. The faintly sweet blueberry-peach crisp is soggy and a little boring. Otherwise, it’s hard to be bored here--not with the TV, the magazine rack and a bulletin board full of choice tabloid clippings by the telephone.

* Newsroom Cafe, 120 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood (310) 652-4444. Open 7 days for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Full bar. Visa and MasterCard accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $26-$50.