RESTAURANT REVIEW : Wolfgang, Master of Mass Taste

From the moment its heavy glass doors swung open for the first time, the Wolfgang Puck Cafe at the corner of Crescent Heights and Sunset Boulevard has been hopping. Next door to the Laemmle Sunset 5 theater and the Virgin Megastore, the cafe has added some much-needed bustle to the plaza.

Inside, there’s Barbara Lazaroff’s signature visual assault of tile work, lights, mosaics, jutting multicolored beams. The piece o’ pizza motif is pervasive: on the tables, in the sconces, the carpets, the wedge-shaped chair backs. Whimsical, towering ceramic vases lend a cheery air of psychedelic antiquity. There could hardly be more color or visual stimuli. The din is just loud enough to be mildly uncomfortable--and nip in the bud any urge to linger.

But then, this is so clearly not a cafe for lingerers. The decor fosters a manic edge and the kitchen keeps time. I assume that people enjoy this, consider it fun, and if they’re trying to make a show on time, a big plus. But I find that meals unfold at a pace a few beats faster than I like. At a certain point during every course, bus people start diving for plates like large, determined birds--and if you want to hang onto a salad after your entrees have arrived (which they do sometimes before you’re ready for them)--you’ll be chasing the employees off by the flock.

Turning, turning, turning. Keep those tables turning.

Which is not to say that the staff isn’t good-natured and hard-working. The place is run admirably, in fact: unflappable host, intelligent and funny waiters, swift runners, that dogged bus staff.

*

I found the food here somewhat better than that I’ve had at other Wolfgang Puck Cafes. Oh, it’s the same bath in America’s favorite tastes: sugar, salt and deep-fat fried things. Salads are generously dressed, pizzas busy as the mosaic work, desserts cloying as baby talk--but the mass appeal of such things is irrefutable.

Butternut squash soup is velvety, but could be more soupy: A spoon leaves stiff peaks. Vegetable spring rolls and tempura shrimp suffer from an under-fried doughiness and too-sweet cole slaw.

In the chopped vegetable salad, beans and carrots and other vegetables are all cleverly diced to the somehow adorable proportions of a pea or corn kernel, then well-doused in balsamic vinaigrette. Chinois chicken salad, here in its budget dark-meat version, is sweet, salty, juicy and crunchy: the definitive Puck crowd-pleaser.

“It’s like all the food is wearing a dress,” says one friend, midway through a spicy shrimp pizza. The pizzas, especially, are laden with flavor and color flecks: A classic, four-cheese pizza is tricked up with sun-dried tomatoes; spicy chicken with leeks and cilantro and red bell pepper. Just like the decor, it’s busy, hard to focus on and noisy.

One waiter confidently proclaims, “All the pastas are excellent,” but I disagree. The pasta itself is good: supple, with just the right resistance to the tooth. But good penne grows dull with shriveled peas, tasteless prosciutto and thinned-out goat cheese. Good, springy spaghettini is defeated by a too-sweet tomato topping.

Entrees may be the most satisfying dishes, probably because they’re the most unadorned (although you can’t get mashed potatoes without a snarl of deep-fried onion rings). A pretty steak, liberally encrusted with peppercorns, is accompanied by smashing French fries. The meatloaf and mashed potatoes (just clear off those sodden, cold onion rings) sits in a sedate port wine sauce. A small, tasty salmon filet shares its mashed potato bed with thick slices of sauteed vegetables.

Desserts have a near cartoony grandiosity and the sugar level of candy bars: A huge wedge of apple tarte tatin is made with mounded up half-apples that have been caramelized, then caramel-sauced, then (at our waiter’s urging) made a la mode (oh, and there’s also a mound of whipped cream). Creme bru^lee is a rich, soupy custard, densely dotted with Tahitian vanilla seed sealed under such a thick, insistent bru^lee, each bite threatens to glue your teeth shut. I do think that cheesecakes, both blueberry and pumpkin, reach a kind of Platonic ideal here: They couldn’t be richer, sweeter, smoother--or the servings larger.

* Wolfgang Puck Cafe, 8000 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 650-7300. Open 7 days for lunch and dinner. Full bar. Major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $25-$56.