VALLEY WEEKEND : RESTAURANT REVIEW : Food Takes a Backseat to Wine at Le Sanglier : The European menu is dated, with escargots and other oldies. But desserts are well done, and the prix-fixe dinner is a bargain.

I am often asked why our European restaurants seem stuck in a time warp while Pacific Rim dining has evolved into a distinctive force. Good question. Take Le Sanglier.

This place has been a Tarzana fixture for 25 years, so it’s obvious people like it. The room is cozily trussed up with Christmas lights, mistletoe and poinsettias. Leather booths, amber lanterns and bowl-shaped candleholders give off a certain outdated ambience.

Ditto for the recipes of owner Alain Cuny (who also owns The Wine Bistro in Studio City). Le Sanglier is a bastion of dishes that were already cliches 15 years ago: escargots, duck with cherries, filet mignon with green peppercorn sauce.

The kitchen does a workmanlike job on them, but that’s beside the point. Even at their best, these dishes are excessively familiar, and it can be hard to get excited over the prospect of eating any of them.

As for the question about European cuisines in California, the easy answer would be that fewer people have been immigrating from Europe than from Asia, meaning there’s less of a compact immigrant community demanding authenticity in restaurants. That must have something to do with it, but I’m tempted to say our European restaurants are simply timid.

Many of them have built up a loyal clientele that pays the bills, and they’re content to coast. That’s a pity when there’s talent behind the range, as there seems to be here.

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In fairness, I must say that most of the people I have taken to dinner here have come away happy. The wine list is certainly excellent, full of first-rate Bordeaux at reasonable prices, such as ’83 Chateau Gloria ($40) and ’88 Chateau Montrose ($48). Wine-wise, Le Sanglier is far ahead of most Valley restaurants.

La Sanglier also offers the intelligent option of ordering any entree from the regular or the blackboard menus (except those marked with a star) as a three-course prix-fixe dinner for only $24.95. That’s a substantial saving over ordering the same appetizer, entree and dessert a la carte.

I must say most of the appetizers are disappointing. The best of them is saumon fume--and at $10.50, the priciest (it’s marked by that little star, too, so you can’t get it on a prix-fixe dinner). It’s several slices of buttery, delightfully smoked Scottish salmon with a pile of capers and a lemon for squeezing. From the blackboard menu, I’ve also had a powerful potato-based garlic soup.

Les raviolis sauce Cardinal are lobster ravioli with, we read, a truffle sauce. The truffles are too faint for me to detect, but the chewy ravioli, striped black and red, are acceptable, and the sauce is rather opulent.

Entrees come with good side dishes: buttered carrots, pureed turnips and usually two or three delightful puffs of fried mashed potato. One night I found a swordfish Nicoise on the blackboard menu, a nice piece of fish topped with diced tomatoes, black olives and extra-virgin olive oil. A lapin saute chasseur was well prepared, but the meat lacked the gamy sweetness that makes rabbit so appealing.

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Another special, duck Montmorency, is a roasted half bird sitting in a moat of cherry sauce with pitted cherries scattered around. (I prefer the regular menu’s demi canard ro^ti a la moutarde, where the duck comes in mustard sauce.) Le tournedos au poivre vert translates to filet mignon with green peppercorn sauce. The meat is fine and the sauce is unctuous, but it just doesn’t have much flavor. Better is the carre d’agneau, a rack of lamb with garlic and parsley. (It’s $24, and exempt from the prix-fixe option.)

Le Sanglier makes all of its own desserts, and a few of them are worthy of raves. By far the best is an incredible white chocolate ice cream (le delice tricolore) swathed with raspberry sauce--three tiny scoops so full of white chocolate they can scarcely melt at room temperature.

There are two varieties of creme bru^lee, coffee and vanilla. The vanilla version is a treat, but the one with coffee has a rather harsh taste.

One more for auld lang syne is the coupe glacee Le Sanglier: vanilla ice cream with fresh berries and a splash of Grand Marnier. Think of it as the American French restaurant’s equivalent of a wrapped almond cookie, even if it does taste an awful lot better.

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DETAILS

Le Sanglier

* WHERE: 5522 Crebs Ave., Tarzana.

* SUGGESTED DISHES: Garlic soup, $3.95; saumon fume, $10.50; carre d’agneau, $24; le demi canard ro^ti a la moutarde, $18.50; le delice tricolore au chocolat blanc, $5.50.

* HOURS: Dinner 5:30-9:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday, 5:30-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

* PRICE: Dinner for two, $46-$65. Full bar. Parking lot in rear. American Express, MasterCard and Visa.

* CALL: (818) 345-0470.