RESTAURANT REVIEW : Some Cheers, Some Jeers at Ole LA

We are sitting at a table in Ole LA on the third floor of Brentwood Gardens. Floor-to-ceiling windows give a sparkling overview of San Vicente Boulevard. There’s a casual crowd--families, best friends, a few dates--tucking into fat burritos, mountainous salads and wine margaritas. We’re sharing a brie and grape quesadilla topped with a sweet, bright yellow mango salsa, and we’re drinking tall pilsner glasses of watermelon lemonade. No sooner does my friend Bernard announce that he loves this lemonade when, suddenly, the waiter swoops in, nabs our half-finished glasses and carries them off. The look on Bernard’s face is a mix of desolation and fury. I swear, his muscles start to puff up like Popeye’s.

“It’s OK,” I assure him. “He’s probably just refilling them.”

Bernard looks dubious and venomous in equal measure, but I am correct. In a matter of minutes, the tall, narrow glasses are restored, filled to the brim with the sweet, cloudy pink liquid.

If this gesture of sheer goodwill has a disconcerting edge, it also captures something about this new Mexican restaurant and its “nueva cocina fresca.” The kitchen’s intention--to offer a fresh, lard-free approach to regional Mexican cooking using quality ingredients--is purely virtuous. The execution is, at times, befuddling.

There is much to like here. The service couldn’t be more good-natured. It’s fun to sit perched above the traffic amid pretty yellow tables, greenery and cumin-colored umbrellas. Salsa, plunked down with tortilla chips, is fresh and assertive. And that watermelon beverage is good.

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The menu tries a bit too hard: Good, mildly sweet, pleasantly sticky corn tamales are listed as “Tamales Is to Love Us Sweet Corn Tamale Treat.” And there’s the “Aiy-Aiy-Eye Rib Eye Steak.”

“Gaspach-Oh!”is a standard cold chopped tomato soup, gilded with papaya and sour cream although the menu promises guacamole. The corn chowder tastes a lot like creamed corn with a good whiff of smoke.

Antojitos, or little dishes, include ice-cold peel-and-eat shrimp that are a little sodden, and occasionally mealy, but the spicy cocktail sauce has a good kick. Two steamed Anaheim peppers, stuffed with shrimp and vegetables and topped with a mild cilantro sauce, are wonderful, but punishingly spicy. Crab cakes, a curious chili-orange color, have great seasonings--nevermind that you can’t catch even a hint of the crab meat.

“Nuevo Mexican Favorites” include standard fast-food fare, from ordinary meat or chicken tacos (“Tacos a Go Go”) to a Caesar salad burrito I lacked the courage to try. Fish tacos, with shredded cabbage and a good citrus-cream sauce, can be made with either grilled or deep-fried halibut: They’re juicy and delicious.

Salmon enchiladas, however, need some work: Tortillas filled with salmon and spinach are completely smothered in a very rich pippian, or pumpkin seed sauce. The ground seeds and the salmon bring out a certain regrettable muskiness in each other and, to make matters worse, the whole gloppy invention is armored with melted cheese.

“Platos Principales” come with a choice of two side dishes, and these side dishes are often the best part of the meal. Fresh spinach sauteed with pasilla chiles has a good fresh crunch. “Nolardo’s pinto beans” are plump and creamy. One order of good buttery, garlic cilantro mashed potatoes is dinner in and of itself. The spoon bread was a dry, tough crumble, far from the custardy cornbread-like substance we expected.

Entrees accompanying these sides include a swordfish marinated in lemon for so long its signature meatiness has broken down; grilled, it resembles a mushy white bass. The rambunctiously named rib eye, a large, wafer-thin cut with a good flavor, has also been marinated into submission. If you don’t mind a sweet entree, honey nicely undercuts the peppery heat of sauteed tiger shrimp.

Otherwise, there’s dessert. Ole pie, allegedly a Key Lime taste-alike, is more a frothy mousse in a thick graham-cracker crust. And only dead-serious chocolate eaters could manage the vast wedge of dense, moist mocha fudge cake.

* Ole LA, 11677 San Vicente Blvd., Suite 317, Brentwood, (310) 826-5352. Open 7 days for lunch and dinner. Beer and wine served. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $22-$57.