A Menu With Teeth : Crocodile Cafe relies on robust array of pizzas, pastas and grilled meats.

Crocodile Cafe has played a noble part in the renaissance of downtown Burbank. San Fernando Road has come back from the dead--in fact, it’s a real madhouse on weekends. It’s starting to feel like Colorado Boulevard in Old Town Pasadena.

That works for the Crocodile Cafe, of course. This upbeat chain originated in Pasadena, and the Burbank branch has blossomed into one of the busiest. The concept is California cooking, but the kitchen dallies with recipes from the Southwest, Pacific Rim and, lately, the Caribbean.

It’s a breezy place with an open kitchen tiled in a pattern that looks like a multicolored snake. The dining room--all brick walls, high ceiling and a gallery’s worth of modern art--is narrow and noisy. The place to avoid the crowd is the shady back patio.

The core of the often-changing menu is salads, pizzas, pastas, sandwiches and grilled meats. The menu has recently added 14 new dishes, marked with little red suns.

One of the best new dishes is oakwood-grilled heart of romaine salad. Grilled salad? Yep: half a head of romaine grilled over oak embers and served warm. The oak imparts a unique smoky flavor to the greens, which are complemented by a cooling ranch dressing and chile-sprinkled pecans.

I’ve long been a fan of the chewy, wood-fired pizzas, and I like two recent additions. One is jambalaya pizza, with a not terribly jambalaya-like topping of spicy chicken sausage and sweet peppers. The other is listed with the salads (in case we weren’t confused enough) as pizza salad, but salad pizza would be more apt. A thin, cheesy pizza crust is topped with a refreshing, salad-like mixture of raw spinach, Roma tomatoes, onions and Gorgonzola.

One item that stands up to the oak with authority is the braised lamb shank--16 tender ounces. The meat is braised in rosemary, garlic and olive oil and then finished on the oakwood grill. The fine garlic-mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach make it a real meal.

Grilled Cuban chicken breast is just about the wackiest dish on the menu, but it too is a big success. The chicken is brushed with cinnamon and oregano before grilling, then sprinkled with almonds and raisins and served with rice laced with caramelized banana. Whew! One more oaky but satisfying meat is marinated flank steak, sliced thin and served with black beans, flour tortillas and a chunky salsa.

The original oakwood grilled half-pound burger remains a fixture. This is simply the best burger around, eight ounces of smoky chopped beef inside a giant bun. I like mine with grilled onions and a slab of Wisconsin Cheddar. The menu’s other killer sandwich--nearly as indulgent as the burger--is smoked ham and chicken. It’s a jalapeno-cheddar-topped hard roll stuffed with thinly sliced meats and extras like Roma tomatoes, avocado and chipotle mayonnaise.

There are many more good dishes here too, including Grandma Croc’s delicately battered fried-green tomatoes (accompanied by a good red-pepper aioli and a very creative fennel-apple slaw), a first-rate tortilla soup and one of the best angel hair pastas around, tossed with sauteed shrimp and a spicy soy sesame cream sauce.

Desserts come from the hand of Alicia, a Brea housewife. Every one I tasted was dense, sweet and too large to finish. Alicia’s best effort is Kahlua chocolate-chip cake, a huge square of loaf cake with two inches of dark, creamy frosting and a last-minute hot fudge topping. Her apple crisp, served warm, is more oats, butter and sugar than fruit. Meanwhile, lemon pound cake is gummy but the lemon curd and fresh whipped-cream topping is a nice dessert all by itself.

Sometimes, less is more, even in bustling downtown Burbank.

BE THERE

Crocodile Cafe--201 N. San Fernando Road, Burbank. Lunch and dinner 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-midnight Friday-Saturday. Dinner for two, $28-$45. Suggested dishes: Grandma Croc’s fried-green tomatoes, $4.95; barbecued duck quesadilla, $6.95; pizza salad, $7.95; grilled Cuban chicken breast, $10.95; braised lamb shank, $11.95. Full bar. Free parking in adjacent structure. All major cards. (818) 843-7999.