A Larger, Flashier Puck

Wolfgang Puck keeps pushing the envelope. Grand Cafe Wolfgang Puck, his new operation at the Block in Orange, combines an express dining area, a mini-mart stocked with regional snacks and the cafe, which serves a dizzyingly eclectic menu. The wildly colorful decor is by Puck’s designer wife, Barbara Lazaroff. It’s quite a ride, even for this futuristic mall--but not a perfectly smooth one.

There are the usual Puck Cafe accouterments: Op Art upholstery, an open kitchen studded with multicolored broken tile, a wood-burning pizza oven and a rotisserie. But here the scale is larger, the buzz louder, the decor flashier. And the greatly expanded menu (more than 70 dishes) now includes sushi, Asian noodles and dishes from Puck’s native Austria. The kitchen is headed by Puck veteran Alan Skversky.

Nothing, it would appear, has been overlooked. The drink menu is stocked with dozens of top-notch beers and boutique wines, and nearly every wine on the list is available by the glass, in generous seven-ounce pours.

Bread too has been raised to an art form. You get a complimentary basket of Puck’s famous Parmesan-crusted flatbread, plus delicious olive bread and focaccia from La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles. I admit to feeling blissfully contented as I sipped my Duvel Special Belgian Ale and nibbled on a crusty piece of olive bread. But the evening didn’t end there.

Among the appetizers, the grilled eggplant and tomato stack with basil and goat cheese is an impressive creation of edible art. Imagine three wedges--black, red and white, each around 10 inches high--that glisten with extra-virgin olive oil. Unfortunately, when you deconstruct the stack (the only possible way to eat from it), you discover that the thick eggplant slices are oily, the “vine-ripened” tomatoes not quite ripe.

Better is the French onion soup, a subtly sweet version made with a soupcon of dry sherry, topped with melted Gruyere cheese. I didn’t much care for my barbecued duck quesadilla, a gooey, grilled flour tortilla filled with shredded duck meat. The thick, sweet barbecue sauce overwhelmed the flavor of the meat.

Many starters are Asian. The barbecued ribs ObaChine, a recipe from another of Puck’s restaurants, are meaty baby-back ribs glazed with a dark red hoisin sauce dominated by the scent of cloves. There is also a nice grilled chicken satay that tastes of ginger and curry. I like the way it’s garnished with marinated cucumbers and a delicious Thai peanut sauce.

The sushi list is California roll, tuna belly and sweet shrimp, all perfectly fine. Another good Asian appetizer is pad Thai, listed on the menu’s pasta page. It’s a nicely restrained stir-fry of thin rice noodles, snow peas, baby bok choy and either shrimp or chicken, with curry spices and chili peanut sauce. If only pad Thai were as good in every Thai restaurant.

Puck’s first restaurant was named Spago, Italian slang for pasta, and pastas are naturally important here. One of the best dishes is roasted pumpkin ravioli, though this version is not the exquisitely light dish you might find in Italy. The ravioli are filled with pumpkin puree, pine nuts and mascarpone cheese and dressed with brown butter and fried sage leaves.

I’m a longtime fan of Grandma Puck’s linguine, a standby of Puck Cafes. The perfectly cooked pasta has a sauce of minced chicken enriched with cream. Two of us had a hard time finishing one order.

Speaking of Grandma Puck, perhaps she inspired the crumb-crusted Wiener schnitzel, which comes with a warm Austrian potato salad. This giant piece of thinly pounded veal spills completely over the sides of its serving platter. Too bad it doesn’t have much flavor. (The parsley-flecked potato salad is delicious, though.)

A fine piece of grilled Pacific salmon is served on a plinth of mashed potatoes, topped with an olive tapenade; salty and pungent though the tapenade is, though, it’s no match for the assertive flavor of fresh salmon.

“Adventures in the Kitchen” bacon-wrapped meatloaf resembles a coarse-textured country-style terrine--too bad about the cloying port glaze. The rotisserie lamb, which I ordered rare, could have been more tender.

The desserts are enormously appealing and seriously indulgent. The new kid on the menu is the terrific bull’s-eye cheesecake, created for one of Puck’s sons by dessert maven Maida Heatter. It’s basically swirls of espresso- and vanilla-flavored cheesecake on a superbly moist graham cracker crust, and the espresso cream sauce served with it is perfection.

I’d also stop by any time for the creme bru^lee sampler, a selection of three: vanilla bean, dark chocolate espresso and Grand Marnier orange. Or for a slice of the wonderful dark-chocolate truffle cake, served warm with a rich chocolate sauce and real whipped cream.

The way I figure it, our food scene has gotten more cosmopolitan, and Puck is just reading his audience in presenting so many different foods at one location. I don’t envy him the task. Puck has long been at the cutting edge of the American restaurant scene, and the cutting edge may be exciting, but it is not, by definition, secure.

Grand Cafe Wolfgang Puck is moderate to expensive. Soups and starters are $3.95 to $9.95. Pastas are $7.95 to $12.95. Main courses are $11.95 to $18.95. Desserts are $4.25 to $5.95.

BE THERE

Grand Cafe Wolfgang Puck, 20 City Blvd. West, Orange. (714) 634-9653. 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-midnight Friday-Saturday. All major cards.