Product of Spain

Many people around here still think Spanish food is something like Mexican, which is about equivalent to lumping an English tea room with a Cajun restaurant.

Real Spanish food is closer to French or Italian food. Fortunately, a West Hills restaurant named El Patio Andaluz can help clear up the confusion.

This is a charming, relentlessly cheerful restaurant. It has red polka-dot curtains, creamy white vinyl booths, cherry-red tablecloths and a shiny mural of Spanish scenes on one of the walls.

The liveliest time to dine is Saturday evening. That’s when you get a flamenco show complete with adept guitarists and lusty, thundering dancers. At any other time, the restaurant is relatively quiet, with only the Gypsy Kings softly playing on tape.

Start with a few of the Spanish snack dishes known as tapas; the menu has a whole page of them. The Catalan specialty pa amb tomaquet y pernil is a kissing cousin to Italian bruschetta. It’s warm bread rubbed with tomatoes and topped with razor-thin slices of jamon serrano, a powerfully salty Spanish ham much like prosciutto.

Tortilla Espanola is a sort of frittata, a puffy golden-brown dome of eggs and vegetables fried in olive oil. El Patio Andaluz makes a nearly perfect version with potatoes and onions. The exquisite pastel de puerros is a delicate leek custard, served in thick slices with a rich, creamy mushroom sauce. The simplest tapa is queso Manchego, just slices of cheese, though in this case a crumbly, pale yellow Spanish cheese with an attractively musky flavor.

The entrees are varied and interesting. Paella Valenciana is the best known of all Spanish dishes, and El Patio Andaluz prepares a good one, if you give the kitchen 30 minutes’ notice. The rice is laced with clams, shrimp, calamari, pork sausage, chicken, green beans, tomatoes and onions--and flavored, of course, with saffron. A single order easily serves two.

All the restaurant’s best entrees, in fact, are based on seafood. Pimientos del piquillo rellenos de mariscos are small sweet peppers stuffed with a creamy mixture of minced clams and shrimp. The peppers are at once rich and spicy. There is also trucha a la Navarra, trout stuffed with cubed serrano ham. There is a good deal of chopped parsley in the stuffing, and lots of sherry, which comes close to taking over the taste of the fish.

The meat dishes are less appealing. Cordero en su jugo is leg of lamb in brown gravy and looks, and even tastes, like the meat in brown gravy you might get in a cafeteria, piled atop yellow rice with nondescript mixed vegetables. Pollo Costa Brava is bite-sized pieces of boneless chicken sauteed in a light sauce of brandy and cream. Better than the lamb or chicken are the tender grilled pork chops (chuletas de cerdo adobadas), served with thin, well-salted French fries.

The desserts are just fine. Crema Catalana is a delicious creme bru^lee, here with an orange flavoring. Torta de queso is a nice homemade cheesecake with a firm texture. And yes, there is flan. That is one Mexican dish that’s Spanish.

BE THERE

El Patio Andaluz, 7257 Topanga Canyon Blvd., West Hills. 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 3-9 p.m. Sunday. Parking lot. Beer and wine only. All major cards. Dinner for two, $34-$49. Suggested dishes: pastel de puerros, $6; tortilla Espanola, $5; paella Valenciana, $12 ($15 with chorizo); pimientos del piquillo, $13.95. Call (818) 999-4598.