A Hybrid Blooms on Beverly

Wild Orchid probably uses more cream cheese than any other Thai restaurant in Los Angeles. Cream cheese? In a Thai restaurant? Well, the City Glatt Market is next door; there are synagogues on each corner; and the Jewish delis of Fairfax Avenue are close by. So perhaps Wild Orchid is merely blending into the neighborhood.

If so, it does this well. The dish that stands out in my mind is the New York roll--a sushi roll stuffed with smoked salmon, cream cheese, avocados and cucumbers. Lox and cream cheese go very well with nori, wasabi and soy sauce.

There’s more cream cheese, along with fried shrimp, in the ninja roll, and still more in crab Rangoon, that old Trader Vic’s specialty of fried wontons stuffed with crab and cheese. You dip these pleasantly gloppy dumplings into plum sauce, a combination that, oddly, has lots in common with mee krob: crisp texture, sweet-sour seasoning, seafood and a dash of chile.

The awning outside advertises Japanese, Thai and Chinese food. Inside, the look is trendy and industrial: concrete floor, tiny lights sprouting from wildly twisted electrical conduits, walls roughly daubed with paint--except for the yellow back wall splashed with bright purple orchids. The ambience virtually cries for cappuccino and espresso, so they’re on the menu. Thai tea is served in smart, skinny Pilsener glasses.

Wild Orchid does serve real Thai food; the chicken larb is authentically spicy, tangy with lime juice and pungent with fish sauce. But it’s hard not to order the off-the-wall sushi rolls, such as knockout rolls (stuffed with tofu, basil and vegetables) and soft-shell crab “spider” rolls--made with frozen crab, since they’re available year-round. The spicy scallop roll, filled with scallops and smelt roe in spicy mayonnaise, is tasty, but the contents will ooze out and drop onto your plate (or lap) while you’re chewing the tough nori coating, unless you’re able to eat a roll in one bite.

Other Japanese dishes are chicken-filled gyoza (steamed or fried), tempura with sweet-and-sour sauce, seaweed and tofu soup, miso soup and teriyaki. Japanese food is not here by accident. One cook here is Thai and the other is Thai-Japanese.

The menu likes cutesy names like “dynamite wings.” But don’t be put off by the “secret string beans” seasoned with “our secret sauce.” There’s no drippy sauce, just a seasoning--my guess is that it’s sweetened soy sauce and minced preserved turnips (confusingly called “salted radish” in Thai markets)--that coats the beans lightly. “Sexy shrimp” are alluringly wrapped in crisp fried noodles, and “hot stuff” is meat or seafood stir-fried with bamboo shoots, straw mushrooms and basil; a nice, fairly spicy dish.

And then there’s kung pao spaghetti, like sweetened chow mein with a few chiles on top for looks, rather than seasoning. Green bell pepper, onion and carrot play more important roles.

The duck curry, which is much more sauce than duck, is very sweet. Pineapple chunks add to that effect. The beef used for satays is of decent quality and doesn’t need to hide behind heavy seasoning; its peanut sauce is equally uncomplicated, creamy and pleasant.

One night’s special was a mixed seafood platter with roasted dried chiles. It was a busy mixture of crab (imitation), squid, shrimp and scallops, tossed with cashews and bell pepper chunks. Again, the roasted chiles were just a garnish. The dark sauce that collected in the bottom of the platter was peppery and slightly sweet.

The only flat-out failure I’ve encountered was, of all things, steamed jasmine rice. Rice is cooked so routinely in Asia that it is never--well, almost never--less than perfect. But one night Wild Orchid’s rice was wet and mushy, as if cooked with too much water and stirred while it cooked, mashing the grains. This was no doubt an aberration, as the rice was much better the next time. There’s brown rice too, if you prefer.

Wild Orchid amounts to an all-purpose neighborhood restaurant with appealingly low prices and mildly seasoned food. You could even compose a meal that includes no Asian dishes at all: chicken Caesar salad followed by cheesecake and, of course, a cappuccino.

BE THERE

Wild Orchid, 7669 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 937-3100. Open 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. No alcohol. Street parking. All major credit cards. Takeout and delivery. Dinner for two, about $20.

What to Get: New York roll, spicy scallop roll, crab Rangoon, larb, hot stuff, secret string beans, Thai tea.