A Little Bit of Excellent

In Europe, casual brasseries are often joined at the hip to more formal dining establishments. Sometimes regular diners need to dine quickly or cheaply, and being able to do so at a favorite restaurant is a prized privilege. That’s exactly what maitre d’ Bill Magnuson (Gustaf) and chef Ulf Strandberg (Anders) had in mind when they opened Back Pocket, a smaller, less expensive adjunct to their well-known Gustaf Anders in Santa Ana.

The name and concept are taken from Bakficka, a casual spot behind the Swedish Opera Cellar Restaurant in Stockholm. But Back Pocket’s spare, modern Scandinavian design--blond wood tables set with Swedish linen place mats, art glass and whimsically casual ceramic candy bowls--was conceived entirely by Strandberg, who has an eye for color in the kitchen that is unsurpassed in these parts.

If you’ve eaten at Gustaf Anders, you know that “casual” isn’t the word to describe its style. The main menu is a cross between Swedish and Euromodern, featuring caviar, gravad lax and cold-water fish. Back Pocket’s menu, by contrast, features such Swedish comfort foods as beef Lindstrom and cabbage rolls, plus rotisserie meats and quite a few of the cured fish sold in the next room at Gustaf Anders.

I almost always begin a meal here by raiding Back Pocket’s herring buffet, a flat-out bargain at $10. Three different varieties of Strandberg’s cured herring sit in iced bowls, flanked by a covered dish of hot steamed potatoes. You can get herring in a sweet mustard sauce, and sugar- and salt-cured herring with pickled vegetables, and finally matjes herring in a bath of finely minced garlic and onion. It’s all very Swedish and very delicious.

If you really want to dine like a Viking, you can take the menu’s suggestion to down an ice cold thimbleful of Akvavit (a caraway-flavored vodka) with your herring. The restaurant carries several brands. My favorite is the intense, knock-your-socks-off Skane Akvavit, imported from the province of Sweden nearest to Denmark.

I have a hard time not filling up on Back Pocket’s wonderful breads--the dense, chewy, yeasty rolls made on the premises and especially knackebrod, the crisp unleavened rye bread--a national obsession in Sweden. These breads are offered continually during a meal here, and they are very, very seductive.

Back Pocket’s menu is small but well chosen. The best starter might be the spicy beef pizza with goat cheese. The fat, crisp crust is baked in the wood-burning oven with a topping of chopped beef, clumps of goat cheese and enough red pepper to make anyone yell for a glass of water.

I’m also fond of a standby from Gustaf Anders’ main menu, parsley salad. The story behind this dish is that when the Magnuson and Strandberg first had their La Jolla restaurant, a produce truck delivered them a load of parsley instead of the fresh dill weed abundantly used in Swedish kitchens. They didn’t want to waste the parsley, so they invented this salad of chopped parsley, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and Parmesan in a basil vinaigrette. It has become so popular that it appears on Back Pocket’s menu as well.

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The chef’s Caesar salad, though visually stunning--two enormous hunks of romaine topped with a creamy dressing--is rather bland on the palate. But his buttery, ultra-smooth gravad lax is the best cured salmon appetizer around.

And you’ll never go wrong if you order sugar- and salt-cured salmon as a main course. It’s similar to the gravad lax, perfumed with dill and served with a small pot of creamed dill potatoes on the side. I can never get enough of those potatoes.

A huge rib-eye steak is served with garlic mashed potatoes, but it would be better without the cloying red wine sauce, which obscures the beef flavor. My thyme-roasted leg of lamb, another dish cooked in the wood oven, was strangely insipid, although the accompanying tomato basil salad was terrific--the tomatoes were the best I’ve had all year.

The chicken and duck cooked on the rotisserie are just about perfection, and so are all the Swedish comfort foods, especially beef Lindstrom: hashed steak stuffed with capers, beets and pickles. A crisp potato cake with a creamy shrimp and smoked cod roe sauce intrigues and delights the senses. Swedish cabbage rolls (kaldolmar) have a wonderfully light minced beef and pork filling.

Back Pocket and Gustaf Anders share the same dessert list, and that’s good news. The most famous national dessert, princess cake, is something Swedes eat in midafternoon, probably never at the end of a big meal, but it’s so good here that I’d make an exception. It’s layers of sponge cake, jam and whipped cream in a green marzipan frosting. You get a huge wedge of this cake here, and that’s about a week’s ration of heavy cream.

Something called “the best ever chocolate cake” is a light, mousse-like cake held together by a thin bottom crust that tastes of egg white. The best ice cream on the menu is vanilla with cognac-soaked raisins, but the passion fruit and coconut sorbets are both first-rate, too.

You also get the benefit of Gustaf Anders’ superb wine list when dining here; Back Pocket does not bother with a wine list of its own. Choices include the big, nicely concentrated ’96 Swan Zinfandel, $40, and a fruity, complex ’97 Alban Viognier, $37.

Value and quality. What a concept.

Back Pocket is moderately expensive. Appetizers are $6 to $11. Smaller dishes are $9 to $13. larger dishes are $14 to $24. Desserts are $7 to $9.

BE THERE

Back Pocket, South Coast Plaza Village, Bear and Sunflower streets, Santa Ana. (714) 668-1737. Lunch 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; dinner 5:30-10 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. All major cards.