Wilhelm Earns Eclectical Degree

If you grew up with the old Surf City version of Huntington Beach (the Golden Bear nightclub, the End Cafe at the tip of the old wooden pier), you’re probably not thrilled with the changes that have made the area a tourist destination. But some are real improvements, especially the vibrant new restaurant scene.

Central to it is Chimayo at the Beach. It’s a characteristic David Wilhelm creation: eclectic and fun with, for the most part, quite good food. And here at the base of the Huntington Beach Pier, you also get postcard views of crashing surf.

Wilhelm is famed for his jazzy adaptations of Southwestern cuisine, as created at Chimayo Grill at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. When he opened the Huntington Beach Chimayo, it had a Southwestern theme, but recently the menu has been changed. Chimayo at the Beach is a different breed of bird altogether.

This Chimayo describes its concept as “coastal cooking,” with an emphasis on seafood. Coastal, as it’s served here, means basically Mexican with healthy dollops of Asian and Pacific Rim. There’s even a little Caribbean, Southwestern and Italian thrown in.

And starting this year, Louisiana joins the mix. During the winter, Chimayo hosted a Voodoo Festival, complete with separate lunch and dinner menus featuring such dishes as gumbo, jambalaya, shrimp etouffe and blackened halibut covered with spicy Creole shrimp sauce. The promotion proved so successful that four of the most popular Voodoo dishes--barbecue shrimp, voodoo shrimp, jambalaya and the blackened halibut--moved onto the main menu.

The resulting menu offers eye-popping diversity, and it can be hard deciding what to order. But it’s also a treat for groups of diners who want to share a variety of tastes.

The finger-food appetizers are particularly well-suited to this. Among the Mexican choices, the crunchy, meaty chicken taquitos are accented with an avocado relish and a spicy chipotle salsa (served on the side). The chicken quesadilla has a twist--it’s made with smoky Gouda cheese.

I particularly liked the much lighter Asian-style appetizers: the lettuce wraps and the ahi rolls. Accompanying the crisp iceberg lettuce is ground chicken tempered with mushrooms and a sweet hoisin sauce. Depending on the amount of lettuce served, there’s enough to make four or five wraps.

The ahi rolls feature chunks of raw ahi, avocado and arugula stuffed into a chewy tortilla wrap. Its dipping sauce is heavy with cilantro, which somewhat overwhelms the ahi, but a little adds a nice touch.

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The soups and salads aren’t necessarily for sharing, but they exemplify more than any other items on the menu Wilhelm’s style of adding unexpected touches to dishes. Mostly this works. A prime example is the grilled Caesar salad, which contains toasted pumpkin seeds and grilled hearts of romaine. The pumpkin seeds add an interesting flavor to an otherwise average salad, which also comes with choices of chicken, spicy calamari, shrimp and rare ahi.

Given Wilhelm’s taste for trying something different, the soft-taco platter offers a surprisingly predictable collection of lettuce, guacamole and salsa. Not even the choice of papaya-blackened fish can save this one.

But the entrees, which include the new Louisiana-style dishes, suffer no such problems. If there’s a signature dish at Chimayo, it’s the grilled salmon: a thick, delicious, slightly charred chunk of fish covered with a light barbecue sauce. Because salmon is ubiquitous at seafood restaurants, few treatments stand out, but this one is distinctive. It’s a good choice for a first-time visitor not sure what to order.

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Among the new Louisiana dishes, my favorite is the spicy voodoo shrimp. The shrimp are fried crunchy with Cajun seasoning, making them spicy enough, but the addition of chopped green chiles really makes the dish pop. It’s served on a bed of rice with Wilhelm’s popular sweet corn pudding on the side.

The entree that impresses me most is the Yucatan shrimp and crab enchiladas covered with a light chipotle-pepper sauce. The shrimp and crab flavors really stand out, and they go wonderfully with the corn tortillas they’re wrapped in. Another interesting seafood dish you won’t find elsewhere is the calamari steak covered with rock shrimp, diced tomatoes and capers.

Besides the seafood entrees, Chimayo offers a few meat and poultry dishes. Most of these are standard stuff: roasted chicken breast and mashed potatoes, filet mignon with barbecue sauce, grilled pork chops. But the Jamaican-style roast pork is really something. The pork is almost as tender as carnitas, and it’s encased in a light, crispy shell formed by the spicy orange glaze. On the side are au gratin jalapeno-cheddar potatoes, a delightful change from the omnipresent mashed potatoes.

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In all, Chimayo at the Beach is not as challenging or satisfying as Wilhelm’s other restaurants, such as French 75 or the Sorrento Grille in Laguna Beach, but he’s reaching a different, more tourist-oriented market here.

In fact, beachfront restaurants mostly rest on their vistas and don’t bother to serve distinctive, well-crafted food. To Wilhelm’s credit, though the dinner you’re eating at Chimayo at the Beach may not measure up to the thrill of watching the sun set beyond the Pacific, it’ll certainly give it a run for its money.

Chimayo at the Beach is moderately priced. Appetizers range from $7.95 to $9.95, soups and salads from $5.75 to $13.95, sandwiches $8.95, pizzas $10.95 and entrees from $13.95 to $23.95. Reservations for groups of five or more. Full bar.

* Chimayo at the Beach, 315 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach. (714) 374-7273. Open for lunch from 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m. daily, for dinner from 4-11 p.m. daily.