Why not paint the night red?

VA-VA-VOOM! It’s Friday night at Chapter Eight Steakhouse & Dance Lounge, and the place is hopping. At the tables, diners chatter over the music, sipping cocktails, carving up steaks and checking out the scene. The lounge is quickly filling up; savvy regulars have snagged prime seats at the bar. They’re drinking concoctions like Platinum Bullet or Little Miss Red Hots. The place is decidedly red -- scarletly so; a huge, futuristic chandelier casts a naughty red glow over the place.

The lounge opens out onto a patio with a couple of cabanas; a long-legged cocktail server wearing hot pants ferries drinks from the bar to lizards lounging next to the fire pit. On a huge video screen inside, a languid brunet bites her nails in slow-mo till they’re bleeding.

When the last diner pushes away from his shiny black table, chairs and tables will be whisked away; by 10 the floor, which is lighted from underneath, will be a dance floor, and go-go dancers will start gyrating on the ledge above, as the DJ spins next to them.

Welcome to the sleepy, pastoral bedroom community of Agoura Hills.

Cocktails are in order. My dining companion picks up her Apple Sucka to taste it, and it almost flies to the ceiling: The $9 drink is in a plastic martini glass. My drink is called The $50 Margarita for Only $19.99; it’s in an actual highball glass rimmed with salt (should be red Hawaiian sea salt at that price).

My friend asks for a real glass, and the server apologizes profusely as she replaces it. “We only have four,” the server explains. “Customers were taking them on the dance floor and they were all breaking. They’re on back-order.” My margarita, which according to the menu is concocted from El Tesoro Paradiso anejo tequila (sounds expensive), fresh lime juice and Grand Marnier Cuvee du Centenaire, tastes like syrupy margarita mix.

Ah, well, on to dinner.

In this setting, you’d expect the food to be beside the point, but Chapter Eight’s chef, Eddy Shin (formerly of Nick & Stef’s steakhouse downtown), has some interesting ideas. He approaches the steakhouse menu with such a measure of creativity and earnestness that you really want to like everything. In fact, his simplest dishes work best.

For starters, there are a few classics, such as a reliably tasty and crisp whole-leaf Caesar with shaved good-quality Parmesan. But more often Shin tweaks tradition: A beet salad layers roasted beets with fig tapenade; it’s dressed with blood orange-balsamic vinaigrette and garnished with bits of Humboldt Fog goat cheese and Marcona almonds. A tangle of microgreens sits atop the beet tower. The impulse seems honorable, but it’s all too much -- the fig tapenade is too sweet with the beets; the microgreens are just silly.

Last week, Shin switched over to a fall menu; the late-summer shrimp cocktail was spicy grilled prawns served over cucumber “vermicelli” with golden gazpacho sauce. The prawns were a tad overcooked and seriously spicy, but the cucumber salad was perfectly balanced, with just the right slight crunch. Silky domestic-Kobe carpaccio with yuzu-black truffle vinaigrette was wonderful, but the too-sweet truffle ice cream on top dragged the dish down.

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For meat lovers

AMONG the new starters, a charcuterie and antipasto plate includes house-cured ham, salami, white anchovies, delicious little green olives, roasted red and yellow peppers, a few bites of good fresh mozzarella and, weirdly, a little bowl of preserved lemons. What a shock biting into one. This is an ingredient that should be used sparingly, cut into small pieces, as an accent in dishes. It’s a jarring note in an otherwise lovely starter.

A trio of tartares, on the other hand, almost completely misses. Two of the elements are far too sweet: The Kobe beef tartare has diced Asian pear; tomato tartare is invaded by strawberries. Best is the simplest, the redundantly named ruby red ahi tuna tartare.

Fortunately, the steaks are much more straightforward. They’re all 28-day aged prime, but they’re wet-aged, not dry-aged, except for the 16-ounce Kansas City strip loin. Dry-aged steaks have a deeper flavor, and the Kansas City strip is great quality, though the kitchen missed medium-rare by a few degrees. You’ll pay though -- it’s a whopping $48.

Rather than settling for the wet-aged choices, which can be disappointing, try one of the Kobe options. Particularly good is a “naked” 10-ounce domestic-Kobe rib-eye, naked meaning just the center eye. It’s perfectly cooked, more tender and more unctuous than rib-eye usually is, yet with serious flavor. A 12-ounce Kobe burger with herb aioli looks huge, but it’s so satisfying and juicy it’s hard not to finish; it’s served with decent frites.

We finish dessert, sign the charge slip and we’re not even halfway out of our chairs when a foursome who had been eyeing the table pounces on it.

On a quiet Sunday night (the lounge turns into a dance club only on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays), Chapter Eight is a completely different experience.

The approach in itself is something, especially if you’re coming from points east. Arrive as the sun sets, and you may be treated to a spectacular show as you drive west on the 101 -- luminous, golden rolling hills dotted with oaks play against a violet and orange sky. Chapter Eight is south of the highway, really in the country; it’s tucked off to the side of a suburban strip mall. There’s a rifle range a couple of blocks away.

So it’s a great shock to walk in and see all that red, red, red and the video installations and the space-age tunnel that goes from the lounge to the dining room. It feels like walking into a Flash website. But hey, that’s kind of Vegas, right? Kind of Palm Springs!

If the Inuits have 32 words for snow, the management of Chapter Eight ought to have 47 words for red. We’re offered an inviting booth with tufted scarlet suede banquettes. The booth looks swell, but those on the inside will miss the action. Should we go instead for a crimson semicircular booth facing the bar? No, we’d all be facing the same direction, and wouldn’t be able to converse.

We settle on a table along the partition in the center, the better to take it all in -- the columns of shimmering crystal beads, the wine cellar that looks infrared. The bar on the back wall has clear Plexiglass bar stools and a curtain of crystal beads as a backdrop; ruby-colored bottles of Hennessy Paradis are set into the curtain at geometric intervals. Video screens flank the bar, and drippy crystal chandeliers light the room. Sort of. (On another visit, we sit in one of the secluded booths, and the low lighting is so dark-red that even the waiter needs a penlight to take our orders -- we pass it between him and whoever’s ordering, so we can read our menus.)

The decor -- crowned with a white porcelain statue of a woman with upstretched arms standing on a shining red pedestal -- is so over-the-top you have to wonder whether the designer is kidding. After all, according to our waiter, the owners wanted to call the restaurant Chapter 11, but that was just too too. In any case, this room makes Dodd Mitchell look like Martha Stewart.

Somehow the situation seems to cry out for oysters. About that, I just have one thing to say: Why are oysters still spawning in the second month with an “R”? Has it been that warm? It’s so dark in the dining room that it would be nice if the kitchen would pay closer attention to the bivalves they’re sending out. True, $18 for a dozen is fairly a bargain, but when half of them are milky-white and grainy with roe, it’s terribly off-putting.

The servers are friendly but professional; they don’t overstep the boundaries by getting too chatty. When the spawning oysters come to the table, the server doesn’t seem to know what that means, but he’s happy to return them to the kitchen to have the chef take a look; a full complement of a dozen pristine ones arrives shortly. In some restaurants, that would have inspired a training session about oysters, but the same thing happens on my next visit. This time the server seems so baffled we don’t even explain, but just send them back.

A little later, three couples come in, taking one of the semi-circular booths. One of the guys seems as though he’s had a few too many. He’s very friendly, though, shouting over the back of his banquette to ask us how our steaks are.

Fine, we say. Better than the sides, anyway. On one visit, the glazed jumbo asparagus is undercooked; more lately, the caramelized fall root vegetables (kohlrabi, celery root, parsnip and turnips) have a lovely, earthy flavor, but they’re underdone to the point of being crunchy. Potatoes are a big deal here -- there are always eight different preparations. But except for the reliable versions of mashed (I liked the oven-roasted garlic mashed) and the super-rich gratinee with aged cheddar, they tend to disappoint.

*

Pouring it on

SO do the sauces. The bordelaise arrives seized-up and chunky; the bearnaise is so thick it’s not a sauce. Better are the simpler ones like red wine or single malt Scotch peppercorn.

Sometimes, the meat’s so good you won’t need sauce, like the thick-cut free range veal chops one night: They’re perfectly cooked, rosy and delicious. But other times you’ll wish a sauce could rescue a cut of meat: One night, the New Zealand rack of lamb is unpleasantly funky.

A terrific roasted Pekin duck breast comes with the leg confit (a little over salted) and its own sauce, a pomegranate gastrique that lends a nice counterpoint to the rich meat.

The wine list is California-heavy, with few interesting choices. One night I opt for a half-bottle, a 2000 Louis Latour Pommard for $32; another night it’s a $70 bottle of 2002 Chateau Montelena from Napa, drinking very well, and wonderful with that Kobe rib-eye.

Desserts are lackluster. Drop kick homemade buttermilk doughnuts are actually doughnut holes; they’re served with caramel, chocolate and mango sauces. Better is the Florida Key lime pie, which is nicely tart, served with a lime-vanilla sauce.

But quick, let’s finish them up -- the room is filling up with partyers, and they’re eyeing our table. They want us out of there, so they can dance the night away.

*

Chapter Eight Steakhouse & Dance Lounge

Rating: * 1/2

Location: 29020 Agoura Road, Agoura Hills; (818) 889-2088; www.chapter8lounge.com.

Ambience: Over-the-top Palm Springs meets Las Vegas mock glam decor. Thursday through Saturday nights, the dance lounge, which spills out onto an inviting small patio with a fire pit, is a vibrant scene. The main dining room is energized by the wacky design.

Service: Friendly and professional.

Price: Appetizers, $7 to $18; main courses, $18 to $48; sides, $7; desserts, $6 to $15.

Best dishes: Kobe burger; “naked” domestic Kobe rib-eye; dry-aged Kansas City strip loin; oven-roasted garlic mashed potatoes; gratinee with aged cheddar cheese.

Wine list: California-heavy, unexciting and pricey. Corkage, $15.

Best table: A semicircular booth facing the bar in the main dining room or a cabana on the patio.

Details: Open 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday and Monday, and 5 p.m. to midnight Tuesday through Saturday. Full bar. Spirits are also available by the bottle ($285 for Grey Goose; $450 for Johnny Walker Blue). Valet parking, $4.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.

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S. Irene Virbila is on vacation.