Mozzarella in the egg rolls?

FUSION blurs the boundaries between cuisines, teasing and tickling jaded diners with sometimes thrilling, sometimes preposterous juxtapositions of flavors and ingredients. Under an inspired chef, fusion makes its own kind of brilliant sense. But too often, it’s the last resort for bored, or lazy, chefs who throw something together and hope for the best.

L.A. has long been ground zero for experiments in fusing cuisines. Remember City Restaurant, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger’s groundbreaking global cuisine restaurant on La Brea Avenue? And when Nobu Matsuhisa injected Japanese seafood cuisine with Peruvian elements at Matsuhisa and launched a whole new style of sushi restaurant? We’ve seen Japanese-French, California-Mediterranean, Asian fusion and Euro-Indian couplings.

And now for the first time, at least to my knowledge, comes Thai-Italian at Thaitalian Cooking Duet in Old Town Pasadena, a restaurant so sure of its appeal that the name printed on the menu bears a trademark symbol. Actually, I’m surprised no one has come up with this idea before. The menu calls it dueling cuisines, but it’s more spooning cuisines. Owner Surapol Mekpongsatorn, who has Noodle World in Monterey Park, loves Italian food. According to the servers, he’s never been to Italy himself, which may be why he feels free to weave the two cuisines together.

This is no mom-and-pop restaurant though. It takes over the former Naya space on Colorado Boulevard right in the thick of Old Town Pasadena. It’s a good-looking place, more bistro than cafe, a setting that belies the moderately priced menu where no main course breaks the $20 mark and most are less than $15.

The new owner has kept Naya’s handsome mosaic modern lights, the grid of polished black panels on the walls and the small bar in the back corner. New touches -- covering the banquettes in something like grass cloth and splashing the walls with juicy colors -- telegraph the tropics, as do tall arrangements of lucky bamboo or kangaroo paws and daylilies. Ginger-colored butcher paper on the tabletops give Thaitalian a casual feel.

The menu from chef Nancy Watkins includes some all-Thai dishes and some pure Italian dishes (so you can get, for example, either minestrone or tomyum soup) but the majority pirouette through both traditions, replacing a Thai ingredient with an Italian one here, adding Thai accents to an Italian dish there. The idea of blending the two cuisines isn’t as wacky as it first seems. They both use noodles, mostly rice noodles for Thai cuisine and either fresh egg noodles or dried durum wheat for Italian. They both use basil, though Italian has more subtle aromatics.

The most successful category, in fact, is the pasta. Think spaghetti tossed in Thai basil pesto, which has a sharper and even more fragrant edge than the Ligurian original. Linguini pad Thai substitutes Italian noodles for the traditional rice noodles, which makes for a more robust dish. Otherwise, it’s very similar, combining the wok-tossed egg with bean sprouts, scallions and crushed peanuts. The toasted pine nuts are a sweet surprise, like the ribbon tied around a package.

Or try the linguini in a green curry sauce perfumed with Thai basil, which I’d also recommend. This one has some fire and the sauce is just so delicious, you keep eating and eating.

It’s fun to order a slew of dishes and decide for yourself what works (most of it) and what doesn’t (the occasional dish).

Watkins puts smoked and fresh mozzarella, a little fontina and roasted tomato in an egg roll wrapper and offers the crisp, fried rolls with an arrabbiata sauce -- Italy’s “angry” tomato sauce -- fired, in this case very discretely, with dried red chiles. Seafood egg rolls filled with sauteed seafood and sun-dried tomato are served with an arrabbiata and a Thai sweet-sour sauce. The flavors are enjoyable, but the filling is so finely minced it’s almost a paste.

One of the best starters is the lemon grass mussels. Served in a broth suffused with the penetrating taste of fresh lemon grass, the steamed mussels make a fine first course to share. Chicken satay is less successful. The skinny strips of skewered chicken breast are nicely grilled, but the dipping sauce is extremely sweet and also awfully wimpy in the chile department.

The pizzas have some fun with the “dueling cuisines” concept. There’s Napoli’s beloved Margherita, in Thaitalian’s version made with mozzarella, basil, tomato sauce and sliced tomatoes. You can probably guess that there’d have to be a pollo satay and a Thai barbecue chicken pizza. They’re not that far from other radical pizzas around town.

On one visit, I enjoy the Panang shrimp pizza piled with firm meaty shrimp, sweet red peppers, tomato and lots more stuff fired up with a little Thai curry paste. Everybody at my table gobbled down their slice, reveling in the flavors and ignoring the thin, somewhat tough crust.

Though I appreciate the clean, skillful cooking, I’m a little disappointed at how few dishes here are truly spicy. The Thai elements have lost some of the clarity and intensity that makes the cuisine so appealing. With fusion, you always lose something and gain something. And in this case, the gain could be a wider pull.

Main courses don’t have nearly the appeal of the inventive first courses and pastas. The one that stands out is sliced steak in a smoldering red curry sauce served with jasmine rice to soak up all that sauce. The salmon in lemon grass caper sauce served with saffron rice makes a nice supper plate too.

Desperately needed here: someone disinterested who knows about wine and understands what kind of wines would go best with the food. It seems most of the wines come from the same distributor, which is too limiting. The right person could have some fun putting together a smart wine list. Meanwhile, go with one of the Italian beers. Of course, the bar is ready to make a long list of cocktails with fanciful names like Thaifoon, Lychee Gimlet Martini or X-Rated Sex on the Beach (don’t ask) too.

Desserts come wearing pert miniature paper umbrellas. Though it’s very much on the sweet side, the coconut creme brulee has a lovely tropical accent. And in this muggy weather the strawberries and mascarpone, served in layers of red and white in a flared martini glass, is cool and soothing.

The service from a young, all-female staff is unfailingly polite and attentive. This alone is worth a good deal on Colorado Boulevard where the restaurant experience is often more about turning tables than anything else. Here, you can linger over coffee or a glass of wine unhurried, taking in the scene outside the front windows.

Teens scurry by in a close-stuck pack, roaming up and down the boulevard. Every sidewalk table for the next couple of blocks is occupied. Many of the hungry folks lined up outside the Cheesecake Factory would enjoy Thaitalia, I’m sure, but I’m afraid it has the look of something much more expensive than it really is. Just inside the door, a flat wooden figure wearing a Frenchman’s beret and a moustache displays the menu, but not many venture inside to check out what’s on offer or the prices.

The savvy few who do find a pleasant bistro where it’s quiet enough to talk, unconventional food priced so moderately that eating here doesn’t require a special occasion, and service is earnest and attentive. The fact that it also offers something unique makes Thaitalian something of a discovery in the neighborhood.

*

Thaitalian Cooking Duet

Rating: *

Location: 49 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (626) 585-8808; www.thaitalian.com.

Ambience: At the far end of Old Town Pasadena, a unique Thai-Italian restaurant with a smart bistro ambience, lovely Thai servers and a menu of pizzas, pastas and other dishes that fuse the two cuisines.

Service: Sweet-natured and attentive.

Price: Appetizers, $8 to $12; salads and soups, $4 to $13; pizzas, $9 to $13; pastas, $8 to $16; main courses, $12 to $16; desserts, $5 to $7.

Best dishes: Mozzarella rolls, crispy battered spinach leaves with crushed peanuts, Panang shrimp pizza, green curry noodles.

Wine list: Anonymous and uninteresting. Needed: someone who knows about wine and which wines would go best with this food. Try a cocktail instead. Corkage $15.

Best table: The banquette in the front corner window.

Details: Open for lunch and dinner from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; until 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Full bar. Valet parking for the block on Colorado Avenue, $5.

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.