The wine bar’s overflowing

OK, sometimes I’m not the swiftest. It took me a minute to get the wordplay in the name of the Toluca Lake wine bar Eight-18. Instead of “eight one eight” -- the Valley area code -- the name is pronounced “eight eighteen.”

Eight-18 does not go in for the demure model of wine bar, as in wine “library.” On a weekend night, the Riverside Drive spot is a dionysian frenzy. Walk in, and the roar of the crowd is so intense, the host has to ask you to repeat the name of the reservation. A long bar bends along the sides of the room. Every seat is taken, and at some point, it’s three deep, so it’s hard to make out the charcuterie case at first, or the array of cheeses. I spot a chorus line of open bottles that make up the wines by the glass. Across the room, one entire wall is taken up with wine bottles laid on their sides, the better to display their comely labels.

A cheerful blond with roses tattooed up and down her arms leads us to our table in the back room. Beyond that is a tented patio where a boisterous party is going on, and where a DJ is in evidence on the weekends. Behind us, a long table of women enthusiastically tastes and compares wines, calling the waiter back again and again for more charcuterie, more cheese, more everything.

For a restaurant that’s barely 3 months old, Eight-18 is a roaring success, if the number of people crowding the bar is any indication. The downside is that the kitchen and the staff are having a hard time keeping up. Service is slow and disjointed. We ask for the wine list and get a one-page list of wines that altogether is so underachieving you have to wonder, why bother to call this place a wine bar? We order charcuterie and 20 minutes later, it shows up. Without bread.

The kitchen’s behind. Your toast points are coming, the server assures us. Forget the toast, we say, and just bring us some bread.

Oh, you want soft bread?

Soft bread? It’s an expression I’ve never heard used before. But yes, we do. She manages to rustle up four wan slices and then mentions that’s the last of the soft bread. No matter, we’re so hungry we’ve already eaten our prosciutto and salami out of desperation. Many minutes later, a diminutive plate of “toaster points” arrives. It seems to bear no relation to the amount of charcuterie we’d ordered. Too little, too late.

I’m sure we’re not the only table in this situation. If the kitchen can’t keep up, the waiter gets the complaints, and yet ours remains unflappable and cheerful. It’s kind of remarkable.

It could be that Eight-18’s menu is too ambitious for the setup. This is yet another case of wine bar as full-fledged restaurant. Keeping it simpler could mean getting the food out faster. Instead, chef Alex Eusebio is going for “big food on small plates.”

That would be crab cakes with aioli, braised short ribs with veggies, filet mignon with Roquefort butter, even duck confit with potato and leek ragout and seared foie gras with wild berry and “mocha moose.” Er, the latter would refer not to the enormous animal with antlers, but to a frothy confection, or mousse.

There are more than 20 cheeses on offer too, but the staff doesn’t seem to know much about them yet. The best thing we had that night was the pulled short rib sliders. Paella? I’m sure the chef can do better when the kitchen is not getting so slammed.

Eight-18 is actually owner Brad Roen’s second wine bar. The first is Wine 661 in Valencia. If the crowds keep coming, somehow I think there will be a third wine bar in his future.

The trend hasn’t begun to slow down. Wine bars are fast on their way to becoming the new diner -- a neighborhood spot to have a bite and try a couple of new wines. No big time commitment. The price sounds right. But careful: Those wines by the glass add up. If you’re going to have more than one, you might as well have a bottle.

As we’re leaving, we take a closer look at the wines displayed in the front room. None of them were on the wine list. What gives? It turns out we never got the real wine list. They had only five of them, and someone stole the last one earlier in the evening, the host tells us, shrugging, as if it’s no big thing.

Well, it is a big thing for a wine bar. And couldn’t someone have run out to a copy shop once they got down to that last wine list? It leaves me wondering if no one much cared because they’re making such a profit on the wines by the glass.

virbila@latimes.com

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Eight-18

Where: 10151 Riverside Drive, Toluca Lake

When: 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 5-11 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays

Price: Tapas, $6-$15; sides, $5; cheeses, $5 for one selection, $15 for three, and $24 for five; charcuterie, $5 for each selection

Info: (818) 761-4243. Wine and beer. Parking in back and on the street.