Food for the Glitzmill

Michael Chow has had phenomenal success as a restaurateur. He opened his first Mr Chow in London in 1968, and it quickly became a magnet for the famous and the infamous in the swinging capital of the day. New York and Los Angeles locations soon followed. For more than 30 years, the Shanghai-born Chow has moved in the highest circles of art, film and culture. His likeness--bowl-shaped haircut, owlish/impassive gaze and swatch of mustache beneath his signature round eyeglasses--has been painted by David Hockney, Francesco Clemente, Julian Schnabel and Jean-Michel Basquiat, among others. And now, at the very moment that Mr Chow in Beverly Hills is enjoying something of a comeback, with the young Hollywood set joining the old faithful, Chow has launched Eurochow, an ambitious new restaurant in Westwood Village.

Set in the landmark 1929 building at Westwood Boulevard and Broxton Avenue, its most impressive characteristic is its striking design. Chow, schooled in London and trained as an architect, has helped with the look of his restaurants, but this one was truly an amour fou. On several occasions, when I’ve had to wait, I’ve enjoyed watching passers-by come up to gawk at this regal swan.

Eurochow’s interior is a study in white, a play of glossy and transparent against matte and opaque. Chow is a master of the theatrical. A 25-foot white marble obelisk emits a beam that bathes light on the pristine white ceiling far above. Behind the bar, he tempts the earthquake gods with a dramatic display of backlighted glass bottles, while a video monitor displays the dizzying swoons of a video camera that pans the room. Watch your manners: you could be on Candid Camera. A transparent arched bridge connects one side of the mezzanine to the other, perfectly situated so that anyone sitting at the long communal table can get an X-rated view up skirts. A tiny balcony cantilevered over the room and set with a table for two is perfect for romantic exhibitionists. But the prime table is center front, on the mezzanine. One night, just as we’re being seated downstairs, someone in my party casts a covetous glance at that very table, which is notably empty. “That’s for someone special,” our waiter informs us, rushing to add, “not that you’re not special.”

At Mr Chow’s, at least the Beverly Hills version, the Chinese food seems about as Chinese as a Charlie Chan movie. At Eurochow, the restaurateur is going for something different. “Concepito nel 1295”-- conceived in 1295--reads the logo on the plates. Stumped? The menu offers elucidation: “In the year 1295, Marco Polo returned to Italy from the Middle Kingdom, bringing back with him the ancient recipe for handmade noodles; hence the birth of pasta. At last, 700 years later, these two great cuisines are united at Eurochow.” That’s united, not fused. When you look over the slender laminated menu, you’ll find Middle Kingdom water ravioli and Beijing fresh steamed oysters sharing space with pizza Margherita and bistecca fiorentina.

I wish I could say Eurochow’s menu only seems boring. I could come to love the restaurant if it provided the best shrimp wonton soup I’d ever tasted along with a superb minestrone and great linguini alle vongole or grilled langoustines. And the idea that you could eat these into the wee hours of the morning? Even better. Sorry to say, most of the food at Eurochow falls far short of that ideal. How such a savvy restaurateur as Michael Chow could have lavished so much attention on every detail of the design (not to mention some $4 million to create the restaurant) and not taken the food more into account is a mystery.

As it is, there’s just a handful of decent items: a lemony raw baby artichoke salad with sliced mushrooms and Parmesan, the dainty shrimp rolls, a silky terrine of foie gras. The pizzas aren’t going on anybody’s list of the Top 10 in town, though the shrimp with arugula or the sausage and mushroom pizza with mild Cambozola blue cheese will stave off hunger nicely.

At lunch, there’s an overgrown tramezzini, usually a diminutive crustless sandwich served asa snack in Italian bars. This version has hard-boiled egg and plenty of anchovy. And the salade Nicoise is made properly with flavorful dark canned tuna in olive oil instead of tasteless seared ahi.

The steamed shrimp and arugula and baby tatsoi salad is perfect ladies-who-lunch fare. If you just want to nibble, the chilled seafood platter is a good choice, though the crayfish and langoustines I was served one day could have been fresher. And as a late-night pick-me-up, slippery rice noodles topped with thin slices of wok-seared beef with scallions and snap peas will do the trick.

None of what I’ve eaten during four meals at Eurochow, however, has been memorable--and that’s being kind. Order some items at your peril. Why doesn’t someone in the kitchen have the good sense to refuse to serve the truly sad, greasy pork spareribs? Butterfly pillows, little pleated dumplings embedded in a paper-thin crepe, have a filling so bland it’s hardly there. And the stuffing of minced pork and greens in the dragon dumplings makes just as sorry an impression. You could find better Chinese food at a mini-mall takeout, one of my dining companions says incredulously. The walnuts in the glazed shrimp dish are irresistible, I admit, but the glaze is so rich and cloying that it’s hard to finish more than a bite or two.

And every Italian pasta dish I’ve tried has been unacceptably gluey. Veal ravioli with walnut sauce is the best of the lot, though the pasta itself is clumsily thick.

The kitchen has just as much trouble with main courses. Lamb chops in a bready coating shouldn’t be on the menu, complains a neighboring guest who (like my party one night) had waited 45 minutes to be seated--with the baby-sitter meter ticking. “The Pork Chop” is pedestrian, even if it is listed in bold on the menu because, as the waiter explains, Mr. Chow is particularly pleased with it. The poached and fried chicken doesn’t have much to recommend it, not even the limp shoestring fries that accompany it. And the grilled langoustines taste like soap. There’s not one shred of soul--Chinese or Italian--in any of the food.

A couple of the simpler desserts, however, are among the best things on the menu: fresh lychee nuts, with their haunting perfume, set on a bowl of ice, and the shivery panna cotta, or “cooked cream,” turned out of a mold.

The “Visible Wine Cellar” touted in the press releases is more show than substance. Racks of impressive-looking bottles can be seen through the glass floor in a part of the restaurant, where those who suffer from vertigo won’t want to be seated. The wine list, which sorts selections in order of price, could have given Eurochow a jolt of excitement. But it doesn’t. And twice when I ordered red wine, it was served too warm.

Though Chow had the resources and the vision to make Eurochow a startling new addition to Los Angeles, he has focused too much on the restaurant’s highly original design and not nearly enough on the food. Unless he can turn the kitchen around, Eurochow may soon be more of a lure to tourists than the glamorous international set he’s accustomed to receiving at Mr Chow. It’s a different climate now, and diners are sophisticated enough to expect more than just glitz.

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Eurochow

CUISINE: Italian, Chinese. AMBIENCE: Dramatic contemporary design with mezzanine, communal table and Egyptian obelisk. BEST DISHES: Pizzas, baby artichoke salad, Nioise salad, rice noodles with beef, panna cotta. wine PICKs: 1996 Trimbach Gewurztraminer, Alsace; 1997 Masi Valpolicella, Veneto. FACTS: 1099 Westwood Blvd., Westwood Village; (310) 209-0066. Open daily for lunch, dinner, late supper. Appetizers, $6 to $15; main courses, $14 to $20. Corkage $10. Valet parking.