RESTAURANT REVIEW : Epicentre Is Not Without Its Faults

As we drove into downtown Los Angeles one weeknight, the city had the look of a deserted studio backlot, a vast, complex movie set waiting to be brought to life. Epicentre, the new earthquake-theme restaurant attached to the Kawada Hotel, felt similarly expectant and quiet. A lone diner sat in the middle of the room eating a dish entitled “Curry on the Richter Scale.�

Such nighttime stillness is the bane of many downtown eating establishments, which, like Epicentre, have boisterous lunch crowds.

The dining room is a large, bright, multileveled room filled with post-modern playfulness. There is a huge mural of Los Angeles a-tilt in a furious quake; one wall has bogus cracks built right into the plaster--apparently the designers weren’t willing to wait for the real thing. There are cacti in pots, walls of glass facing the street and bright, cheerful colors everywhere. The ceiling is paved in industrial mesh. Some mischievous decorator had a lot of fun.

Quake-isms spill over to the menu as well. There are “epitizers� for starters and “aftershocks� for desserts. How could we resist ordering the San Andreas soup, white- and black-bean purees separated by a sour cream fault line? We demolished a bowlful in short order, as well as semi-sweet, butter-drenched garlic shrimp, and the passable “Epi Salad� of baby greens with a vinegary dressing. We ignored the dry sourdough rolls which came with a soft pale whipped spread.

Dinner, selected from the “Serious Eating� category on the menu, was a matter of high gloss and low interest. An adequate New York steak was served with a bright array of steamed vegetables and a potato product that had the visual look of woven mesh and the unmistakable taste and temperature of potato chips.

We also allowed the waitress to talk us into the Chicken Yucatan, two good-sized boneless grilled chicken breasts in a bland and characteristically sour tomatillo sauce. While there was nothing terribly wrong with the dish, the source of its allure to the waitress remained a mystery.

In fact, all the food was characterized by the slick commercial gleam found in many hotel dining rooms. Professional travelers will find the food at Epicentre all too familiar.

Returning for lunch a week later, we found Epicentre swarmed with lawyers and bankers and other office workers from nearby high-rises. These customers might not drive back into town for dinner at Epicentre, but they seem to appreciate its cheerful comic ambience during the workday. The bar was busy. The place was full of noise and clatter. We were seated right up against the front window--exactly not the place to be when and if the Big One hits.

We had ringside seats to the intersection, and felt virtually in the mouth of the Second Street tunnel. Pizza deliverymen on bicycles stopped 10 feet away, waiting for the light to change. A news crew assembled and filmed a man speaking into a microphone, a stone’s throw from where we were trying to decide what to eat for lunch. Between the hubbub in the restaurant and the ongoing human drama on the street corner our conversation faltered.

The lunch menu has fewer entrees and more meal-sized salads than the dinner menu, but otherwise there is little difference.

Curiously, there are no sandwiches. Again, we found the food generically good-looking and unexceptional. The chilled avocado soup “El Toro,� topped with a single shrimp, had a peculiar glossiness and a smooth, homogenized texture. The scallop spinach salad had the skinniest scallops I’ve ever met. Even still, the portions at Epicentre are quite ample.

This time, the waitress recommended fettuccine primavera, which turned out to be an enormous tangle of noodles with shredded zucchini, carrots and broccoli in a grainy goat cheese sauce. We couldn’t resist ordering the “Curry on the Richter Scale,� since it came spiced to order--from 1.0 to 10.0. We ordered it 7.5 and I must say, if this was an accurate reading, a 7.5 earthquake is nothing one couldn’t survive with flying colors.

The service was very cheerful and efficient. As one runner tidied up our table between courses, he not only removed used dishes and replaced cutlery, he went on to fastidiously realign the condiments, our glasses, and even the pen and paper I’d set on the table. It was ironic, we thought, to find such an orderly soul in a place called Epicentre.

Epicentre Restaurant in the Kawada Hotel, 200 S. Hill St., Los Angeles, (213) 625-0000. Breakfast and lunch seven days, dinner Monday through Saturday. Full bar. Complimentary valet parking. All major credit cards. Dinner for two, food only, $28 to $58.