A Chophouse by the Sea

What is it about a restaurant with a view that seems to make the kitchen apathetic? When asked to recommend a place to eat on the beach, I can’t come up with more than a few deserving names. But now there’s a spanking-new restaurant that offers pretty good food, great value and a superlative view of waves washing against the historic Redondo Beach Pier. The fact that Kincaid’s Bay House is a chain restaurant is all the more surprising.

The word must already be out because on a weekday night, when I expect to be able to walk in without a reservation, every table is taken and the 18-foot-long marble bar is jam-packed with diners waiting for a table. The host estimates only a 15-minute delay, which, for once, turns out to be fairly accurate.

Menus in hand, a cheery fellow leads us to our table. It’s covered with a map of a harbor, though on closer inspection, I discover that it’s not this particular harbor. (Nor is it Oakland, Honolulu or any of the three other Kincaid’s locations.) The marine theme continues with framed prints of fish and shells, paintings of seascapes and vintage postcards depicting the harbor’s huge Victorian bathhouse before it burned down. The dining room ceiling is painted salmon and hung with unobtrusive track lighting and chandeliers covered with Fortuny-esque cloth lampshades. Plaid curtains and a tartan carpet add a cheerful note.

As I sip a hand-shaken, made-from-scratch margarita, I notice I’m not alone. Almost everyone is happily slurping margaritas, Manhattans or the generous martinis--not to mention oaky California Chardonnays. I try to guess who they are--girlfriends on an evening out, co-workers winding down after a difficult day, couples treating themselves to dinner. The body language is relaxed; the mood, festive.

Whoever they are, nobody goes hungry for long. As soon as you sit down, out comes sesame pan bread straight from the oven. It’s a little doughy, but when bread is warm, such shortcomings are easy to overlook. Waiters aren’t shy about suggesting dishes. If someone proposes the hot Dungeness crab appetizer, however, pass. This overly rich mess of artichoke hearts, crab and Parmesan has about as much appeal as nachos made with liquid cheese.

Fortunately, the rest of the appetizers are much better. I like the chophouse salad, which is a chopped chef’s salad topped with lightly smoked turkey, julienned cold cuts and cheese in a piquant vinaigrette. My husband can hardly get the words “pork lollipop” out of his mouth without wincing, but when these grilled flaps of pork marinated in something very much like a retro teriyaki sauce show up threaded on skewers stuck in a pineapple base, they turn out to be much tastier than they sound.

Kincaid’s formula is chophouse-by-the-sea--grilled seafood, rotisseried poultry and meats,

along with the usual steaks and lobster, an updated surf ‘n’ turf--all in generous portions and almost every entree less than $25. Food here doesn’t seem to languish under heat lamps as it does at so many chain restaurants. It comes out fresh and, for the most part, carefully cooked. Cutting-edge, high-end restaurant ideas have filtered down to this menu, but whoever wrote Kincaid’s menu has wisely adapted the recipes so that they can be executed--well--by the chef de cuisine and the line cooks.

The seared scallops with mashed potatoes that are standard fare at trendy California-French restaurants are translated here into an appetizer of wood-smoked prawns on a bed of quite good mashed potatoes with barbecue hollandaise. Kincaid’s executive chef, Hawaiian-born James Nalu Miller, tops lightly smoked top sirloin with a martini butter flavored with all the elements of the cocktail (including the olive!), instead of a classic compound butter. Prime rib is first spit-roasted over hardwood embers, then buried in rock salt (a technique used most often for whole fish) and slowly roasted. Emerging moist and not at all salty, it’s delicious with freshly grated Oregon horseradish. There’s also a contemporary surf ‘n’ turf of New York steak and a roasted Australian rock lobster tail. I have to say, though, that when I order the lobster by itself, it is overcooked, a little stringy and lacking flavor. I expect more from a $39 lobster.

Choose anything from the hardwood-fired rotisserie, and you’re more than likely to eat well. I like the thick slices of pork loin roasted with rosemary and lightly napped in a porcini cream sauce. The grilled lamb sirloin is even better, coated in a garlicky Dijon mustard and a crouton crust instead of bread crumbs.

Every day the chef offers up a one-page list of seafood specials. Of the ones I’ve tried, seared sea bass flavored with Szechwan peppercorns and lemongrass in a Thai curry sauce is fine. So is the grilled salmon with Parmesan herb butter spaetzle, those squiggly Alsatian egg noodles (here they’re called Swiss-style dumplings). Fashionable wilted greens and salmon roasted on a cedar plank are part of the equation, too. All of these are quite respectable. But halibut with raspberry garlic sauce and fresh spinach is a dish that defies the imagination.

The wine list is decent, too, offering a broad selection of well-known California wines of recent vintage. Yet the wine-by-the-glass program plays it very safe with its dozen selections, ranging from Beringer white Zinfandel to B.R. Cohn Cabernet Sauvignon.

Desserts are less impressive, but sweet tooths are bound to like almost all of them. There’s the obligatory flourless chocolate cake, this one tasting like one of those cake puddings, plus an acceptable creme brulee and a bread pudding drowned in Bourbon-custard sauce.

All in all, for a restaurant with a view, Kincaid’s Bay House is a welcome addition to the Redondo Beach Pier. *

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Kincaid’s Bay House

CUISINE: Contemporary American. AMBIENCE: Large chophouse with view, friendly service and better-than-average decor. BEST DISHES: chophouse salad, “pork lollipops,” wood-smoked prawns, spit-roasted chicken, top sirloin with martini butter, rosemary pork loin. WINE PICKS: 1997 Robert Mondavi Fume Blanc, Napa Valley; 1997 Ravenswood Vintner’s Blend Zinfandel, Sonoma. FACTS: 500 The Pier, Redondo Beach; (310) 318-6080. Lunch and dinner daily; Sunday brunch. Dinner appetizers, $9 to $17; main courses, $15 to $39. Validated parking in lot.