Gourmets Will Love Maxi's In Seatac

----------------------------------------------------------------- Restaurant review

Maxi's at the Red Lion Hotel, 18740 Pacific Highway S., SeaTac, 433-1892. Open Sunday-Thursday, 5:30 p.m.-10 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. Sunday brunch, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. ($15.95 adults; $7.95 children 12-4). Major credit cards and personal checks accepted. -----------------------------------------------------------------

If you're from out of town and are staying at the airport Red Lion, you'd likely eat at Maxi's. But if you actually live in or near SeaTac you might overlook the hotel's 14th-floor restaurant - which has an overlook of its own.

If that's the case, get a clue. Maxi's is an elegant eatery with a jet-set view and a gourmet menu.

Never mind your iffy impressions of Pacific Highway South's ambience. At night the lights of the fast-food joints are gemlike. So, too, are the twinkles from the airport buildings, the control tower and the departing planes.

And once you're seated at the huge picture windows and handed Maxi's knock-your-socks-off menu, you'll be hard-pressed to divide your attention between the view and the food.

Take a gander at the appetizers. We tried the Gulf shrimp with cucumber confetti and cocktail sauce ($5.95) and the escargots with wild mushrooms, garlic sauce and risotto blinis ($5.25).

The presentation of the shrimp was gorgeous and you can bet the cocktail sauce didn't involve ketchup or horseradish. The escargot arrived sans shells in a sauce that had rich beef undertones. The blinis were pan-fried and flavorful.

It was difficult (but anatomically necessary) to eschew a soup course, but among the offerings we could have had was Walla Walla onion and Ballard ale soup with pepper bacon and Yakima gouda cheese ($3.25). The salad list includes a Caesar ($4.50) that is prepared at tableside.

We did have two entrees as good as they sound: pan-fried coho salmon in pecan crust with herb spaetzle and tomato coulis ($16.25) and roasted halibut in Willamette hazelnut crust with a cream pesto sauce ($15). Both were accompanied by the teensiest and most colorful of baby asparagus and carrots - almost Barbie size, and just that sweet.

If you don't want seafood, you can select from the honey-smoked duck in blackberry brandy sauce ($15.95), the fusilli pasta with chicken and shrimp in a lemon-pesto sauce ($12.95), a grilled New York steak with smoked pepper bacon and onions ($16.95), a breast of chicken and Dungeness crab, pan-fried and stuffed with Yakima gouda and garden herbs ($15.25) or wood-smoked pork medallions with calvados-glazed onions ($15.95). There are more, but you get the idea.

If you've decided your gift to yourself this holiday is to not cook for the family on Christmas, you might consider Maxi's holiday buffet ($19.95 for adults, $12.95 for children 10 and under; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Christmas Day). The feast includes salads, seafoods, scallops, mussels, oysters, leg of lamb, pasta, roast turkey and stuffing, ling cod, breads, pumpkin pie, mincemeat pie and an eggnog mousse.