Food Is Often Tasty, But Overall Quality Is Mixed

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X 1/2 Cafe Pinceau, 610 Fifth Ave., Edmonds ($$ 1/2). Lunch ($7.50 to $14) 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Dinner ($10.50 to $18) 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday and Sunday; 5 to 10 p.m. Friday, Saturday. Cajun Brunch ($9 to $14.25) 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sunday. No dinner Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Lounge, beer, wine. Major credit cards. No smoking. Reservations: 775-0199. -----------------------------------------------------------------

It doesn't look like a converted lawn-mower shop: an espresso bar and cafe tables in front, a garden gift shop next door, a vegetable and herb garden out back.

Cafe Pinceau (it translates as paintbrush) is touched up nicely - if simply - under an industrial cathedral ceiling, with hefty six-by-six beams providing overhead architectural accents and the rear windows overlooking the Edmonds waterfront. The kitchen along the south wall is as rough-hewn (often in pleasing ways) with its seasonings, spices and pestos.

It's a curious place. Owner-chef Henry Arce has solid credentials: an apprenticeship at Brennen's in New Orleans, a waiter said; later at Henry's Off-Broadway and the Seattle Tennis Club. He opened a couple of months ago.

Key to the restaurant is a series of a dozen herb pastes, which Arce also markets separately next door in the gift shop. They form the bases of most of the cafe's heartily seasoned dishes.

Some work, some don't

Sometimes they work. When they do, you sit there, marveling at the lively transformation of a mere mouthful of sliced summer squash turned into an adventure. When they don't, you wonder who went to sleep.

A couple of examples: A simple timbale of herbed-rice pilaf sits alongside a fillet of yellow-eye rockfish. The fish is good; in fact, very good. The mixed vegetables curving around the back of the plate are wondrous. The rice, dosed up with an herb-roasted garlic blend, is a savory revelation.

A day later, the rice dish looks the same (this time anchoring a pool of Shrimp Creole; $12.95). But the flavors are almost gone. The rice is barely lukewarm. The quality is all there; every now and then it's the quality control that disappears.

The dinner menu leads off with seven appetizers ($5.75 to $8.75), including an engaging Crab and Shrimp-stuffed Artichoke Hearts with Andouille Sausage ($5.95) and a sprightly dish of Ginger Chicken Tenders with Sticky Rice and Pickled Cucumbers (also $5.95). But the Northwest Mushroom Saute with Nut Brown Ale and Sweet Red Pepper Sage Paste ($5.95) - an amply piled combination of shiitakes, button mushrooms and chanterelles cuddled up to a leaf of kale - is dry and the flavor profile is barely discernable.

Where's the ale (nut brown or otherwise)? What happened to the sweet red pepper sage sauce?

The waitress said the starter dish of eggplant, marinated in herbs first, was sliced and grilled and tucked between roma tomatoes and slices of fresh mozzarella. What she didn't say was that the grey-green eggplant slabs would be cold and unappetizing, splashed over with an herby vinaigrette. Grilled, yes. But when?

At one lunch, the Tossed Garden Greens ($3.25) were excellent, tossed rather copiously with a Basil-Sorrel Balsamic Vinaigrette. But another starter, the Shrimp and Artichoke Gumbo ($3.50), was dull with overcooked vegetables, represented inadequately by one tiny shrimp and a quarter of a slice of smoked sausage and had a thin, watery broth that was far-removed from any sense of what a gumbo should be: thick, rich, earthy.

The red sauce over a plate of Penne Roma ($6.95 at lunch), by contrast, was heady with flavors of a tomato-creole paste with rosemary-marinated eggplant and a covering of melted kasseri. But left at the bottom of the bowl afterward was almost a tablespoon of excess oil.

A lack of oversight

The weekend Bayou Brunch is an attractive menu and generally well-executed: omelets suitably fluffy, poached eggs on a variety of bases (try the Eggs Conti or the Eggs Sardou), but the potatoes with ham, mushrooms, onions and sweet peas looked desiccated and were barely warm. Great ingredients, fine recipe, zero kitchen oversight.

The Herb Crust Pizzas ($8.95 for an individual portion) look, frankly, as if they were assembled on cheese-crust Bobolis, which a counterman later confirmed. Another employee said they were commercially premade. "They're Boboli, but they're not."

The toppings are quite good. But if you are going to serve pizzas (at nine bucks a pop), make pizzas. It just requires flour, yeast, salt, water, time, a little skill, pride - and care. (Copyright, 1996, John Hinterberger. All rights reserved.)

John Hinterberger, who writes the weekly restaurant review in Tempo and a Sunday food column in Pacific, visits restaurants anonymously and unannounced. He pays in full for all food, wines and services. Interviews of the restaurants' management and staff are done only after meals and services have been appraised. He does not accept invitations to evaluate restaurants.