One for the Books

When I was a kid, my favorite Saturday expedition was to walk to the library, pick out a stack of books and stagger with them to the lunch counter at the local drugstore. I’d sit in a booth, order a hamburger with the works and turn to the first page of the book I was most eager to read. I reveled in my own little world. No mother to nag me about mowing the lawn or pulling weeds. No younger sister to plague me with her questions.

Some Saturdays in Los Angeles, I make a similar getaway to the eclectic bookstore Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard, browsing the shelves and then adjourning for lunch at Book Soup Bistro next door. Inside, I’m always charmed by the comfy banquettes along the windows (good reading light) and the distinctly urban view--not Tower Records or the car rental agency with Spago sprouting over it, but the spread of magazines on the Book Soup newsstand just across the patio.

The walls are painted buttercup yellow and hung with black-and-white portraits of Colette, a young George Bernard Shaw, Somerset Maugham, the poet Robinson Jeffers and other literary figures. The chairs are wood library chairs and the stools at the curved bar are tall versions of the same design. Reproduction Arts and Crafts lamps overhead cast a warm amber light, supplemented by the soft glow of Philippe Starck’s demure little table lamps. The whole place looks inviting.

Waiters, who look as if they might be writers or students rather than actors, couldn’t be more fervent, but they can be a little absentminded. And now, instead of wandering in and seating yourself, there’s an elegant and very attentive hostess staffing the door at both lunch and dinner.

But before owner Glenn Goldman hired a new chef in February, the kitchen was in a perpetual slump. I never knew if the Cobb salad would be soggy with too much dressing or if my poached eggs would be more like hard-boiled. With French-Vietnamese chef Andre Lechien at the stoves, though, Book Soup Bistro is coming into its own. Trained in France at several Michelin-starred restaurants, Lechien most recently cooked at ObaChine in Beverly Hills. (He also had his own small restaurant on Balboa Island.) And while his sensibilities are most evident in the daily specials, he’s had a big influence on the regular menu. (He plans to add more of his own dishes this month.)

Finally, I can venture beyond the reliable burger (with Thousand Island dressing, grilled onions, tomato, sliced pickles--and, if you like, Swiss, cheddar or blue cheese). At lunch, there’s an excellent roast pork loin sandwich on toasted bread spread with mango chutney. Cobb salad, too, is exemplary, made with crisp bacon, ripe avocado, moist chicken and crumbly blue cheese.

Plus Lechien is making the kind of graceful, delicious soups I’m happy to eat for lunch or as a first course at dinner. One day there’s a finely crafted lentil soup flecked with carrot, celery and bits of smoky ham hock. Comforting French red onion soup is soft sweet onions in a robust vegetable broth, served in an earthenware crock with a raft of French bread freighted with good, gooey Gruyere. Even New England clam chowder, made with great finesse and offered as a special, is terrific and not the usual wallpaper paste. And vegetable soupe au pistou, the Provenal relative of Genoese pesto, is a light--though rather too tomato-ey--broth filled with chunks of potato, zucchini and carrots.

Fish is another of Lechien’s fortes. Seared ahi tuna--cut thick as lamb chops, encrusted with black peppercorns and left rare at the center--is one of the best versions around. A beautiful bowl of steamed seafood in white wine comes with a topknot of slivered vegetables. And Lechien turns out textbook-perfect fish and chips, usually catfish covered in breadcrumbs and fried to a deep gold and presented with good skinny fries. I also like the juicy Provenal pork chop, accompanied by a sturdy tomato chutney, and the New York steak with a pungent Roquefort sauce. (Sirloin steak, however, is tough and flavorless.)

Despite all of these newfound virtues, meals at Book Soup Bistro can still have their little ups and downs. For one thing, Chinese chicken salad wouldn’t win any contests. The long strips of chicken breast on top are perfectly cooked, but the salad beneath is so innocuous that you’ll die of boredom before you get halfway through it. Deep-fried shrimp (which taste more like crawdad tails) are heavy. And penne tossed with grilled eggplant, roasted peppers, olives and pine nuts isn’t very successful either. The pasta is overcooked, and the ingredients don’t cohere into a sauce.

The short wine list deserves attention for its savvy choices and remarkably fair prices. And the bar offers a number of respectable wines by the glass for those solo diners with books. One lovely dessert wine by the glass is Sandeman’s Oloroso Sherry.

And for dessert, look no further than the creme brulee, a shimmering example of what this dish should be, a fragile vanilla-scented custard with the thinnest layer of glassy sugar on top. Oh, and don’t forget the profiteroles filled with vanilla ice cream and covered with chocolate sauce.

After a number of revisions since its opening three years ago, Book Soup Bistro has at long last evolved into the charming neighborhood spot it was trying to be all along. At least from the looks of this pleasant chapter-in-progress.

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BOOK SOUP BISTRO

CUISINE: French-California. AMBIENCE: Smart urban bistro with patio next to good newsstand. BEST DISHES: red onion soup, clam chowder, Cobb salad, seared ahi, burger, creme brulee. WINE PICKS: 1994 Patz & Hall Chardonnay, Napa Valley; 1992 La Bastide Blanche Bandol. FACTS: 8800 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood; (310) 657-1072. Lunch and dinner daily. Dinner for two, food only, $35 to $65. Corkage $10. Free parking at night and on weekends beneath Ticketmaster building; entrance on Palm Avenue.