Take a Trip to Past in the Present : Dizz’s As Is, Royal Hawaiian have retro look, hearty fare.

I first tried to eat at Dizz’s As Is in the early ‘80s. I got there at 5 p.m. and was told to come back in an hour. But by 6, there was a two-hour wait. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Things haven’t changed much at this sturdy Laguna Beach favorite. The bar and patio open at 5:30, the kitchen serves from 6 and the place is always filled by 6:30.

What’s Dizz’s secret? Maybe it’s the hearty, filling dishes developed by Belgian-born chef Marcel Pitz, now semiretired. But I’m putting my money on nostalgia.

Once you step inside, you’ve entered a time warp. Pitz took over this location, formerly Ford’s Cafe and then Polly’s Pizza, in 1977, and the restaurant’s trademark of unmatched tableware and crockery hasn’t lost its charm. It’s sort of a poor man’s Art Deco room. The walls are decorated with languid lithos of pink flamingos and pencil sketches of ‘30s film stars. The best tables are in the small rear dining room, but it’s also fun to dine in the atmospheric bar, a tableau from a Bogart movie.

The menu is unconventional. You get handed a stack of plastic pages; each entree has its own page, and the appetizers and wines share a page.

The entrees come with a grainy, full flavored pa^te maison, a choice of soup or salad and various side dishes. No one leaves here hungry, but if you do feel the need of an appetizer, consider the ripe papaya stuffed with curried baby shrimp.

One soup is consomme Celestine, a thin chicken broth laced with cut-up crepes and bits of chicken breast. The pleasant house salad is mixed greens with slices of mandarin orange in a poppy seed vinaigrette. There’s also a slapdash Caesar of chopped lettuces and croutons in a cheesy dressing.

Several of the entrees are throwbacks too. My favorite is swordfish Madagascar, with its ultra-’70s green peppercorn sauce. This is an uncommonly tender piece of fish that almost melts in your mouth, and the cream sauce is surprisingly delicate.

I am less enamored of a veal chop stuffed with Italian cheeses. The meat is flavorful enough, but my chop was on the tough side. The traditional duck a l’orange is nicely crisp with a subtly tart glaze. For really big appetites, there’s also a fine steak Diane and a trencherman-sized Cornish hen with a rice stuffing.

Belgian berry pie--a giant wedge topped with strawberries, blackberries and whipped cream--is the best dessert, but you can also depend on a nicely rich dark chocolate mousse. The creamy white chocolate praline mousse is even better.

Just make sure to come early. Or at least bring a good book.

Dizz’s As Is is expensive. Appetizers are $2.95-$8.95. Entrees are $16.95-$26.95. Desserts are $4-$6.50.

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Royal Hawaiian first opened in 1947, and the restaurant has never changed hands. The tiki statues and palm fronds framing the front entrance have made it a Laguna landmark. Like Dizz’s, it shows the locals still love retro.

Inside, the dining room looks like a slightly run-down island joint: lots of bamboo, paper place mats on the tables, corny Polynesian genre paintings and a subdued lighting scheme. The steady beat of Hawaiian music can be heard faintly above the din. (This restaurant is always crowded and noisy, so it’s definitely no place for serious conversation.)

If you’ve caught the island spirit, you may want to order one of the tropical rum punches on the bar menu, most of which taste exactly the same. Lapu Lapu, for instance, is just a double mai tai. The Island Special, one of the few exceptions, is made with fruit juice, rum and anisette.

I’ve never had great food here, but I can’t say Royal Hawaiian doesn’t give bang for the buck. The most celebrated dish, the heavily sauced spare ribs Ala Moana, spends the better part of the day in an oven, coming out so tender it’s mushy. You get a huge rack for $10.95, plus soup, salad, a baked potato and a slice of fresh pineapple.

RH’s French-fried jumbo shrimp resemble those giant deep-fried shrimp you used to get in old-time Chinatown restaurants, before Cantonese food went out of style. It’s golden brown puffs of thick, oily dough; the large shrimp inside are almost an afterthought.

Wiki wiki steak turns out to be a small, tough, flavorless New York, nowhere near as good as the filet mignon you can get for only $2 more. My favorite dish might be the scallops: delicious fried Eastern scallops with a good tartar sauce, a steal at $9.95.

The accompaniments are nothing to beat a drum over. The baked potatoes are reasonable--not at all mealy and presented with a portion of sour cream the size of a Dixie cup. The house soup is a watery imitation of French onion. No ka oi tossed green salad is a nondescript bowl of greens slathered with a creamy dressing that tastes of salad oil and blue cheese.

If you have room for dessert, both the chocolate cake and the coconut layer cake are perfectly fine. You can even have them a la mode for an extra buck.

Both Dizz’s As Is and Royal Hawaiian have weathered intense competition for decades. They must be doing something right, though food-wise, I’d have a hard time saying what.

Royal Hawaiian is moderately priced. Entrees are $6.95 to $23.95. Desserts are $1.25 to $4.50.

BE THERE

Dizz’s As Is, 2794 S. Coast Highway, Laguna Beach. (949) 494-5250. Dinner only, 6-9:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 6-10 Friday-Saturday, 5:30-9:30 Sunday. All major cards.

BE THERE

Royal Hawaiian, 331 N. Coast Highway, Laguna Beach. (949) 494-8001. Open 5-10:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 4-9 p.m. Sunday. All major cards.