Topaz Cafe a Museum Piece

Topaz Cafe is a tearoom for the ‘90s--which means the tea is flavored with passion fruit and it’s poured over ice. Instead of pretty floral wallpaper and dainty white latticework, desert chic is the look. Earth tones color the room and an eroded-looking “sandstone” slab frames the open kitchen, like something out of a Fred Flintstone ranch house. It’s yet another project of Orange County’s ubiquitous chef-restaurateur, David Wilhelm.

As at many tearooms, you can get a Cobb salad, but Topaz’s comes with smoked chicken, and the Caesar salad is tossed with grilled chicken and six-grain croutons. The meatloaf is turkey; the fries that come with the burgers are flecked with herbs. Other things on the menu would have never shown up in a traditional tearoom: polenta with sauteed mushrooms, corn tamales, barely charred ahi tuna and penne with shrimp, tomatoes, chiles and corn. Still, this is comforting, familiar food for those who’ve been eating in ‘80s restaurants.

Lingering is encouraged. This is a place to meet friends for long lunches, for business meetings, for leisurely afternoons when you have time to look at the pre-Columbian gold masks and Eskimo artifacts at the Bowers Museum, to which Topaz is attached. And this is a daytime place--the restaurant is open for dinner on Thursdays only, and then just until 8 p.m.

* Topaz Cafe, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana, (714) 835-2002. Sandwiches and entrees $8 to $12.