RESTAURANT REVIEW : Mars Has the Flavor of a Night Club

“Oh, good,” says a friend when I invite her to Mars, the fashionably hip new bar and restaurant near Cicada on Melrose Avenue. “Maybe we’ll see some men there.”

I think she’s heard something about the place--like it’s a male-rich hot spot. “Yeah, well, I don’t know, maybe,” I say.

“Aren’t men from Mars?”

Oh. Right.

On our first visit, we find Mars easily enough, but it looks closed. Dark as deep dusk inside. But there’s movement. And the door yawns open at our touch. A man, in fact, greets us and leads us to a circular booth. Once seated, I keep trying to remove sunglasses I’m not wearing. It’s that dark. Behind us, in an odd little passageway, a huge orange planet rises in an inky sky.

This building used to be Harold Lloyd’s carriage house. A bar hugs one wall; booths and small tables provide seating for only about 40 people. The walls are brick, the ceiling and truss are handsome aged wood planks. What lights there are emit a Martian-orange glow roughly equivalent in wattage to a bed of coals in a fireplace. This could be one of the coziest, most romantic restaurants in town, but there’s a hip and nervous club-like edge that undercuts the romance and rustic charm. And sooner or later a tape of brainless neo-disco “house” music clicks in and plays endlessly.

A large table of casually dressed twentysomething friends are downing cocktails and pizzas. A couple of tables of dressy dates are living it up: wine, appetizers, entrees, desserts. The folk scattered at other tables fit no single demographic. The service, too, hits no one note. One waiter is formal, professional, almost too stiff; a waitress, while friendly, clearly has no idea what she’s doing: It takes ages to get a couple of soda waters from a bar 15 feet away.

As hours pass, the club atmosphere thickens--more people at the bar, more night-owlish hipsters--and it’s here that Mars fills a niche; in this early-to-bed town, Mars stays open at least until 1 a.m.

It takes concerted effort in this light to decode the menu, a list of items without the usual breakdown into appetizers, salads, entrees, etc. Some of the food has a Pacific Rim flair (spring rolls, seared tuna, Asian chicken salad), some is modern Southwestern (quesadilla, nouvelle tostadas), some is typical bar ‘n’ grill (salmon cakes, chop, steak). Basically, it’s club food. Built. Stylish. Pretty on the plate. A bit pricey--a notably dull grilled vegetable pizza, for example, is $11.

*

On one visit, we wished we’d skipped a soup of ginger broth and grated carrots: It tastes medicinal as an astringent herbal remedy. A salad of Stilton, pears and Boston lettuce is almost great: too bad the pears have been soaked in an incendiary liqueur. Salmon cakes have a great crunch, but the Yucatan remoulade has little more kick than your average tartar sauce.

A vegetarian spring roll is a fat tube of julienne vegetables that grows soggy sitting in puddles of two punishingly hot salsas. Served with gummy little soba noodles and a marble-sized ball of wasabi, a rare ahi appetizer is actually a good plate of sashimi--only a wisp of fire has touched the outer edges of the translucent pink fish.

Potato samosas look like the vegetable spring rolls we just ate, only this time the fried rice paper is filled with mashed potatoes. They accompany a double-thick pork chop that has been cooked until it shares the taste and texture of composition board. Lucky me: I’ve ordered the tostadas, two small crisp tortillas, one featuring plump, sweet grilled shrimp on a bed of guacamole, the other two large chunks of excellent, albeit overcooked, swordfish on pesto. A plate of pan-roasted halibut with fresh spinach is pretty, light, delicious.

Desserts will satisfy any sugar craving. A soupy and sweet lemon tart is balanced with fresh berries. White chocolate mousse, arranged in fat spoon-shaped petals on a plate, tastes like pure cake frosting.

Each time we left Mars and stepped into the moonlit night, it took a minute for our eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness.

* Mars Restaurant and Bar, 8474 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood . (213) 655-6277. Open for dinner Monday through Saturday. Full bar. Dinner for two, food only, $40 to $75 .