DINING OUT -- MARY FURR

My New Year’s resolution for reviews is to explore and share,

beginning right now with Laurette Bistro on Beach Boulevard and Garfield

Avenue in Huntington Beach, a small cafe hidden deep in the corner of a

half-empty mini-mall. But what a wonderfully fragrant cafe and bakery it

is where Jordanian Mary Kort cooks the Middle Eastern dishes of her

homeland while owner/son Robert greets and serves the few marble-topped

tables that curve around the order/display counter.

Robert, a former Carl’s Jr Restaurant manager, explains the dishes and

sometimes joins his mom, as he did for us, in the kitchen to prepare our

appetizer order. The house combo special ($7.95) includes four falafel

patties (fried vegetable mix), hummus, a chickpea dip, tabbouleh, a fresh

minced vegetable parsley mix and spinach pie. The combo can be any four

of the six appetizers listed -- it’s a bargain to share or as lunch with

a cup of hot or iced Diedrich coffee ($1.25-$3).

A basket of warm pita bread is served to scoop up the creamy sesame

flavored hummus or the excellent lemon-scented fresh chopped tabbouleh

Mary makes daily. The spinach pie, a folded pita stuffed with spinach,

feta cheese, onion and lemon mixed in olive oil, is fresh and good.

Dinner entrees include a salad, fresh greens, cucumbers and spinach

with a very good oil and vinegar dressing or a crock of homemade soup --

thick clam chowder this day, filled with pieces of canned clams, minced

celery, potato, onion and green pepper with a flavor so good you could

forgive the clams being canned. Also served is an excellent thick

vegetarian split pea.

A broiled salmon fillet ($6.95) was the blackboard special, well done,

topped with herbs and delicately flavored pine nuts served with broccoli

and carrots and a dark rice pilaf studded with bits of meat.

Also on the special was eggplant ($6.95) -- thick juicy slices served

with a ground sirloin and potato mix and light rice cooked in chicken

broth with added pine nuts. The boiled potatoes and ground meat is a

hearty dish with a depth of flavor like a memory of the best meat and

potato dinner your mom ever made.

If you’re in a rush, wraps are your thing. The Mediterranean ones

($2.99 a la carte) made with pita bread, not tortillas, have garlic sauce

or hummus, peppercini, onion and tomato with big chunks of chicken or

kefta, nutritious strips of ground beef rolled up like a sausage. A combo

includes one side and soda ($5.19), a complete bargain lunch; “very

popular,” says son Frank.

Typical Middle Eastern pastries are all made by Mary -- there are

flaky triangles, layered baklava, rolls filled with crushed nuts, mounds

with chocolate bits, rich but not sweet. There is also a wonderful honey

and rosewater syrup she makes to pour over the flaky baklava.

Laurette Bistro serves home-style Middle Eastern food -- “like I’d

make for my boys,” says Mary, a “taste of the season” cook who doesn’t

use recipes but reads Gourmet Magazine and watches the Food Channel with

Emeril Lagasse and Molto Mario for recreation. The bistro is a cafe where

love is mixed with every dish.

* MARY FURR is the Independent restaurant critic. If you have comments

or suggestions for her, call (562) 493-5062.

LAURETTE BISTRO

* ADDRESS: 19070 Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach

* PHONE: (714) 847-5305

* FAX: (714) 847-1353

* HOURS: 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday. Closed New

Year’s Day.

* MISC.: Credit cards