At Flamingo Coast, You’ve Got a Frond

IRVINE — Flamingo Coast has to be the most relentlessly tropical restaurant ever to hit Orange County. The former Player’s has been extensively renovated and now splits the stylistic difference between a Miami Beach nightclub and the lobby of the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas.

The foyer and interior are dense with tropical fronds and silk flowers, the carpets are rain-forest tones of black, gold and green. There are fake pink flamingos on the columns and on the mock Tiffany lamps by the stage. The pink backs of the chairs are cut out in the shapes of swaying palm trees. The custom-made table tops are like beach under glass: sand, shells and sea horses.

On it goes. The free-standing bar has a thatched palapa roof. One wall is a trompe l’oeil mural of the Alexander Hotel in Miami Beach; another is a huge panorama of the South Pacific--palm trees and mountains shimmering in a tropical sunset as flamingos wing their way across the sky.

Wow. The only things missing for the complete effect are a humidifier and the hum of mosquitoes.

That palapa bar, stocked with boutique rums including Captain Morgan and Mount Gay Amber, turns out tall, cool drinks in frosty glasses unabashedly garnished with fruit and paper umbrellas. I keep coming back to Flamingo Lemonade, a hot-pink blend of vodka; blackberry schnapps; orange, pineapple and cranberry juices, and a splash of sweet and sour. (Skip the Tropical Blue, though; it’s an icy, robin’s-egg-blue pin~a colada wannabe with a soapy aftertaste.)

Flamingo Coast’s menu is nowhere as eccentric as the decor, but that’s not to say it’s boring. O.C. chefs Bob Mars, late of Kachina, and John Van Le, formerly with Foxfire in Anaheim Hills, have pooled their talents to create one of the more distinctive and appealing menus around. It’s basically Caribbean-themed food with Continental overtones.

Grand Lido Bluepoint oysters make a good start. Looking over the menu, I wondered why the chefs weren’t keeping up the Florida theme by serving that state’s delicious Appalachicola oysters. Then the Bluepoints arrived--wonderfully fresh oysters baked with sauteed spinach, sliced Maui onions and a chipotle bearnaise sauce--and I saw the point. Florida oysters would have been far too delicate for these robust toppings.

Grand Bahama stuffed mushrooms surprised me too. Six mushroom caps are topped with large dollops of spicy crab meat mixed with more of that good chipotle bearnaise. They have to be the zestiest stuffed mushrooms I’ve ever tasted.

Order the Flamingo Coast sampler for two and you get enough appetizers for four: prawns in a fiery cocktail sauce, two Jamaican beef skewers (tender chunks of grilled steak dripping a spicy barbecue sauce), two skewers of chicken faintly fragrant from a light ginger marinade, and six crackling-crisp chicken wings tasting of Tabasco sauce and Caribbean spices.

There is nothing Caribbean about Savanna la Mar or Martinique French onion soup, both of which prove that Continental cuisine is alive and well in these parts. Savanna la Mar is a dressed-up spinach salad in hot bacon dressing, with lots of toasted pine nuts and crunchy garlic croutons. And the onion soup--a beefy broth topped with a hat of Gruyere and Parmesan cheeses--is a nearly perfect version of this old favorite.

Quasi-Italian dishes get into the tropical-Continental act once in a while. Tiger-stripe fettuccine--long flat noodles, yellow with patches of black--come blended with a stupendously rich Alfredo sauce spiked with smoky chipotle peppers and a large handful of flavorsome rock shrimp. The Dominica pizza is topped with savory pieces of duck sausage, Maui onion, roasted garlic, cilantro, two cheeses and extra-virgin olive oil--a nice idea hampered by Flamingo Coast’s excessively thick, rather doughy crust.

Most entrees come with a choice of terrific black beans, a surprisingly good basmati rice pilaf or the heavier (and considerably less tropical) garlic horseradish mashed potatoes. If you long for the mainland, there is always Flamingo Coast barbecued ribs, lean and tender and dripping with Jack Daniels barbecue sauce, or the slightly dry but serviceable rotisserie chicken.

The adventurer might choose either Trinidad pineapple coconut shrimp or Caribbean grilled ahi and live to tell the tale. These are not Trinidad but Gulf shrimp, tossed in a sweet spicy pineapple sauce with crushed red pepper, macadamia nuts, lemon zest and freshly chopped ginger; they’re delicious mixed with basmati rice.

The ahi is crusted with jerk spices and then charred, served nicely rare. The added surprise of mango coconut salsa gently improves the dish.

The desserts are accomplished. Death by chocolate is a rich chocolate sponge cake layered with a bittersweet Grand Marnier chocolate mousse; hard to resist. The Barbados baked banana custard is more or less a banana pudding for grown-ups, thanks to spiced rum and lots of vanilla.

But the best dessert of all might be Grand Cayman coconut cream pie, a deliriously rich confection with a filling that is as much coconut as it is custard.

Flamingo Coast is high-end moderate to low-end expensive. Appetizers are $4.95 to $12.95. Pastas are $11.95 to $17.95. Entrees are $11.95 to $29.95.

FLAMINGO COAST

* 18100 Von Karman Ave., Irvine.

* (714) 222-6278.

* 11:30 a.m.-1:30 a.m. Monday-Friday, 5:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday.

* All major cards.