Soups and Salads Are Shipshape at the Harborview

When a friend suggested we have lunch at Harborview Restaurant, I envisioned jumping into the car and heading for Long Beach or San Pedro. Instead we boarded a central city bus, got off at Wilshire Boulevard and walked two blocks west to the post-modern-style Coast Savings Building. And there, sure enough, we found a harbor view--the tall windows along one wall look down on the Harbor Freeway.

Table high planters are the only separation between the restaurant and the rest of the building’s main-floor lobby, a 17-foot vaulted space decorated in four colors of Italian marble. The arrangement gives the room a pleasant feeling of openness, and either the area was phenomenally designed or the gray-green carpet absorbs enough sound to make the space surprisingly quiet.

The wing-shaped restaurant is conveniently divided into smoking and nonsmoking sections by a central dining bar. What the room seems to need, however, is a spark of color. Simply changing the flowers in the planter from lavender to bright yellow and repeating them on the tables would add some much needed life.

Harborview serves only breakfast and lunch, closing at 2:30 p.m. It caters to workers in this or nearby buildings with quick service and moderate prices.

We didn’t sample the breakfast menu, but the central location would seem to make this a good place for early morning business meetings. The offerings are pretty standard--eggs, pancakes, breads and pastries, cereals and a few sandwiches. Owner Maurice Constantin explained that the sandwiches are especially popular for breakfast with people who work for stock brokerage firms in the building and are ready for lunch about the time the rest of us are just heading for the office.

Best of the lunch menu choices are the salads. Servings are generous, and although the pasta salad with roasted pepper and Roquefort dressing included more lettuce than we expected, it was very passable. So were the Caesar and curried chicken and papaya salad with roasted almonds. A seafood bisque soup special one Friday was outstanding.

Harborview bread is served with the salads and entrees, and is offered as an option for thesandwiches. This is a variation of Armenian barbari, which is made for the restaurant “from a somewhat French-style bread dough,” according to Constantin.

Sandwiches we tried were a bit skimpy on the filling. The warm and spicy meat loaf badly needed another slice of meat, and marinated double breast of chicken with sundried tomatoes would have been improved with a little more chicken. Both came accompanied by a creamy dressed pea, carrot and potato salad.

The cold poached salmon entree was nothing to rave about, but weakest of our choices was the tortellini with tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese. Glimpses of other hot entree choices at nearby tables leads us to believe it’s best to ignore that portion of the menu.

Non-alcoholic beverages include orange juice, mineral water and soft drinks. In addition to beer and house wine, varietal wines--three whites, one blush and one red--are offered by the glass and by the bottle. So is Champagne, however the only choice by the bottle is Louis Roederer Cristal at $85.

Of the desserts, we suggest trying the caramel custard and apple tart with cinnamon. Skip the gelatinous chocolate mousse cake. A foamy cappuccino made a good ending to our meal.

Harborview is a good place for a soup-and-salad lunch, but it would be a lot better if the food was as appealing as the restaurant’s name.

Harborview Restaurant, 1000 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 622-0760. Open Monday through Friday (except holidays) for breakfast from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Reservations accepted. Visa and MasterCard accepted. Non-validated parking in building. Sandwiches, $4.75 to $6.50. Entrees, $5.75 to $8.25.