On prime turf in Santa Monica

MY friends and I have had fun crowding into a cheery red booth, and I’ve ordered the surf-and-turf special, an 8-ounce fillet with an Australian lobster tail -- according to the waiter, the finest I’ll ever taste. For $102, I’m expecting something so irresistible I’ll feel like a millionaire and spend the evening fending off my dining companions with my steak knife, which I have to mention is suitably serious and very large.

Scarboni, a new Santa Monica steak and lobster house, has appeared on Wilshire Boulevard just around the corner from Third Street Promenade where Pentola Taverna dished out pasta for years.

With a polished facade that looks as if it’s been in place for decades, it is a lighthearted sketch of an East Coast steakhouse straight from the art director’s storyboard, and the staff seems as much cast as hired.

Even the name sounds as made up as that of the old “Saturday Night Live” character Father Guido Sarducci. And, it turns out, it is fake Italian: The two owners’ names, Tommy Saboni and Steve Scarduzio, morphed into one.

Inside, Scarboni is urban and old-school cheesy with dark wood paneling that has seen some wear, a cozy bar stocked with the right bottles and a bartender who knows all the classic cocktails.

As guys with big shoulders and women dressed for a Saturday night push open those brass-trimmed doors, smartly turned-out hostesses check the book, lead parties to one of the roomy booths, and hand out oversize menus that promise red meat and lots of it.

Strong-arming hefty steaks onto the tables and keeping up an entertaining patter along the way, waiters are the opposite of laid-back, puppy-friendly California waiters. Where did they find these guys? Right off the flight from JFK? They’re wry, they’re funny, they’re sometimes in your face but always present and engaged. Anything you want, you’ve got it, doll.

The menu lists the steakhouse genre’s usual appetizers and steaks and chops down the middle of the page, with pastas and lighter (if anything here could really be considered light) main courses dancing around the edges.

No one dish leaps out as unique. There are no foodie cues, no sweetbreads or bone marrow or exotic curlicues to get your attention. Just the facts, ma’am. You already know what you want anyway and are primed to head straight to the shrimp cocktail or clams casino, the New York strip or the filet mignon.

If you frequent Dan Tana’s or Guido’s, both nostalgic relics of an era, you’ll practically know the menu by heart. But hey, it’s all in the execution, isn’t it?

Some of the appetizers are well above average for this sort of establishment. Old-fashioned clams oreganata are meaty and good -- not too much breadcrumb topping, a good dose of garlic and dried oregano, and, best of all, the clams aren’t overcooked.

Sliced tomato and onion is an iffy thing to order right now, but somehow somewhere, the kitchen has found some beautiful red tomatoes. They slice them thick and lay them out in alternating slices with sweet white onion. It’s just what you’d want to go with steak. And though the shrimp in the shrimp cocktail are unexceptional, they’re still big and meaty, with a spunky horseradish-dosed cocktail sauce.

Fried calamari are bloated puffs of squid, pale and doughy. Caesar salad is acceptable but not likely to challenge the Grill’s definitive version. The iceberg wedge is better, crunchy and cold, and draped in a vinaigrette with good-quality blue cheese crumbled over, making a perfect appetizer for a massive steak.

Too bad the steaks don’t live up to expectations. You’d think someone who was associated with the Palm restaurant (co-owner Saboni was general manager there) would pay more attention to the quality of the beef.

At these prices, which are certainly high enough to purchase the best prime beef on the market, steaks are, for the most part, hugely disappointing. Big, yes (though the exact size in ounces is not listed on the menu), but without enough flavor to rivet your attention, other than to wonder why they’re not better.

The porterhouse one night, at a whopping $52, is limp and seems almost steamed it has so little char or crust. Another night it’s much better, with more beefy flavor and a firmer texture, but still not a candidate to post in your personal gallery of great steaks.

How can you open a steakhouse and expect anybody to come back or get the word out if you don’t have excellent beef?

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Big is the ticket here

YOU’LL fare better by far ordering the prime rib, also huge, but a better cut. Ordered medium rare, it has that jellied texture typical of prime rib and comes in its natural juices. Lobsters are gigantic too, starting at 3 pounds and going up to 5 1/2 pounds. Market price the week of this visit is $25 per pound, making the minimum crustacean $75. Served with drawn butter, it’s cooked correctly and is not tough or rubbery -- a very decent lobster, but shy on flavor.

And that $102 surf-and-turf special isn’t terrible, but it isn’t very good either. The beef is cooked more medium than medium rare, and isn’t all that flavorful, and while the lobster tail is impressive-looking, its taste, too, is muted and doesn’t deliver the intensely delicious jolt of sea tang that is lobster’s payoff

We’re ready and willing to enjoy our meal and our night out on the town, but Scarboni’s kitchen keeps letting us down.

Steak fries are awful, like baked potatoes cut into eighths and browned under the broiler. A waiter recommends Brussels sprouts Scarboni, which is pretty good, the sprouts cooked to a khaki green and enriched with some bacon. Creamed spinach, usually the star of any steakhouse menu, is OK but lifeless. But the giant baked potato ($9) is always a good choice, served with the classic accompaniments.

If Scarboni were less expensive, it wouldn’t grate quite as much. And if the wine list offered more than the usual lineup of overpriced California Cabernets, we might drown our sorrows in a great Tempranillo or Syrah.

Meals end with a flourish of desserts, a show-and-tell by the waiters. Why is it that waiters are always such suckers for the chocolate? It’s hardly an ideal way to sell the sweets, because unless you’re a complete dessert whore, they look awfully tired and unattractive. Tiramisu, though, passes muster, and is a large enough portion to share.

In the end, it’s the camaraderie of the big booth and the service that saves the evening at Scarboni. But for a long time, our waiter doesn’t seem to notice that the six of us are not finishing our enormous steaks and chops. When he does offer to pack them up, the kitchen does a terrific job, numbering each to keep track of which one goes where. I hated to tell him that these were, in fact, real doggie bags, intended for my friend’s loopy Labrador.

Scarboni’s owners are deluding themselves if they think you can charge the high prices without delivering on quality. With a surfeit of steakhouses in L.A., there’s too much competition for this newcomer to stand out other than by its convenient location. Who knows? That may be enough. But I doubt it.

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Scarboni New York Lobster & Steak House

Rating: Half a star

Location: 312 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 393-2288.

Ambience: New York-style steak and lobster house co-owned by a former Palm general manager and a nightclub entrepreneur features roomy red leather booths and a classic East Coast steakhouse menu. It’s urban and streetwise, and is just around the corner from the Third Street Promenade.

Service: Brash and engaging, sometimes too much so.

Price: Dinner appetizers, $8 to $18; main courses, $29 to $102; sides, $6 to $10; desserts, $5 to $11; lunch main courses, $18 to $28; also a fixed-price lunch for $20.

Best dishes: Clams oreganata, sliced tomato and onion, baked potato, porterhouse, prime rib, chicken Parmesan, tiramisu.

Wine list: Standard issue, heavy on the California Cabernets. Corkage fee, $25.

Best table: One of the generous-size booths near the front window.

Details: Open from noon to 11 p.m. daily.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.