Precious Hides the Goods

Little Giant 85 Orchard St. (Broome St.), 212-226-5047 NOBODY WANTS TO be repetitive. In the name of creativity, chefs can stumble upon brilliance or conceive the ridiculous. Mix, Alain Ducasse's restaurant in Midtown, embodied the best and worst of a chef straining toward invention. While his toast points with concord grape jam and peanut butter (replacing more common bread and butter) were a hit, the Petri dishes in which salads were served, the convoluted manner of ordering-remember Mix of Mix, Must of Mix, Second of Mix and Third of Mix?-rendered the overall experience contrived. Some of the more successful interpretations we've seen in recent years are the deconstructed oysters Rockefeller at Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar and their sweet tea sorbet palate cleanser. These too are derivative, but they are intelligent renditions whose end results improved sufficiently enough on the original to justify the update.

More often than not, in striving to be different, restaurants become caricatures of themselves. Little Giant, a new Lower East Side restaurant opened by lady chefs Julie Taras and Tasha Garcia, aims for creative but winds up cutesy. The menu is rife with names that some have called whimsical; to me, they're pointless distractions. Whimsy without purpose is just silly, and some of these names just should not appear on a dinner menu.

"Box of rocks" ($12) is an appetizer of cockles in herb broth, but the name whets the appetite about as much as?a box of rocks. Though "tenement soup" ($8) was a fine-tasting sweet-and-sour pork broth with smoky bits of ham and cooked Savoy cabbage, the name evoked chunks of brick floating in a bowl of sooty water. It was a wonder that our waitress could utter her recommendations that night with a straight face. "Baby's got bass is really delicious. And people love the swine." That's "baby's got bass" ($22), a well-flavored but overly salted entrée of baby clams, wild striped bass and lentil salad served in a broth-filled pot; the "swine," which we didn't try, is the "swine of the week" entrée of Berkshire pork shoulder.

The "fun" names notwithstanding, the restaurant ostensibly takes itself seriously. It lords the heirloom-variety produce over diners with a distinct sense of pedigree; the interior is painstakingly DIY hip-erector-set-style blond tables and chairs, exposed brick, expensive pillows lining the banquettes. The chefs were less playful when my sister sent back a nearly untouched overly sinewy bavette of beef ($21) served with sautéed mizuna, horseradish sauce and what were some very tiny, but unfortunately gnarly, roasted heirloom potatoes. After dinner, our waitress brought out a dessert that we did not order in place of offering to remove the beef from the bill. "The chefs feel really bad about the beef, so they wanted to give you this."

"This" happened to be a dessert that we chose not to order because of how unappealing it was: perfectly round scoops of ice cream wrapped in smooth pastel-toned mochi, a glutinous Japanese rice paste, which on the plate looked like freshly laid alien pods.

The overall dining experience followed the same downward trajectory that repeats itself at many Manhattan restaurants: Appetizers represent the highest point, entrées range from competent to flawed and the desserts are a wild card.

Preciousness aside, most of the chefs' culinary nods to their Lower East Side address worked quite well. In addition to the tenement soup, chicken liver mousse ($10) was another good choice-smooth chicken liver pâté beside a bed of mâche with toasted hazelnuts and grilled peasant bread. The fig-onion compote (perhaps they meant confit, as it was thick and sticky) that came with it was a bit of a mismatch, as it was overpoweringly sweet. The Reuben salad ($9) was an interesting effort that could use some improvement-a heap of Savoy cabbage slaw draped with a few batons of bland house-made corned beef served with melted cheese on rye toast points. Perhaps the best appetizer was also the most conventional. Beets and their greens ($10) was a salad of marinated baby beets, beet greens, Humboldt fog goat cheese and toasted hazelnuts made with excellent ingredients that rewarded the dish's relative simplicity.

Of the entrées, roasted Tasmanian ($20) sea trout was the best choice. Although the fish itself was a somewhat average preparation, the celery-root puree and pea-sized maple-glazed Brussels sprouts were excellent. Incredibly thoughtful was the chefs' improvisation of delicate, sweet butternut-squash ravioli for my vegetarian friend, for whom there were no entrée options.

For dessert, we ordered plum tarte tatin, which was not a tarte tatin at all, but fresh, thinly sliced plums layered on a thin crust ($9). Sesame ice cream accompanied a quince toffee pudding that was more spongy than sticky ($9). Fresh baked cookies ($10)-ginger, oatmeal and chocolate chip-served with a glass of steamed milk spiked by Fra Angelico was another high- concept dessert that didn't leave much of an impression. In the future, Little Giant would be better off mastering the basics before attempting to dazzle with cleverness.