Macrobiotics and Aussie Oven: Worlds Apart

X said he wouldn’t touch seaweed or brown-rice sushi if his life depended on it. At the mere mention of steak and mushroom pie, Y began her rain-forest lecture. Z (“no sugar, no white flour”) refused to taste the chocolate-coated Lamington. It was your usual you-say-to may to / I-say-to mah to night.

Few are neutral when it comes to food “won’ts.” The solution? A visit to both UFO Zen Food, a macrobiotic cafe in Santa Monica, and Aussie Oven, an Australian bakery in Pacific Palisades.

These two takeout spots could not be further apart from one another in terms of nutritional philosophy. But no matter which side of the sausage roll--or tofu fence--you are on, you’ll find that both mom-and-pop-size places serve very fresh, low-cost food.

Zen macrobiotic cooking, developed in Buddhist monasteries in Japan, emphasizes perfectly proportioned seasonal vegetarian menus made with priestly attention. At UFO Zen, you’ll find a terrestrial, fast-food interpretation of this discipline.

There is, for example, a tofu marinade ($2.95), cool slices of bean curd bathed in a perfect mix of fresh ginger, sesame oil, rice vinegar and black sesame seeds.

The soba special ($4.95), a sort of macrobiotic pasta primavera, is also pleasing. Light buckwheat noodles (made with wheat) are delicately sauteed with bits of carrots, cabbage and broccoli.

There is a small brown rice “sushi” menu. Scrounge up your own wasabe or make do with UFO’s light tahini-soy dressing. And scratch all traditional sushi visions from your mind. Hosomaki (either with cucumber, daikon, steamed carrots or hiziki , a spaghettini-thin seaweed) is totally straightforward. If you cotton to alfalfa sprouts--I loathe them--then you might try the fat California roll, a small bouquet.

If you have an appetite, and no aversion to All Things Soy, there’s a UFO special dinner ($8.50) that changes every night, depending upon the season and the chef’s whims. My box supper (Styrofoam, by the way) contained delicious sweet vegetables, a large plain soy bean cake daubed with the darkest miso, a limp and watery grated daikon salad and a giant nori -wrapped piece of “sushi” filled with crew-cut soba and avocado, which fell apart in my hand.

The special dinner also included a large slab of soy loaf, which looked like a piece of carrot cake and tasted like a crusty kugel with a flat soybean taste. Last, and least, were two probably very nutritious pieces of Fried Non-Meat.

Steamed vegetables, which come with many of the dishes, are carefully, and uniformly, undercooked, and brown rice is always available. Cucumber and wakame (a curly seaweed) salad ($2.95) has a fine, refreshing taste, while hiziki cries out for some garlic or a stronger shot of tamari . The soups I tried were dishwater thin.

Meals are prepared to order and tend to take a long time to emerge. I read two articles, “Beam Up the Vegetables Scotty” and “If Buddha Had Been a Shrink,” while waiting. Carob-tofu-maple pudding, in case you’re wondering, is a million miles from chocolate mousse.

The food at Aussie Oven is, similarly, a million miles from Zen macrobiotica. It is a world where beef, gravy, white flour, sugar, workingman’s lunches and gloved-ladies’ cakes reign.

You can find hot-out-of-the-oven pastries and paler versions ready to be warmed at home. The password is robust. A steak and mushroom pie ($2.75), filled to the gills, is encased in a crust midway between a turnover and a croissant. Beef and vegetable pasties ($2.75 each) contain spiced chopped meat, cubed potatoes and a shower of brown gravy. Gently herbed sausage rolls ($1.50 each) are wrapped in a substantial dough blanket. And while this may be an “authentic Australian bakery,” it does bow to California ways by using only 100% extra-lean beef.

Vegetarians are not excluded: There’s a feta-and-spinach pasty. Weight watchers will have a harder time. Even the so-called “lighter,” tasty peppery chicken pie leaves that tell-tale grease mark on the hand. And the home-cooked soup, which changes daily, tends to be laced with cream. Incidentally, a full-bodied chicken and wild rice soup ($1.50) is wonderful.

The scent of the scones is beguiling, but these heavy, triple-chinned, barely sweet, baking powder biscuits (two for 95 cents) simply don’t move me, even when laden (for $2.25) with whipped cream and strawberry jam and served with coffee or tea. An apple tart was understuffed, but the chocolate- and coconut-coated airy white cake Lamington--macrobiotic yin hell--is absolutely garden-party right.

UFO Zen Food, 1701 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica; (213) 450-0267. Open Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Cash only. Parking lot. Aussie Oven, 16605 Sunset Blvd., Pacific Palisades; (213) 454-0665. Open Tuesday through Friday 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Parking lot. Cash and personal checks only.