OC LIVE : RESTAURANTS : Habana: Caribbean Honeymoon for Latin Lovers

Know anyone who knows the words to the “I Love Lucy” theme? Neither do I, but after a few more meals at the sensational new Habana in Costa Mesa, I’ll probably be able to croon them, because I’ll have heard Desi Arnaz singing them roughly two dozen times. (FYI: They start, “No one kiss-es like Luc-y does.”)

Actually, this great restaurant already has me singing seven different ways. Habana is stuck at the back end of the Lab, O.C.’s counterculture shopping mall. The restaurant is a narrow space with a bare concrete floor, a trompe l’oeil mezzanine, green and white oilcloth-covered tables and sponge-painted walls highlighted by campy photos of the mambo-impaired.

At lunchtime, the action is on the outside patio. After dark, the crowd moves inside, where more camp is in store.

Each table is adorned with candles, tall glasses filled with bright orange wax (they’re supposed to look like tumblers of orange juice--get it?). Drinks come in carved glasses depicting slinky females in bathing suits.

And of course there is that recorded music--Cuban rhythms, Spanish-language pop and those silly arrangements from ‘50s TV, all of which sound oh-so-hip in this setting.

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Owner Jeffrey Best has struck virtually all the right chords on this, his first try in the restaurant business. His chef is Dave Danhi, late of Georgia, one of L.A.’s fine soul-food establishments. The pastries are by the talented Victoria Granoff, who was the opening chef at another touted L.A. eatery, the Atlas Bar and Grill.

Food is a serious matter at Habana, but the restaurant still manages to have fun with it. Sweet, hot Cuban bread comes in cigar boxes (Cohiba brand), while many of the dishes are spiced with colorful, Caribbean-inspired salsas and slaws.

There’s a terrific appetizer called stomp and go, for instance: crepe-thin codfish pancakes with an astonishing mango and chayote slaw. Halibut, smoked in-house and perhaps my favorite dish here, is blanketed with a wonderful papaya shrimp sauce.

Start with the roasted vegetable salad or a cup of the terrific house soup. The salad is what you might call Italo-Cubano: grilled peppers, eggplant and zucchini on a bed of greens adorned with a spicy black bean vinaigrette. The chicken gumbo is dense and thick with lots of chicken, sausage, rice and subtle flavors--a true power lunch. The black bean soup is great too, a thick, hearty bowl of beans strongly flavored with epazote and cumin. (Nevermind that, at bottom, this soup is a kissin’ cousin to the beans that come with most dinners.)

If you’re not in a soup mode, consider O.C.’s best peel-and-eat shrimp. The menu tells you they are steamed in a seasoned beer broth and served with chilled cocktail sauce; it doesn’t mention that they are brilliantly fresh and adroitly spiced.

Corn and black bean crab cakes are tasty pan-fried disks in an intelligently seasoned mustard mayo. And don’t miss bocaditos , marked on the menu by a little conga drum that indicates traditional Cuban fare. These rich, flaky pastries look like croissants, though the stuffing of spicy ground beef, capers, olives, tomatoes and raisins is about as French as Fidel’s beard.

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Habana’s entree specialties are all terrific and come with good side dishes such as white rice, black beans, plantain chips and maduros (fried bananas).

The roasted chicken--a massive serving for $7.95--is a symphony of crisp, juicy skin and meat. Grace notes of crushed garlic and the faint taste of bitter orange make it hard to resist.

Lechon asado may be overcooked for some tastes, but the dish is hearty, rustic and a perfect match for rice and beans. What you get here are thick slices of roasted pork, nobly offset by a sour orange marinade. In Cuba this dish is regularly eaten with congri , a drier version of black beans and rice cooked together. Congri is available a la carte.

Medianoche --literally “midnight,” as in midnight snack--is served at all hours, and it must be the richest sandwich in the county: thick-sliced ham, roast pork cut into equally thick slices, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard, mayonnaise and butter, all on grilled Cuban bread.

Ropa vieja means “old clothes.” It’s another traditional Cuban standby, a clump of shredded pot roast in a piquant tomato sauce. The homey dish known as chunky chicken picadillo is a sort of cumin-happy chicken stew, a mishmash of white meat, tomatoes, green olives, capers, onion, garlic and herbs. Save your appetite if at all tentative about the cumin seed.

If you’re wise, you’ll certainly have saved it for dessert. The triumph on this sweet list is called cafe cubano , and in my book, it’s the dessert sensation of the year. Picture a round of flourless chocolate cake topped with chocolate mousse and a stiff peak of whipped cream, wrapped up Christo-style in a chocolate robe. Now float the thing on a pool of light, delicate espresso cream. Caramba!

You also might try pudin de pan , a feather-light, warm chocolate bread pudding, or one of Granoff’s fine tropical sorbets: coconut, pineapple and lemon, all served frozen solid inside hollowed out fruit.

Ohhh, that Desi. What a charmer.

Habana is high-end moderate. Appetizers are $4.95 to $7.95. Entrees are $6.95 to $11.95. Desserts are $3 to $4.95.

* HABANA

* 2930 Bristol St., Costa Mesa.

* (714) 556-0176.

* 11 a.m. to midnight Sundays through Thursdays; till 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

* American Express, MasterCard and Visa.