Colombia’s Corn Dishes Well Served

Golden Maize in Orange celebrates the glories of corn. Is it a health-food place, intoxicated with the fabled goodness of grain? No.

It’s a Colombian restaurant, and the arepa, a flat griddle cake of white or yellow corn flour, is Colombia’s national dish. And that’s just the beginning of what Colombians do with corn. (Not that they don’t eat a lot of rice in Colombia too, and rich seafood stews, grilled meats and dozens of varieties of banana, for that matter.)

The restaurant is in a charming Victorian house just north of the Orange traffic circle, directly across the street from a popular coffeehouse called Ugly Mug Cafe. And yep, that is a glowing neon ear of corn on the sign.

Dining here is an intimate experience, almost like sitting in someone’s living room. That’s partly because Golden Maize still looks like a private home. There are three dining rooms, each a separate room on the ground floor of the house. You sit at elegant tables draped in white cloth, on antique wooden chairs that look as if they were built in the same era as the house.

All credit for this charming environment goes to owner Claudia Banle, a native of Bogota, Colombia. And in keeping with the name of the place, she has included little touches so that no one will forget that corn is king. The cream-colored wallpaper has a motif of tiny ears of corn. Ceramic ears of corn are perched on top of the polished wooden mantle, above the working fireplace.

You begin a meal with a basket of warm, irresistibly delicious breads, a fluffy zucchini bread and a dense, buttery corn bread so soft it’s almost like eating a square of corn pudding. The appetizers focus on corn as well. The arepas are CD-sized cornmeal discs stuffed with a light mixture of Havarti and mozzarella cheeses, served in wedges like pizza. They’re a little bland but mildly sweet and pleasing.

What the menu calls Colombian turnovers are also known as empanadas throughout Latin America. These steamy, tasty turnovers have a corn flour crust (natch) and a spicy filling of chicken and potatoes. They are improved if you doctor them with aji, a spicy, fresh salsa.

Golden Maize also has homemade soups that change daily, except for an ever-present corn chowder. It might be the best corn chowder I’ve ever tasted. It’s thick without being cloying, creamy without using cream and loaded with fresh, sweet corn kernels.

On Wednesday, the restaurant makes a delicious vegetable soup that you could call a corn minestrone. Monday’s chicken noodle soup has a hearty, grandmotherly appeal (but no corn).

The entrees are mostly Colombian, but the kitchen also pays homage to Ecuador, Peru and the Amazon region. I didn’t much care for the seafood casserole Colombian-style, but the other three people at my table raved about it.

Maybe I just had a problem because I grew up on the quite different seafood chowders of New England. Here, it’s a milky potato bisque laced with various seafoods: salmon, swordfish, halibut, red snapper, crayfish and shrimp. With your order you get a mound of fragrant basmati rice and a couple of fried plantains.

Another fish preparation is Golden Maize Chilean sea bass. This, to my mind, is really an oddball dish--and, again, a corn-centered one. It’s a large chunk of fresh sea bass baked in a sweet corn crust until the crust is an appealing golden color. Personally, I find the flavor of the corn too sweet for the fish, but remove the crust and you find a wonderfully moist piece of fish inside.

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The best meat dish here, without question, is the charbroiled Colombian steak, a cousin to what is called carne asada in our Mexican restaurants. Perhaps because Colombian beef is not especially prized for tenderness, the Colombian way is to pound the meat before grilling it, as is done here.

This steak is nicely grilled with garlic, and quite trim, accompanied by good roasted potatoes and a few grilled vegetables.

I wouldn’t give such high marks to the Colombian pot roast, sobrebarriga, because the meat is not quite as trim as I like a pot roast to be. But this one has clearly been slow-cooked until tender, and before serving, finished on a grill, so that the edges are nice and crisp. (I’m told that is the tradition in Colombia.)

A handful of other dishes draw attention here. Don’t expect arroz con pollo, the famous chicken and rice casserole, to be like the version served in Mexico. This is tomato rice combined with shredded chicken meat, peas and carrots, entirely without the cumin, red chiles or cilantro that you’d find in Mexico.

Spaghetti with chicken tastes like a dish you’d get in a suburban Italian restaurant. There’s a decent grilled swordfish in a light wine sauce with mushrooms and capers. A paella has salmon, pork and string beans in it, in addition to the more usual shrimp, chicken and crayfish; unfortunately, it’s bland and dry.

There are two desserts, only one of them worth remembering (the leaden flan tastes as if it’s made from a mix). The one you want to get is tres leches, a rich, sweet cake with a batter made from a combination of three milks: whole, condensed and evaporated.

I guess corn creme bru^lee hasn’t swept Colombia just yet.

Golden Maize is moderately priced. Appetizers are $3 to $6.50. Entrees are $9 to $16. Desserts are $4 to $5.

BE THERE

Golden Maize, 264 N. Glassell St., Orange. (714) 532-5955. Lunch 11 a.m.- 2:30 p.m. daily, dinner 5-10 daily. All major cards.