The Hartwood Restaurant is a sweet choice for food and book lovers alike

Dining at The Hartwood Restaurant makes for a sweet evening. And if you like books, it's even sweeter.

The combination bookstore-restaurant positioned right on the Hampton-Indiana line treats diners to a colorful and flavorful menu of Hawaiian and Pacific island-inspired dishes. The restaurant is along a rural section of the Green Belt, away from commercial development and endless strings of traffic lights.

Bookshelves and dining tables intermingle inside the restaurant, which has two main dining rooms and a sprinkling of individual tables positioned neatly among the stacks of books. It's tempting to dart up from the table while waiting for your meal to sneak looks at the rows of mystery novels, serious fiction and history books.

The lighting is subdued and flattering, and moss green and rusty red walls in the main dining area are warm and inviting. Our one complaint about our surroundings concerned our chairs - wooden folding seats that threatened to snap us up as we sat down or shifted around.

The menu focuses on combinations of seafood, chicken and steaks prepared with sauces and side dishes that tend toward the sweet, with preparations featuring fruits, ginger and vanilla in plentiful supply. The restaurant's chefs are veterans of Hawaii's noted Mama's Fish House, a growing empire that focuses on - what else• - the bounty of Hawaii's oceans and tropical gardens.

We started our dinners with appetizers and salads - we knew we wouldn't want to miss the Oriental Shrimp Won Tons ($6.95) with spicy Thai ginger sauce and pickled ginger. The person at our table who did venture into the stacks before dinner almost missed his share - and he would have been sorry. While we didn't find them spicy, we did enjoy the crunchy won ton wrapper that enveloped a plum shrimp infused with a strong, but not overpowering, ginger flavor.

The Lemon Peppercorn Tomato Soup ($2.95 cup, $3.95 bowl) was a surprising twist on plain tomato soup. Our salads - ordered a la carte - included the Hartwood ($4.50), a heaping serving of wild greens, vegetables, bleu cheese and herb vinaigrette; and the Spinach Wonbok ($6.50), a creative salad of greens, ruby red grapefruit, pecans, bleu cheese and honey-lime vinaigrette that offered a preview of the combination of flavors to come in the entrees.

Crispy Coconut Shrimp ($22.95) arrived with Mai Tai Rum salsa and a serving of vanilla jasmine rice. The fried shrimp was not the least bit oily, and the sweetness of the coconut melded nicely with the mild, plump shrimp. The salsa was a perfect accompaniment, and the rice offered yet another sweet taste on the plate.

For a bit more contrast among flavors, the restaurant offers three preparations of Salmon ($22.95): sauteed with a mild-to-spicy Asian black bean sauce; grilled with a cilantro peppercorn rub; and the one we tried, the baked fish with lemon-caper-dill aioli. The light savory sauce atop the thick cut of salmon contrasted well with the side dish of vanilla jasmine rice.

Rich, hearty and satisfying - with a flavorful and, by now, expected twist - were the Filet and Petite Lobster ($34.95), served with bearnaise and ginger-curry butter. The steak and lobster were prepared to melt-in-your-mouth perfection, and the sauce combination that accompanied put these favorites in a whole new light. They were paired with a side of "onion mashers" - a serving of scrumptious onion-flavored mashed potatoes that disappeared faster than the main dish.

Honolulu Chicken Breasts ($17.95) were a return to the sweet, with a ginger teriyaki sauce glazing two petite pieces of poultry.

The dessert list at The Hartwood Restaurant is small - but don't judge it by its size. Simplicity is its virtue.

The Fantasy ($6) is a chocolate drop cake, a moist-but-crumbly brownielike wedge served with whipped cream and huge fresh berries. The Flashback ($5) is a whirled mixture of sweet-tart tropical-flavor granitas served in a martini glass.

Our favorite is the most unassuming: the Nice Dream ($6), vanilla ice cream topped with the restaurant's homemade caramel sauce, topped with fresh fruit and pecans. Never has a caramel sundae tasted so fresh, light and decadent all at once.

And although the desserts were delicious, they couldn't rival the end to our visit - a long linger through the literature as we made our way out.

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The Hartwood Restaurant