This will either be killingly delicious or a disaster, I thought, as I prepared to meet a visiting journalist at a restaurant where, I'd been told, everything contains cream.

Mahalo ke akua (since the editor I was talking to was from the prestigious Zagat guide and I picked the restaurant), it turned out be be mostly delicious, and there actually are a few things on the menu that don't contain cream (refreshing fruit juice mixtures, for one, and morning salads for another).

The Cream Pot opened Feb. 29 in the Hawaiian Monarch condo-hotel, overlooking the Ala Wai Canal just diamondhead of where McCully turns into Kalakaua. Already, the Japanese tourists have discovered it.

Owner Nang Tran, who worked in the legal field but has long wanted to open a restaurant, says he was going for a French country inn feel, but it's a French country inn as imagined through Japanese eyes, I think: white stucco walls, blond furniture, dried flowers and colorful knickknacks in niches on the walls, wire-backed café chairs, lace curtains, tiny fresh posies on the tables, period pictures (from Hawai'i, not France), a long communal table running down the center of the room and odd little beehive-shaped doors, hobbit-style. All this in a glass-walled corner of the lobby of a rather obscure hotel in what has been, variously, a bar, a restaurant, a meeting space.

Tran, 36, originally from California, has traveled extensively and lived in Japan. Chef Victor Kwon, 24, is another Californian (they met there through a cousin of Tran's), who has a family history in the restaurant business, classical training (from the Cordon Bleu school in Pasadena), experience at The Margarita Lounge in Beverly Hills, and an interest in Asian cuisine.

Both describe themselves as light eaters and wanted their menu to reflect their preferences: no mounded, gravy-laden, forget-the-fruits-and-vegetables plate lunches here. Though crepes, omelets, waffles and Benedicts are hardly diet food, all are delicately presented, subtly flavored, sparingly sauced and buttered, despite the heavy implications of a name like Cream Pot.

There's just one problem with Cream Pot, but it's a considerable challenge: The kitchen is one floor above the restaurant, so all the food has to be fetched and carried, covered, room-service style. This means some more-delicate items arrive cooler than they should be (not cold, but warm rather than hot). It also means service is sometimes slower than it should be, although the waitresses (two for a room of about 40 diners) really hustle. You'll get your food in a timely manner, but may have to wait for those extras: a coffee top-up, a leftovers sack, getting your parking validated (which you should do in the restaurant for a discounted rate).

An expediter whose sole job was to run from kitchen to prep room and back would speed things up considerably.

Particularly when the dishes involve cream sauces, and when the flavors are restrained, temperature is all-important to delivering the most desirable flavor and texture.

For this reason, and because I like this dish anyway and never have seen it in a restaurant, I highly recommend one of the two baked egg dishes: two eggs broken and baked over diced potatoes and vegetables, served with toasted baguettes, a kind of Western-style donburi bowl. Because you receive them in the roomy ramekin in which they're baked, these arrive piping hot and both the bacon-onion-mustard sauce version ($11) and the shrimp-spinach-bechamel version ($12.50) are delicious and satisfying, hearty without being overfilling.

A pause to chew the fat about bacon. The maple-cured bacon at Cream Pot is of a type you don't see often; not the thin-sliced, fat-streaked stuff, but diced chunks of sweet-salty meat. Tran, whom I interviewed on the phone and only after I visited, says they bake it, rather than fry it, gently rendering the fat away. I haven't had bacon this good since I was last in England, where they know a thing or two about great breakfasts.

Crepes are the heart of the Cream Pot menu, both sweet and savory (savory means on the salty rather than sugary side). The savory versions arrive not rolled but folded into a square framing the filling; the sweet version we had (apples in a caramel sauce, $9.50) was a gorgeous rippling fan with fruit and whipped cream spilling out that tasted as good as it looked. Four stars for unfussy but beautiful presentation.

The creamy chicken crepe, with pan-seared chicken, sauteed mushrooms, spinach and arugula in a drizzle of bechamel (classic French white sauce; $13) reminded me of ladies lunch dishes of the past, rather dainty and perfect for a lighter appetite. (Tran and Kwan's goal, by the way, is to extend into the evening hours as a creperie, with wine; they're awaiting their liquor license and smoothing out operational issues first.)

A totally different turn is the maguro Benedict: 'ahi carpaccio, avocado, shiso leaf, daikon sprouts, orange miso shoyu sauce on a cake of tender rice ($14.50). It's a Benedict only in the method of construction, of course, but it's one that appeals both to local and Asian tastes. Oishi (delicious), and not piled so high that you can't get a fork to work on it.

Cream Pot offers an interesting drink menu even without a liquor license, from Vietnamese coffee to a delightful light citrus spritzer, plus cold chocolate and mocha, espresso drinks, fruit shakes and lemonades in addition to a good Kona blend ($2.50-$4.50).

If Cream Pot can solve the problem of delivering hot food hot, and if local residents join Japanese tourists in venturing into Waikiki for breakfast, assuring the restaurant's future, Cream Pot will find a place on my must-visit-often list and graduate to four forks.

RESTAURANT NEWS

Mark Ellman of the 'Ilima Award-winning Mala Ocean Tavern on Maui is opening a second Mala, at the Marriott Wailea, next month. The opening-night party, a benefit for the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, is set for 6:30 p.m. June 19 and features host Alice Cooper (yes, THAT Alice Cooper) as well as a multicourse menu prepared by Ellman and chefs Corey Waite and Renee Loux. Wine pairings are from Mick Fleetwood (yes, THAT Mick Fleetwood) from his Mick Fleetwood Private Cellar label. Music and dancing follow. Tickets: $175. Beverly Delacruz, 808-242-2787, ext. 237; beverly@mauiarts.org.

Two new Japanese restaurants are making gentle waves: