By MERIDITH FORD
Journal Restaurant Critic

PROVIDENCE -- If there's one thing missing in American cuisine, it's, well, American cuisine.

The American melting pot has given us a vast array of food choices, especially in larger cities where ethnic cuisine is is often both well prepared and widely available.

But the line between what's foreign and what's domestic, food-wise, is a blurred one. Other than hamburgers and macaroni and cheese, few of us can think of dishes that we feel are truly American.

But many dishes, including those with ethnic ties (such as hamburgers and macaroni and cheese), were created here. And it's from this boundless culinary gene pool that America, a new restaurant in downtown Providence, draws its concept and menu.

Formerly Challenges sports bar (and still owned by Challenges' proprietor Michael Kent), the restaurant has undergone a radical makeover. It is spacious and beautiful, from booth to shining booth.

Cream-colored walls are bedecked with Ansel Adams-like photographs; the tongue-and-groove wainscoting set into the wall of one area is pristinely adorned with a bright red star. Think scaled-down Ralph Lauren -- or perhaps scaled-up Eddie Bauer -- and you'll get the picture.

The upper walls are brick, setting off the high ceilings and giving the restaurant a chic, retro-warehouse feel. Lights that dangle from the ceiling in the main dining room look like luminescent replicas of small, upside-down Empire State Buildings. French doors open to the outdoors and flowering window pots. The bar is sleek and winding, and beyond it is a refined cigar lounge with plushly upholstered wing back chairs and oriental rugs.

The menu is as broad and encompassing as the country it's named after, but many allowances have been taken with the origin and interpretation of some of the dishes. While there is a wide -- perhaps too wide -- range of offerings, the menu is actually limited by the overall concept.

For instance, almost every dish is named after a state. Whether an appetizer such as "Washington State mushroom caps" actually conjures images of Puget Sound and the Seattle Space Needle is debatable. Perhaps the name comes from the dish's seafood stuffing . . .

Still, I couldn't help ordering the "California fried calamari." It's made just as it is on Federal Hill (imagine that), with rings of fried squid tossed with lots of garlic and black olives and, of course, sliced hot peppers. America's version is not much on ingenuity, but when it's as light and crispy and pungent as it is here, this dish is a winner in any state.

Crab cakes -- from Alaska, not Maryland -- suffer from too little crab and too much mushiness. A mouth-puckering sweet-and-sour mustard sauce does little to help, since its tanginess overpowers the flavor of the crab.

Fine salad by any name

Cobb salad is a personal favorite, and a truly American dish -- it was created at Hollywood's Brown Derby Restaurant. Its ingredients have become standard issue: Chopped iceberg lettuce, turkey, chopped hardboiled eggs, bacon, tomatoes, scallions, avocado and blue cheese tossed in a tart vinaigrette.

But at America, this amalgamation is served over wild field greens, an interpretation of the original that comes up short. I missed the bland crunchiness of the iceberg lettuce, the same way you might miss the bland but comforting texture of cream cheese on a bagel. Basically, America serves a good salad -- tomatoes, blue cheese (no bacon or avocado). But it isn't a Cobb salad -- not the version I was served at any rate.

There are meatloaf sandwiches, Philly steaks, reubens and grilled cheese with bacon and tomatoes, as well as an array of burgers and wraps.

Looking for something a little more challenging, I tried the "Montana mile-high meatloaf," a savory slab of well-seasoned meat drenched in a mildly zesty brown gravy with lots of mashed potatoes. Both are covered with a mountain of light, crispy onion rings.

"Missouri macaroni and cheese" (you're beginning to get the picture now, right?) was equally satisfying, in that Hungry Man dinner sort of way. It was the real deal -- oozing with rich, creamy cheese and elbow macaroni, then baked until the cheese on top began to crust.

By dessert, the name game had lost what little allure it had in the first place, so that by the time I read "My country 'tis of Thee carrot cake" I didn't know whether to order it or salute it.

I settled for the former, but was disappointed -- it was extremely dry and tasted more like spice cake than carrot cake. A generous slice of lemon tart, though, was smooth and snappy with lemon flavor, all dressed up with a sweet raspberry coulis.

Even though there's something lost in this restaurant's interpretation of American classics -- reducing many of the dishes to what can be found at the average franchise -- America should be lauded for its menu concept. Other than the classic American steakhouse and the corner barbecue joint, there are few fine restaurants that truly embrace an all-American theme.