ALAMEDA HAS PLENTY of good cheap restaurants, but, until now, has not had a Bay Area-style California Mediterranean eatery. With chef owner John Thiel's Pappo, a crucial void has been filled in the local dining scene.

Pappo's dining room is bright and airy, with a high, vaulted ceiling connecting one wall of exposed brick to another that is decked with large and attractive colored photographs. Long, wood-framed windows open to the flower boxes on the sidewalk, reinforcing the open feeling of the dining room.

The service was good the night we went, but not spectacular. There were a couple of times when we had to request more bread (which was economically served piece by piece, a gesture that is easy to chalk to cheapness, but can be a good thing for those of us who have difficulty moderating our consumption of good, artisan bread), but our server knew the menu and was friendly and reasonably prompt.

Pappo is all about seasonal ingredients, which made us cheer, because the combination of sitting by the open window on a warm summer evening and eating such well-prepared treats as gazpacho and figs with goat cheese is one of those things that reminds us why we put up with the high cost of living in the Golden State.

For the most part, Pappo nails the Northern Californian food aesthetic. Proprietors certainly have the concept down, even if there were a couple of flaws in execution.

We had to try the fried olives on the starters menu,

but felt that to fill up on something aseasonal was somewhat wrong. Fortunately, the mixed antipasti plate ($12.50) featured a little mound of the hot, crisp and delicious treats, together with the aforementioned figs with goat cheese and basil as well as grilled vegetable crostini.

The figs were the star of the platter, because the already sublime combination of ripe, nectar-laden fig with tangy goat cheese only gets better when freshly cut basil is sprinkled on top. Together with the crostini, delicate olive-oil brushed toasts heaped with a squash-dominated summer vegetable topping, they presented a gustatory portrait of a summer garden. Everything on the platter tasted fresh and expertly handled.

In the same vein were the slices of sharlyn melon with prosciutto di Parma and mint chiffonade ($9). While the combination of sweet melon and salty prosciutto is a time-honored classic, the mint leaves were an interesting and welcome addition. This dish would have been perfect had better care been taken of freeing the melon flesh from the rind. A couple of insertions of hard, tasteless sub-rind threw the texture off enough to be distracting.

Nothing sings of the garden better than gazpacho, the chilled Spanish soup that can be fashioned from just about anything from tomatoes to green grapes and crushed almonds. Pappo offered a delicious, tomato-based gazpacho ($7.50) that was as clean-tasting as possible. The ingredients were fairly coarsely chopped, making the gazpacho lean almost from the soup to the salad side of the ledger. With the minimal handling of these raw ingredients, the quality of the produce was crucial, and Pappo has seen to that side of things admirably.

The appetizers were a good warm-up to the seared scallops with bacon, frisee, sweet corn and cherry tomato ragout ($22), a more complex dish that brought the seasonal vegetables together with plump, moist and tender scallops and the smokiness of the bacon. Overall, it is a good combination, but the dish was marred by an overly liberal hand with the balsamic vinegar. The tomato and corn were overwhelmed by the stuff; it was the right condiment for the dish, but should have been used more sparingly.

The best entree we had was the grilled Creekstone natural flat iron steak with garlic-herb fries, and summer tomato relish ($23). The moist, flavorful and tender beef contributed earthy grill notes to the bright tastes of the relish, making the dish a distillation of a summer barbecue. The tomatoes in the simply prepared relish were of the same vine-ripened high quality of all the other tomato-based items we had, with ample sweetness, crisp acidity and a lingering tomato aroma.

If the desserts at Pappo weren't so good, it would be easy to avoid them. After all, with the sweetness of fresh tomatoes and corn, not to mention ripe melon, permeating the dinner, dessert might seem like gilding the lily. But being human, we succumbed to temptation and had the chocolate dipped shortbread with a fresh strawberry milkshake ($7) and the blueberry-nectarine buckle ($7). Both were outstanding.

The shortbread was an elegant and simple butter-rich cookie, dipped in high quality dark chocolate. It's almost toffee-like notes contrasted beautifully with the rich, creamy, milkshake. Like fruit at the bottom yogurt, this shake was layered. While we chose to stir it all up, diners could sip it layer by layer, enjoying the changes as it progresses.

The buckle was different than most, with an unusual spongy crust. However, this crust offered a good support to the fresh fruit. Blueberry and nectarine are a natural combination, especially when they are at the height of their ripeness, and the pastry showed off their affinity to one another.

The food was complemented with a small, yet focused and value-priced wine list.

You can e-mail Erik Keilholtz at ekeilholtz@aol.com.