Hips and Happening Place

ANAHEIM —  Bow-tied waiters empty ashtrays with regularity; black walls offset short white tablecloths; candlelight substitutes for neon booze ads. The main room--one of two--at JC Fandango feels more like an elegant Manhattan supper club than a salsa spot off the Riverside Freeway.

Elegance, however, quickly transmutes into high-octane sensuality, Latin style, when the music starts. Live bands, such as the 11-piece Orchesta Macondo, use bongos, cowbells and bright, blaring brass to keep happy hips swiveling to salsa, cumbia and merengue rhythms.

This family-owned, strip-center establishment turns 10 this year and has changed some over time. Dinner is still served in the subdued, expansive main room, where the live music is played.

But a smaller adjacent room, once the Fandango Discoteque, later Playground, metamorphosed again about two years ago. Police complained that the graffiti-painted Playground attracted some bad apples, according to management, although no arrests were made.

Rap and hip-hop allegedly caused the problem, and the current format includes neither. Instead, it’s heavy on recorded rock en espanol and house msic; this side, thick with white smoke, really rocks. Bring earplugs, and, if you’re over 25, dress young, really young. Fandango is 18 and over, after all.

In the main room, the average age is more like 40. The room is being remodeled now, says general manager Javier Castellanos, who plans to add metal railings, more silk flowers and faux palms and a blue velvet curtain for the stage. Blessedly, there still won’t be any beer signs or TVs. “We want to keep it classy,” Castellanos said.

The dance floor on this side is slightly smaller (1,400 square feet compared with 1,600 in the second room), but the room itself is larger. There is seating for up 180 for dinner at candle-lit tables along one long wall.

A few carpeted steps away is an area with smaller tables for sitting or mingling, the cigar-friendly room’s only bar and the dance floor.

After 9, the floor is never vacant. Salsa dominates, its superior practitioners exuding maximum sizzle. Their torsos are held erect, their hip and leg movements kept subtle. Less is somehow more in these matters, although cumbia calls for a healthy bit of bounce, and merengue, the fastest yet simplest, should know no restraint.

Naturally, the crowd dresses for freedom of movement. Women wear short skirts and dresses and proper dance shoes. The men seem to be more formally attired, a few even wearing vests or suit coats, but jeans are OK too. This has to be one of the few places around where you’ll find a guy wearing a stretchy, skin-tight turtleneck, and yep, it looks great, in that European way.

As for attitude, there’s little. Off the dance floor, the heat abates but not the warmth. Friends shake hands and embrace but break ranks to ask strangers to dance. Most patrons are Latino, but there’s no need to worry if you don’t speak Spanish.

Don’t fret if you don’t have dancin’ feet, either. Nightly lessons are offered. The price--$10 per class--is high, especially considering that most clubs charge nothing. But complex patterns are taught, and the quality of instruction is high, with lots of personal attention (something that’s nonexistent even at some professional schools).

Other local clubs may have a larger stable of regular top-notch salsa dancers, but this one will be less intimidating for newcomers.

If you come for dinner, try the specialty, paella, made with lobster, crab, pork, chicken, ham, clams and sausage ($21.95). There’s also shrimp cocktail ($9.95), fajitas ($7.95) and a tostada ($5.95). Lighter appetizers are served in both rooms.

Domestic beer goes for $3.50; imported beer and well drinks cost $4, and premium drinks run $5.

* JC FANDANGO

* 1086 N. State College Blvd., Anaheim.

* (714) 758-1057.

* Thursday-Sunday, 9 p.m.-1:45 a.m. in two rooms. Live salsa bands every Friday and Saturday in main room. Nightly lessons: beginning, 6:30; advanced 8-9 p.m. Salsa, cumbia and merengue taught alternatively.

* Cover is $5 on Thursday; $10 on Friday and Sunday; $12 on Saturday. $10 per dance lesson.