Palpable energy, a cool vibe, boisterous laughter, pop music that makes you want to get up and dance.

Some restaurants make you feel good from the moment you walk through the door.

Restaurants like Brasserie Felix, a welcoming French-food temple that beckons with its polished and inviting Parisian interior - walls brushed the color of Dijon mustard, red-tile floors, black banquettes and tables with white tablecloths, mirrors everywhere, low-light sconces and a small bar full of familiar faux-French prints and an intriguing selection of bottled beers and spirits.

The menu - casual and humble, with an unintimidating number of unpretentious and hearty dishes, peasant foods and seafood plates - is not a haute ticket. But the kitchen, overseen by executive chef Jeff Cruse, know what it's doing and, for the most part, does it very well.

I liked all three of the buckets of steamed moules ($8.95 starter, $14.95 entree): one plunged in a seafaring broth of white wine full of shallots, parsley, garlic and onions; a second bathing in a tomato broth infused with saffron; and a third cradled in cream laced with garlic and Ricard.

The mussels - plump, sweet and gently steamed - are accompanied by a thatch of judiciously salted shoestring pommes frites that are so unbelievably, totally satisfying that I nearly swatted the hand of our server - French, by the way - when he tried to take them away.

I could sit at the bar at Brasserie Felix with nothing more than a glass of Chimay and a heap of those frites.

On second thought, I might have to add the French onion soup ($6.95) to the feast. The earthy, beefy broth - cached with onions and topped with a crisp crouton blanketed with bubbly Gruyere that stretches like a hammock - is one of those winter warmers I could slurp any time of day.

I wasn't quite as impressed with the steak tartare ($11.95), which was gummy and underseasoned, or the frisee aux lardons ($8.95), an otherwise well-composed salad of salty cubes of bacon, frilly leaves and a fat poached egg that was marred by a tasteless vinaigrette that pooled like water on the plate.

Much better was the salade de betteraves ($8.95), a salad of leafy greens punctuated with warm beets, blue-cheese crumbles, sliced apples and walnuts and lightly dressed with a vinaigrette tart with cider.

As for entrees, I wanted more of the bouillabaisse ($20.95), not because it was a meager portion (to the contrary, I couldn't see the bottom of the bowl) but because the kitchen sink of seafood - scallops, mussels, clams, shrimp, rings of calamari and salmon - was perfectly cooked, despite clashing sizes and textures. The tomato broth, fragrant with saffron and fresh herbs, was excellent, too.

Also well-crafted was the lamb shank ($19.95), a hefty, beautifully braised and seasoned bone of bliss exposing shards of fork-tender meat over couscous, ratatouille and a black-olive puree.

Steak frites ($17.95), of course, graces the menu, and, of course, I had to order it. The steak, sliced and fanned across the plate, was tender, fleshy and rosy, just as I wanted it, and the frites - oh god, those frites - were again right on the mark: sprinkled with salt, crunchy and utterly habit-forming. We went through the heap on my plate without pausing and then dug into another mound when our server delivered a side order ($5). He didn't arch his eyebrows, make any snarky remarks about our gluttony or try to take them away. Instead, he just nodded knowingly and said, "Oui, oui."

Which were my exact sentiments about the coq au vin ($15.95), a robust winter bowl of French sustenance resonating with tradition, in which I found roasted chicken, its skin charred and crackling, silky baby carrots, red-skin potatoes, mushrooms and cipollini onions bobbing in a red wine sauce.

And while the cassoulet ($17.95) would have benefited from a jolt of salt, the succulent duck confit, pork sausage redolent with garlic and spicy lamb sausage mingling with white beans was textbook French-brasserie cooking.

If only it had come with a side of the pommes frites.

Brasserie Felix

* Grade: B+

* Address: 3901 Tennyson St.

* Hours: Lunch: 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. weekdays. Dinner: 5 to 10 p.m. weekdays, 4 to 10 p.m. Saturday. Brunch: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday

* Food: French

* How much: $5.95-$19.50 starters, soups and salads, $14.95-$20.95 main dishes

* Reservations: recommended on weekends

* Noise: loud

* Information: 303-953-2401, brasseriefelix.net

* Parking: street parking

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