In the Zone.(The Talk of the Town)(Hawaiian Tropic Zone)

When, a couple of months ago, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, and Smith Barney revised their expense-account policies so that employees were forbidden to entertain clients at Hawaiian Tropic Zone, a Times Square restaurant featuring waitresses wearing bikinis, the restaurant's owner and C.E.O., Dennis Riese, said that his feelings were hurt. He told the Post, "We are a totally misunderstood restaurant." Over lunch the other day with a young investment banker, Riese set out to correct the record. (The banker asked that his name be withheld, in case his bosses were unimpressed with Riese's defense.)

The first thing to understand is that Hawaiian Tropic Zone is not an upscale Hooters. "It burns me deeply to hear those words," Riese, a short man in his mid-fifties, said. His holdings also include Tad's Steaks, TGI Friday's, and Tequilaville. He asked the banker, "Have you ever been to a Hooters?"

The banker, who is from Columbus, Ohio, replied that he had, once.

"Would you call this an upscale Hooters?"

"It's a very different feel," the banker said.

Nor is Hawaiian Tropic Zone a strip club. "No nipples," Riese said. "You're never, ever going to see a girl nude." He continued, "I'm such a feminist. I love women and believe in them. And I'm not being P.C. by saying that men and women like to look at the woman's form--it's been going on since Michelangelo, you know, since they were doing statues of Venus de Milo. So I really believed that I was creating a restaurant that was going to appeal to men and women. I used colors that are very feminine in this place." He gestured toward a tropical mosaic and toward a pair of soft-orange overhead lights shaped--as are the salt and pepper shakers--like breasts.

Riese called for a menu. "We have a section that says 'simply grilled,' because women don't like to eat sauces the way men do," he said. "They're watching their weight more often." He pointed at the menu. "Also, see, it says 'sharing ...