RESATURANTS : A FINE PICTURE OF THE ORIENTAL DISH

My friend the art critic tasted the stir-fried chicken with pine nuts and Chinese red peppers, sighed and put down her fork. “Restaurant reviewing is like art reviewing, isn’t it? Except you don’t have to write what it means.” She then laughed and returned to the fragrant pleasure at hand.

We were sitting in a corner of the Oriental Dish in Venice. With glass bricks, subdued lights, red Bauhaus-style factory windows, the black-red-and-white space designed by an architect is pretty spiffy, once you get past the brighter-than-bright takeout section/entry way.

The Oriental Dish serves Filipino cuisine, which is a unique assembly of Spanish, Chinese and Malaysian ingredients and styles. Two beautiful co-owners float through the room, managing to act as hostesses, waitresses and busboys at the same time. One described the traditional dishes to us, exhibiting what felt like an iron fist inside a velvet glove as she strongly insisted we try a certain combination of foods. “Very classy performance,” the art critic’s husband muttered under his breath. Well, when in Luzon, we thought. It turned out that she gave us some good advice.

We began with the spicy, satisfying stir-fried chicken with dark mushrooms and green onions, and had the fresh lumpia, which are not listed on the menu but are generally available each day. Lumpia are the Filipino version of egg rolls; the fresh or unfried variety are filled with match stick-cut vegetables and rolled in a translucent skin, then served with what I would unceremoniously term a yucky sauce. Another evening two of us started the meal by sharing a large portion of hot and sour prawn soup, a delicate clear broth filled with greens and giant pink prawns.

One night we had three ecstatically good entrees, a week later ecstasy was tempered to pretty good.

The roasted pork shank was juicy and falling off the bone with mouth-watering brittle cracking skin and a well-chosen vinegary sweet accompanying sauce. Conversation turned to luaus and Hawaii, turning back to Manila as we drank more San Miguel beer. (Decent and inexpensive house wines also are available.)

The shrimp in pungent, dark green taro leaves set in a broth of coconut milk was complex and heady, while the grilled chicken breast wrapped in banana leaves was an adventurous treat, moist white meat coupled with the chewy, purple, native-to-the-Philippines wild rice. A festive-looking lightly fried whole catfish had tempura-like crispy skin, firm and tender white flesh and an electrifyingly fine ginger and garlic sauce. The adobong , spicy chicken and vegetables cooked in coconut milk, is a Filipino favorite dish; that night it seemed like a rather soulless and plebeian stew.

For dessert hostess persuaded us to taste one of the homemade ice creams that she insisted was known as an aphrodisiac abroad. “It smells awful,” she acknowledged, “but after the third bite that won’t bother you.”

We ordered this durian as well as a banana lumpia and, for good measure, had to try the flan. I drank some of the sweet, fresh ginger treat--it tastes like a variant of Thai iced coffee or tea. The flan, made of condensed milk, turned out to be very, very sweet, the fried lumpia with pecans and raisins was indecently good and the aphrodisiac ice cream simply bit the dust. It was painful to proceed past the evil-smelling second bite. Other homemade ice creams were more palatable: a jackfruit, something like a tutti-frutti, the pili nut, an Alice in Wonderland combination of tastes.

I thought I’d try the takeout menu the next day. Though the fried chicken would taste fine on the beach and the rice noodles were carefully spiced, make sure you don’t confuse the in-house menu with the takeout fare. It is simply steam-table food. This is where art writing and restaurant reviewing part: It’s only a sauce and not a painting that could drip through a takeout container and dribble all over the front seat of a car. Still, although I may not know a lot about Filipino cooking, or how to get a sugar-cane vinegar sauce out of a car rug, I do know what I like and, aside from the takeout menu, it’s called the Oriental Dish.

The Oriental Dish, 1512 Pacific Ave., Venice, (213) 392-6695. Open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch, dinner. 7 a.m.-10 p.m.. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two (food only): $21-$30.