Fresh Seafood With Chinese Flair Is the Name of the Game at Monkee’s

La Jolla’s ambitious but unsuccessful Pancho Wellington’s recently gave up the ghost and passed along its attractive premises to Monkee’s, an up-scale, Los Angeles-based chain that specializes in seafood prepared a la Chinoise.

Monkee’s took one look at Pancho’s decor and wisely decided not to change a thing; the comfortable banquettes and eye-pleasing pastels and earth tones, all installed just a year earlier, were really far too nice to require alteration. The management apparently realized that guests might enjoy eating Chinese cooking in a non-garish atmosphere and that San Diego has become sufficiently sophisticated to realize that the paper lanterns and other gimcracks associated with Chinese restaurants in no way guarantee the quality or authenticity of the cuisine.

The management did, however, considerably upgrade the exterior decor by mounting a trio of glass tanks on the Prospect Street sidewalk, which hold, respectively, families of very lively Dungeness crabs, Maine lobsters and fin fish. It is amusing to see the lobsters jousting, the crabs bickering and the fin fish (gray sole and others) swimming placidly as one walks past, and quite appetizing if one happens to be entering the restaurant.

The kitchen acquits itself well when preparing meat and fowl dishes, of which the menu offers a limited but sufficient variety. But this really is a seafood restaurant par excellence, and the emphasis, as testified to by the presence of the fish tanks, is on freshness. When Chinese cooks have their hands on fresh or live seafood, they generally choose a very simple method of preparation.

Thus it happens that black bean sauce accompanies about half the seafood selections, either as an option or as a standard component. It is a tasty sauce, redolent of seasonings, pungent from the slight fermentation undergone by the beans, and spicy, in a progressively more intense way, with the flavorful heat of chili oil. This sauce seems best with clams, crab and other shellfish. Its extensive use, however, makes the act of selecting a balanced menu somewhat difficult, simply because tastes within a dinner never should be duplicated. The sauce’s fiery effect also complicates the issue, because Monkee’s leans heavily toward Szechuan spicing, and when all dishes are hot, the overall sensation can be both overpowering and, ultimately, somewhat boring.

But it is well to try at least one dish prepared in this manner, and the jumbo clams, whose sweet, tender flesh gains a certain virtue when cooked with this sauce, make as good an introduction as any. Since there is nothing parsimonious about the portions here, the platter is heaped with the hard-shelled creatures.

Some of the menu descriptions, such as “sauteed alive whole Dungeness crab,” read like advertisements for a 1960s horror film, but guests should not be put off by such wording. The descriptions reflect an imprecision of language; in this instance, the crab is killed and split before being tossed in the wok and sauteed with a few simple seasonings, plus a ladle or two of black bean sauce. The result is heady and rich. Lobster may be had in the same fashion, and among other extravagant seafood offerings are whole abalone steamed with oyster sauce or black mushrooms, oversized scallops cooked in a variety of manners, and oysters sauteed with ginger and scallions. Given the luxurious nature of these foods, the dishes can be costly (Dungeness crab, for example, lists at $16.50), and the check can mount rather more rapidly than is usual in Chinese eateries. A whole fish sells at a price determined by the day’s market; choices in this category include gray sole, steamed or fried and finished with a choice of sauces; catfish, and deep-fried rock cod dressed with sweet and sour sauce.

The menu briefly lists a wide variety of shrimp dishes, and the diner should ask (it may be necessary to ask twice) the waiter to list the specifications of each. For example, it came out during intense cross-examination that the dish listed simply as “braised” was actually a Szechuan-style preparation, in which the shrimp were quickly stir-fried with garlic, onion and a tomato-y chili sauce (it proved most satisfactory, especially for the shrimps’ gracefully tender texture.) With this knowledge in hand, it was then decided to order a non-spicy dish as a companion entree.

The most challenging shrimp offering would be the one in which unpeeled jumbo shrimp are fried in oil and served with seasoned salt for dipping. This method is extremely popular in Beijing and elsewhere, but if one doesn’t know the trick for stripping the meat from the shell (properly, the tongue is used), the process of eating these can be messy and unpleasant.

No such problem arises with the soft shell crabs, which in the best traditions of Chesapeake Bay are eaten shell, little legs, and all. Monkee’s fries two of these and serves them, with black bean sauce on the side, as an appetizer. The flavor is sweet and good, the shell crunchy but also somewhat elastic between the teeth. Be warned that diners who have never before been confronted by a soft shell crab may be intimidated (or worse) by it, as happened to one guest at a recent dinner.

Two more universally popular appetizers would be the shrimp shiu mai, or open-faced, meat-filled dumplings topped with big chunks of shrimp, and the Chardonnay shrimp, in which the creatures are steamed in seasoned wine, and then grilled. Beijing duck oddly appears under the appetizer listing; more commonly, it serves as an entree.

Among the meat dishes, the menu lists just one dish under the “house specialties” heading. This is the tangerine beef, a hot, pungent dish of crisply-fried meat softened in a sweet, chili-heated sauce. Dried tangerine peel lends a pungent aroma and a pleasingly bitter undertone to the flavor. The sliced beef with snow peas or broccoli makes a good, savory but mild companion to spicier entrees. Other meat choices include the common mu-shus, as well as deep fried pigeon, veal in Hunan sauce (veal rarely appears on Chinese menus), lamb stir-fried with scallions, and Szechuan-style shredded pork.

MONKEE’S.

1025 Prospect St., La Jolla.

459-0538.

Credit cards accepted.

Same menu served all day, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; until 11 p.m. weekends.

Dinner for two with one glass of house wine each, tax and tip, $30 to $60.