Is the New Yum Cha Yum Yum?

If you were going to open a Chinese restaurant aimed at appealing to all the pretty young people who spend their time spending money and taking trips to the tennis court, what would you do? You’d probably make it look a lot like Yum Cha (3435 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica), a handsome, open, modern space with clean lines. You’d fill it with fine graphics, go out and buy some red chopsticks, red straws, red tea pots. . . . even design some striking sauces to set on the table in little red holders.

You’d fill the menu with little dishes, like toasted sesame shrimp and crispy won tons, emphasize that the food was light (whatever that means in the context of potstickers, spring rolls and spicy noodles) and ban MSG from the premises. And of course you’d hire attractive people to serve the food. You’d make the prices reasonable. You might even offer free delivery.

I do hope, however, that once you’d done all this you’d pay a little attention to the food. While the people at Yum Cha have done all this (with an obvious eye to spreading the concept across the country), they seem to have forgotten the food. It all sounds quite wonderful when you read the menu, but almost everything I tasted was vaguely disappointing, as if the chef had not yet learned the right way to cook the dishes. But the place is very new, inexpensive (prices average about $3) and already popular. The chef is bound to figure things out soon.