CHINA PAVILION: MENU AS LONG AS THE GREAT WALL

China Pavilion, 2140 S. Hacienda Blvd., Hacienda Heights, (818) 330-5388. Open daily 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. (until 11 p.m. on weekends). Full bar. Parking in lot. Visa and Mastercard accepted. Dinner for two (food only), $20-$40.

Plenty of people have been born in taxicabs, but few of them grow up to be taxi drivers. That’s why I had to ask again when Larry Tsui, owner of China Pavilion, told me that he had been born in a restaurant. “You mean you were born in the restaurant business,” I said. “No,” he insisted, “ in a restaurant. My father’s restaurant.” Now that’s a credential.

Tsui is from Seoul, South Korea, where his family still has a Chinese restaurant, but he’s no novice here either. He’s operated restaurants locally and in Ohio, although none as ambitious as China Pavilion. This place is a real stunner. The foyer has one of the most striking pieces of stained glass you can find in any restaurant, an impressionistic panel depicting Chinese flora framed hazily against a night sky. Shelves of tea across from the mural, exactly like those you would see in a Chinatown tea shop, guide you to the three dining rooms. You can buy tea on the way out.

The dining rooms are tastefully separated by red teak doors and glass panels painted with pastoral views of flowers and birds; Tsui personally imported the fixtures from Taiwan. Tables are dressed with pink napkins and white tablecloths, and the lighting is soft and plush. It’s almost shocking to think that this was once a steak house in a shopping mall, the transformation is that complete.

China Pavilion is also one of the very few restaurants in greater Los Angeles to display a noodle maker, happily plying his trade behind a glass wall (sans flowers and birds, thank you). When you see him, stretching and dusting the dough expertly, you’re going to crave fresh noodles. There are 20 dishes from which to choose.

We tried spice soup noodles on the suggestion of the waiter; this was a brown crock filled with a spicy broth, baby clams, little shrimps, octopus (a Korean touch) and many different kinds of Chinese vegetables. The dish was so good it would have been amazing even if the noodles hadn’t been fresh.

After you’ve eaten a noodle dish and you can think more rationally about the rest of the meal, you are ready to take on the 200-dish menu, put together by chef Michael Chu, formerly of the wonderful Five Feet restaurant of Laguna Beach. Many of Chu’s creations are state of the art.

Chu makes many simple dishes explode with flavor; meatballs, a.k.a. lion’s head on some menus, are delicate mounds of minced pork, drenched in a rich brown sauce with braised garlic and celery. The often disappointing beef with orange peel soars in Chu’s hands. Chu uses air-dried flank, a big improvement over the fattier brisket many Chinese favor, and his sauce just captures the essence of orange and the hotness of the fagara pepper.

Other dishes are innovations. “Crab meat round” dumplings are served in the bamboo steamer with vinegar, shredded ginger and hot oil. They are reminiscent of stall food in Asia. Lemon scallops, variations on a theme using chicken, are properly crunchy and sizzle seductively. Hot spicy garlic chicken, from the small, back-page Chinese menu, is accompanied by Taiwanese pickled vegetables, radish, cucumber and carrot; it is as good as any chicken dish I’ve ever eaten in a Chinese restaurant anywhere in the world. Don’t confuse it with its menu cousin, special Mandarin garlic chicken, listed under Pavilion Specials. The Westernized version is breaded and much less sophisticated.

The Chinese menu, with which the waiters will be glad to assist you, contains a few surprises. Surprise No 1. is a healthy Korean influence. A soup of ginseng stuffed quail, little shark fin-stuffed birds with black mushroom, ginseng root and pine nuts in a broth, come four to an order at $6 apiece. This preparation is taken from a Korean classic, sam g’ye tang , a Korean ginseng chicken soup, and the quail and shark’s fin give it a unique quality. Another dish showing the influence of Tsui’s native Korea is octopus with green onion, a huge portion in an unctuous sauce. Koreans often favor octopus (where Chinese prefer squid or cuttlefish), and the result is occasionally daunting. Octopus, unless softened by an acidic marinade, makes for a demanding chew.

Surprise No. 2 from the Chinese menu is that a lot of well-known specialties are kept under wraps. Double pleasure sole, a whole cooked fish from which the flesh has been removed, sauteed with Chinese vegetables, and then replaced atop the deep fried body of the fish, is not offered in English. Nor are simple affairs like spicy salt pork rib, a Chinese standard. Yet the English menu is filled with things like gelatinous, garlicky sea cucumber, sauteed shark’s fin and rare Chinese delicacies.

China Pavilion also serves Trader Vic-style drinks from an ornate bar--rum potions in a coconut shell and the like. They seem strangely out of place, but if this kind of cuisine doesn’t excite you, you can always lose yourself in 20 ounces of spiked sugar water. If it does, you’re better off with a beer.

As you leave, notice the charming and diminutive cashier by the door. You won’t have to look hard to notice that she is pregnant. That’s Mrs. Tsui, the owner’s wife. It should be an exciting delivery.