Restaurants : GOOD FORTUNE COMES TO CHINATOWN

For some, the word Chinatown conjures up images of a foggy morning on San Francisco’s Grant Avenue or a rickety vegetable stall on New York’s Mott Street. A relative few--Jack Nicholson fans and Dodger season ticket holders among them--think of Los Angeles. Happily, that’s changing.

The old guard in our oft-slighted Chinatown is slowly fading, giving rise to a new generation of Chinese restaurants. Maybe this phenomenon is due to a widening spectrum of tastes. Maybe it’s because of a large influx of Asian immigration. However you look at it, the list of good new places is rapidly growing.

The brightest, newest addition to that list is Fortune Seafood Restaurant, a cheerful establishment just downstairs from the better-known Miriwa, in the Chunsan Plaza complex. Perhaps you remember the site’s former occupant, Kam Wah, which served conventional Cantonese fare. Fortune is a decided improvement.

It was opened in the late spring by Keith Chan, former manager of Hop Louie, and it’s already running like a spring deer. Working in tandem with head chef Ming-Tim-Lo, Chan has wasted little time in putting his restaurant in capital letters on Chinatown’s gastronomic map. The menu is highly original. Furthermore, it manages to be original without sacrificing any of the traditions of Cantonese cooking: lightness, freshness, vivid color combinations. Perhaps that’s the reason for its early success; the restaurant has been busy from the start.

Chef Ming’s cooking looks familiar--but the tastes are anything but. Many of the dishes kept me guessing. The best example is “shredded chicken with shark’s fin soup,” a dish most Chinese food lovers have experienced on occasion. Fortune’s version is filled with gelatinous pieces of shark’s fin and lots of perfunctorily thin strips of chicken. When you lift a spoonful to your lips, your senses reel from a smoky, magically sweet sensation, the likes of which you’ve probably never experienced.

Even the menu’s uptown equivalent, “braised shark’s fin in supreme sauce,” a laborious concoction with tiny, trimmed bean sprouts and julienne Yunnan ham, is something special. At the tony price of $8 per person, it too has that seductive, smoky flavor. And if you think $8 is a lot of money, try ordering an $8 bottle of Bordeaux sometime; this will be distinctly more memorable.

Equally memorable is the “stuffed bean curd with assorted vegetables,” a large platter of sliced bitter melon, green pepper, eggplant and tofu, blanketed in a rich black bean sauce generously flecked with red chilies. The vegetables have been stuffed with fish paste, and the combination of flavors will stun you. It’s such a simple dish that you wonder why nobody else is doing it.

Many of Ming’s classic preparations have these little quirks of individuality. “Scallop with pine nut” is a saute, and underneath the principals is a surprise layer of deep-fried pickled cabbage, adding a crunchy third texture. “Spicy salt baked filet of flounder” is served on a bed of California broccoli, which adds an appetizing color that plain fried fish lacks. “Shrimp with special made crystal cream” comes incognito, hidden in wrappers of thinly sliced ham. Most every dish displays a deft touch of some sort.

There is no special Chinese menu at Fortune, and that’s because Chan and his staff have taken pains to translate everything, even the banquet menu. If you are eager for an element of the unknown, order a chef’s dinner.

Give the chef a day’s notice and he will gladly prepare a special dinner of dishes that are not on the menu. You may then get, as I did, exotica like frog with asparagus, followed by lemon shrimp and crab cream with mustard green, as well as a number of more substantial dishes. On the other hand, there’s plenty to keep you happy on the regular menu.

Service will also keep you happy. Fortune’s waiters are helpful and pleasant, not at all like waiters in some of the neighboring restaurants who herd you to your table and then drop the plates on it as they scurry by. Here they’re almost friendly enough to cause a scandal. If this keeps up, it might ruin the neighborhood.

Fortune Seafood Restaurant, 750 N. Hill St., Los Angeles. (213) 680-0640. Open daily 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Validated parking in Chunsan Plaza. Beer and wine. Visa and MasterCard accepted. Dinner for two (food only), $20-$40.