A Yin and Yang of Chinese Restaurants : Two new eating experiences are decidedly different from the usual Chinese restaurant meal in America

Tse Yang, 151 S. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills, (213) 278-8886. Open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. All major credit cards accepted. Full bar. Valet parking. Dinner for 2, food only, $50-$100. Harbor Village, 111 N. Atlantic Blvd., Monterey Park, (818) 300-8833. Open daily 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5:30-9:30 p.m. (from 10 a.m. on weekends). Full bar. Parking in lot. Visa, MasterCard, American Express accepted. Dinner for 2, food only, $20-$60. Two memories. The first, of France, is almost 20 years old. After six months of living on less than $5 a day I am suddenly overwhelmed by a desire for Chinese food. After much discussion about whether we can afford it (we can’t), we walk timidly into a darkly exotic restaurant in Marseille. Here we sit on carved chairs and watch the people at the next table eat what seem like indescribable delicacies with ivory chopsticks. We try to be happy with fried rice and hot-and-sour soup, the two cheapest things on the menu. “I had no idea Chinese food could be so expensive,” I whisper, watching enviously as the man at the next table picks up a leaf from a pile of lettuce, wraps a delicious-looking mixture up in it, dips it into a sauce and devours it with obvious relish. To this day I can see that man’s rapturous face; I still regret that we didn’t throw the budget out the window and splurge on that dish.

Fast-forward 10 years. Now I’m in Canton, in one of the oldest restaurants in an ancient town. Each table is in its own private pavilion, looking out across a man-made lake. To reach your dinner you walk across a curved bridge and into a room where the table is heaped with incredibly complicated and delicious food. On the table sit savory pastries cunningly shaped into little animals. And this is only the beginning. Never before (or since) have I been served such intricate food. And yet the table is covered with a sheet of plastic, the chopsticks are made of wood and an ordinary fan sits puffing in a corner. And despite the beauty of the lake outside, we eat that extraordinary food in an anti-romantic blaze of fluorescent brightness.

What I am trying to say is that fancy Chinese restaurants in China are quite different from fancy Chinese restaurants in Europe. And that neither resembles the sort of Chinese restaurant to which we in America have become accustomed.

But now we have a chance to learn. For two large Chinese restaurants, one founded in Paris and the other in Hong Kong, have opened recently. And each offers an eating experience that is decidedly different from your usual Chinese restaurant meal in America.

You might realize that Tse Yang is different when you walk in and find yourself in a dark room of carved mahogany inlaid with 24-karat gold, mirrored ceilings and etched glass. Or you might notice the difference when you are seated at a table covered with pink linen and adorned with red roses. If you overlook these signs, you’ll discover the truth the minute you are given the menu and the wine list. For the former is written in both English and French (but definitely not Mandarin or Cantonese), and the latter offers such goodies as Chateau Lafite 1970 for $425 (the wholesale price on this wine is $166).

This is a seriously expensive restaurant, the sort of place that charges $6.25 for an appetizer of Peking dumplings so small that a person with a normal appetite could easily eat two orders. These are obsequiously served by waiters who hover next to rolling carts, portion the food out (no communal plates on the table here) and then dash back to bring you hot, scented pink towels (on one visit these appeared five separate times).

The dumplings are wonderful--6 teensy half-moons of light dough stuffed with an even lighter mixture of pork and ginger. They are served with 3 sauces: chile sauce, black vinegar (sometimes called “Chinese balsamic”) and a clear vinegar spiked with citrus.

Spring and autumn rolls are nice too: crisp brown spring rolls are paired with white, rice-paper-wrapped rolls that you garnish with sprigs of mint and wrap up in leaves of lettuce. As I was rolling mine up in lettuce I had a quick vision of that restaurant in Marseille.

The other really wonderful dish is an elegant Peking duck, whose incredibly crisp, glistening skin is wrapped up in pancakes by those ever-vigilant waiters. When you’ve devoured that, they will reappear with a second course; the duck meat has been stir-fried with bean sprouts and mushrooms to make a refreshingly delicious dish.

But much of the rest of the food here falls into two categories: brown sauce and white sauce. Most of the white dishes have a vaguely Continental quality. A dish called shrimp in green lemon sauce, for instance, would almost pass muster in a French restaurant. It’s merely lightly cooked shrimp in a citrus-scented sauce. “Seafood ambrosia” might also be served in a French restaurant--albeit a not very good one. Slices of fish and scallops are lightly stir-fried with a few snow peas and some straw mushrooms. It’s a very white and, despite the hint of wine, very dull dish.

The brown-sauce dishes tend to have a certain sameness. And despite the fact that the preparation of the ingredients has been carefully done (order Sichuan beef and you’ll find all the ingredients have been carefully cut to the same size), their sauces have a starchy and disappointing quality. Once you get past the sheer elegance of the ambiance you find that much of the food is merely mediocre.

Still, if someone else if paying the bill, you might want to come here. There’s nothing quite like it in Los Angeles. The service is the main thing: Even when you order the caramel apples, the waiter will do all the work, dipping the sugar-coated cubes of apple into ice water until they harden. I’ve always thought that was the fun part, but this is a restaurant where you literally don’t have to lift a finger.

Things are quite different at Monterey Park’s Harbor Village. This is a vast barn of a restaurant, so brightly lit that despite the lack of windows you could easily take pictures without using a flash. If Tse Yang is hushed, this is the opposite. Chaos reigns in this enormous room where reservations are taken lightly (if at all) and children scamper from table to table.

But this is clearly a fancy restaurant. Crystal chandeliers dangle from the ceiling, the bar is kept busy and the waiters wear tuxedoes. And you can see, all around you, fancy banquet rooms where people in fancy clothing eat even fancier-looking food.

In further contrast to Tse Yang, where forks are more common than chopsticks, you may find that the entire room is filled with Chinese diners. And that unlike the deferential crew at Tse Yang, the waiters here will condescendingly insist on telling you that you won’t like whatever it is that you’ve ordered. (In many cases they’ll be right. I was the only one at a table filled with adventurous eaters who would so much as taste minced steamed pork with salted fish. I have to admit that while I didn’t hate it, I wouldn’t order the dish again.)

But the differences are not merely those of style: while Tse Yang emphasizes the foods of the north (Beijing, Shanghai), the best food at Harbor Village is from the south (Canton). That means that you would be wise to avoid dishes such as lemon chicken, hot and sour soup and most fried foods and concentrate on what the kitchen does best.

These include the barbecue appetizer plate, which comes on a bed of crunchy jellyfish. (This clear substance has almost no flavor and is prized solely for its texture.) Both the roast pork and the barbecue pork are wonderful. Whole steamed fish are excellent here (my favorite has been the catfish, simply and perfectly cooked). A simple dish of tofu can be perfection, especially when served topped with great black mushrooms and Virginia ham and surrounded by Chinese broccoli.

But the food at Harbor Village can also be deeply disappointing. You often feel that food has been kept waiting in the kitchen, or that the kitchen has been lazy. Why must the oysters come out of a jar? Then too, dishes that are wonderful on one occasion (the peacock platter, a toss of jellyfish, cucumber, duck, candied nuts, mangoes) can be so tired on another that it actually includes canned peaches.

But the real reason to come to Harbor Village is for dim sum. And lots of people seem to agree: Arrive after about 11 a.m. and you’ll find yourself waiting for a table with what seems like hordes. Expect to wait a while.

Once you’re seated, be aggressive. If you see something you want at a cart stopped two tables away, don’t hesitate: flag it down. Remember that in a real Chinese restaurant nobody will think the worse of you if you reach across your neighbor’s table to get at a cart. They know that if you don’t you may never see the coveted dish again.

What should you eat? Try it all, but be sure not to miss the excellent har gow and siu mai. I loved the thick bowls of jook and the little glutinous rice cakes filled with peanut butter. I thought the tripe was wonderful. I loved the taro balls. But more than any single dish I loved the warm pulsating energy of the room, the clatter of the carts as they rustled importantly around, the noise of the children and the rise and fall of the mysterious language around me.

I can’t help wishing the food at Harbor Village were better. I get angry at the rudeness of the waiters. But still I find myself waiting in line for dim sum, for more than any other local restaurant, this exuberantly noisy place is the one that reminds me of Hong Kong.