The New Mandarin

For a long time the Mandarin, 430 N. Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, (213) 272-0267, was the perfect restaurant for all sorts of occasions. It was big enough so that you could almost always get in at the last minute; it was quiet enough to have a conversation in; it was elegant enough for special dinners, and not so expensive that you had to take out a second mortgage to pay for them. The soothingly lovely room was good for banquets big and small, for business lunches, for romantic tete-a-tetes. For Chinese food fans, the Mandarin was one of those restaurants you could count on, and it was something of a shock when a fire closed it down last summer.

Last week the Mandarin reopened. Now it’s a younger, livelier sort of place, with a much-expanded menu. Some of the rooms remain bastions of elegance, but there is now an open exhibition kitchen where you can watch as Peking ducks are roasted and the dozens of “small tastes” that have been added to the menu are prepared. Among the latter are chive-stuffed pancakes, steamed dumplings, sesame-fried shrimp, walnuts with fried spinach, spare ribs . . . If you manage not to overdo it on these tantalizing tidbits, you can follow up with some of the more substantial dishes that the Mandarin made famous, and finish up with desserts from Il Fornaio.