RESTAURANTS / Max Jacobson : Under a Balmy Palm, Chinese Food Abounds

Who would put a palm tree in the middle of a Chinese restaurant and then be nervy enough to call the place China Palms? Joe Ling, that’s who, and I would say he knew exactly what he was doing. It’s a bright, sunny new restaurant, with silly tropical drinks and a stylish decor. And what is coming out of the kitchen is a definite step in the right direction for Orange County Chinese restaurants.

The restaurant occupies a big chunk of the spotless new Metro Center in Fullerton, and its design make a striking impression.

The airy, ultra-modern dining room has a sloping cathedral ceiling and a latticed, 40-foot window of paned glass looking out onto the mall. Thin ribbons of neon running along the perimeter of the inner walls add a touch of surrealism, but the other motifs are simple. Tables are decked in white linen offset by elegant Ming blue Chinese stoneware. The blond and cream wooden chairs surrounding them look as if they belong in the drawing room of a French nobleman.

Even the style of service belongs in a drawing room. A handsome team of Chinese men and women strut their stuff in tuxedoes, making a great show of stuffing lettuce leaves, rolling up crepes and spooning up seafoods. Ling’s kitchen is what I like to call crossover Chinese cuisine--authentic preparations that have been proven to please Western palates. This is not a menu where you will find squid or sea cucumber, but the Chinese friends I brought along liked what they tasted. So will you.

If it hadn’t been for my friends, I might have missed out on some of the restaurant’s best dishes. All the dishes on the menu at China Palms are listed in two languages, but apparently a few additional dishes are verbally offered only to Chinese visitors. Three cold appetizers are listed on the menu (cold chicken in rice wine, marinated jellyfish and pickled radish), but the two not listed were far tastier: crumbly, five-spice beef, and a sweet-salty sliced fish in aspic. Owner Ling insists that the reason they are not on the menu is because it was printed before the chef made his final decisions about what to include.

Perhaps, but the waitress looked embarrassed when I requested the fish, saying that the dish was only for Chinese people. Once she noticed our enthusiasm for the dish, however, she made many good suggestions.

First she suggested we follow the cold dishes with Westlake beef soup, a classic Sichuan dish. Traditionally, the soup has shredded beef in a light broth frothed with egg white and laced with cilantro, but here it is done a little differently. In addition to egg white and minced beef, the kitchen adds a large amount of diced bean curd to the broth, making the soup considerably more filling. I liked the taste, but full is one thing you don’t want to be in this restaurant. There are too many temptations.

Just getting past the appetizers is a task. The servers will discourage you from ordering steamed dumpling at dinner (because the chefs do not like to make them), but they really are wonderful in their pinched little skins. Minced seafood in lettuce leaf is an absolute must, a terrific little snack made from shrimp, scallop, rice noodle and pine nut, eaten taco style with plum sauce as salsa. And don’t pass up the paper-wrapped chicken--braised chunks of chicken in a savory sauce--even if the paper in this case is aluminum foil. China Palms makes the most flavorful version of the dish I have tasted in this country.

Once past the appetizers, you can choose from dishes representing the whole of China. One choice is Cantonese honey walnut shrimp, perhaps the best suggestion our waitress made. The sauteed shrimp had been glazed with a light, sweet coating made from condensed milk and egg yolk, surrounded by a great wall of sweet, crispy walnuts. The walnuts are first boiled, then fried with honey and sugar. It’s a fabulous dish that most restaurants offer only on elaborate banquet menus, and we loved it.

A Northern dish, four-season green bean, is another must. The dish is chile-fried string beans with four added condiments--pickled radish, ground pork, spring onion and dried shrimp--and the beans snap like potato chips when you bite into them. It’s a sneaky hot dish that will have you reaching for a bottle of ice-cold Tsing Tao, and it goes especially well with four-season fried rice, a vegetable rice with barbecued pork and baby shrimp.

Other good dishes? Ginger duck--boneless sliced duck with pineapple and sliced ginger--that has a pungency I can’t ever recall tasting before in a duck dish. Salt-baked spareribs--wonderful curled pieces of deep fried pork in a spicy salt with Chinese pickles. Tender scallops sauteed in rice wine with trace amounts of garlic and green onion.

When it comes to dessert, look at the palm trees and think tropical. As in honey-glazed banana. These glazed-banana fritters are plunged into a bowl of ice right at the table so that they are warm on the inside and cool on the outside.

And that’s just what I was after a meal here. The food warmed me in every way, but the air conditioning left me cold. Somebody should tell this guy that Fullerton isn’t really the tropics.

China Palms is moderately priced. Appetizers are $1.75 to $8.50. Soups for two or three are $4.95 or $5.25. Main dishes are $4.95 to $12 (for half Peking duck). Desserts are $1.50 to $4.50. There is a small, well-chosen wine list, and a full bar.

CHINA PALMS

Fullerton Metro Center, 104 W. Orangethorpe Ave., Fullerton

(714) 526-2196

Open 7 days, from 11:30 to 10 p.m.

All major cards accepted.