RESTAURANTS : In Return Visit, the Original Promise Is Fulfilled at Dynasty in Little Saigon

I first visited Dynasty, a vast Hong Kong-style seafood restaurant in a Little Saigon shopping mall, about a year ago. It really is just like Hong Kong in there--glitzy chandeliers, tuxedoed waiters, dim sum carts laden with exotic treats, and giant banquet rooms (one can seat 400). I dined there with great expectations, but left disappointed.

Last week during Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, I went back. Everything looks just the same--and now the greatness I had hoped for last year finally has begun to materialize. The Year of the Horse is going to be a good one.

The dining room is now in the hands of Tony Lai, a Hong Kong restaurateur with a most impressive resume. Lai helped Wonder Seafood Restaurant in Alhambra live up to its name; for a time it was just about the best Chinese restaurant in greater Los Angeles. He was also, briefly, manager and maitre d’ at Joss, a swank Chinese restaurant next to Beverly Hills. Lai knows quality, and he relishes discussing the food with you.

To get to Dynasty, walk past a series of head-turning Vietnamese food stalls and snack shops until you reach a stairway at the back of the mall. (You’ll want to sample those wares another day.) The restaurant occupies virtually all of the second floor.

Make your first visit at lunchtime. It’s then that you can sample the restaurant’s revitalized dim sum. Dim sum are the little pastries and snacks eaten with Chinese tea, and they must be consumed almost immediately after preparation.

That is why you should never eat dim sum in an empty restaurant. Dynasty is packed at lunch, and the dim sum are the area’s best.

Har gow , the toothsome, bite-size shrimp dumpling, is terrific, and so is dai jee gow , with a fresh scallop inside the noodle wrapper. Siin chook gyn is a vegetarian specialty that I haven’t seen on dim sum carts in Los Angeles. It looks like a kind of braised egg roll, but the skin is made from dried bean flour and crackles when you bite into it. Inside, there is a delightful mixture of black moss, bean sprout, carrot, fresh pea and laver (a crunchy seaweed). I am crazy about it.

Lunchtime is also a good time to try the restaurant’s various rice plates, or hearty midday soups like seafood noodle or the superb won ton min. I sampled a dish I had never seen before--fried rice with shredded duck, mustard greens and fresh green peas for added texture. It tasted like I have always dreamed fried rice would: fragrant and flavorful.

Dinners are generally quiet because the dining room is so large. I would still advise calling for reservations, though--sometimes there is a wedding party or a large group in residence, especially on weekends. Large groups can transform the restaurant into an absolute madhouse, and you may not get the attention you require. It’s best to go on a weeknight.

The dinner menu is nearly as vast as the dining room itself but, fortunately, is translated with intelligence. Should you still need explanations for the more poetically named items, many waiters (and maitre d’ Lai) speak excellent English. There is much you will want know about.

The most interesting dishes are the specials on the inside of the menu’s front cover. The names of the provinces of their origin are given in parentheses alongside.

Some of the specials are seasonal dishes. Fried grunion with spicy pepper salt (a regional dish from Taiwan) won’t be served until May. Pan-fried spicy lamb chop (a Sichuan dish) won’t show up until early spring because Lai refuses to serve frozen lamb. I couldn’t get the braised Virginia ham with honey-glazed lotus seeds (from Zhejiang) because, I was informed, the seeds were too soft that day. Maybe the list is a marketing technique to get you to come back during the year. If so, it works for me. I can’t wait to taste some of these dishes.

Sauteed beef, or black pepper beef brisket (from Canton) is extraordinary. Fiery hot chunks of soft, almost greaseless brisket are braised in their own juices with a coating of black and red pepper. The outside of the beef is nearly dry, but inside it is meaty and juicy. I would order it here again and again.

Another dish I wouldn’t miss is Westlake chop suey, but I would ask for it without the sausage. It’s basically a vegetable dish--lotus root, snow pea, sauteed white fungus--and the contrasting textures are dramatic enough without the meat. Don’t be misled by the words chop suey . This is a serious dish.

The list goes on and on: live prawns, simply steamed and served with garlic and oil; a first-rate kung pao chicken, with sticky, spicy diced chicken and crispy Virginia peanuts mingled with fagara pepper burned almost black; deep-fried sand dabs coated with spicy salt; soy sauce squab.

A few dishes do miss. Smoked duck is a bit soggy, and the smoke flavors don’t penetrate. Cuttlefish with black bean is tender, but the fish runs a poor second to squid in both flavor and texture. But when a menu offers more than 150 dishes, a few misses are more than tolerable.

Dynasty is a wonderful restaurant, all right, but not because of its size, its resources, or its glitz. It’s all in what comes out on the plate.

Dynasty is moderately priced. Dim sum are $1.40 to $4.75. Lunch specials are $3.50 to $4.95. Appetizers are $3.50 to $18. The broad range of dishes are anywhere from $5.95 to $36, depending on seasonal prices. Banquets, at 10 per table, are $196 to $298 for standard menus, more for special requests.

* DYNASTY

* 9200 Bolsa Ave. 215, Westminster

* (714) 898-3189 and (714) 892-8109

* Open 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

* All major credit cards accepted.