Restaurant Review : Upstairs at Jasmine Tree, Solid, Carefully Done Chinese Cooking Sizzles

Where do Chinese restaurants get their names? The I Ching? A lottery? Is there some sort of Chinese restaurant-naming authority that you appeal to, and then a couple of weeks later a card comes in the mail printed with the mysterious words Jade Garden ?

The restaurant in question today is named Jasmine Tree, after a well-known flowering plant that comes as a bush or vine, but not as a tree. Possibly the tree refers to the fact that the restaurant is well above bush level. It belongs to that tiniest category of Los Angeles restaurants, those above the ground floor.

Formerly the home of Captain Pepper’s Shrimp Boat, it is on the second story of a mini-mall, upstairs from a health club. This probably accounts for a banner recommending that you eat Chinese food for your health, and possibly explains an occasional rumbling and shaking from downstairs. In any case, Jasmine Tree is a cut above the ordinary Chinese restaurant in having a view--at least a view of Santa Monica Boulevard.

The room itself is rather pleasant, slightly bowed in the direction of the street, and of a peaceful color scheme with a low red and yellow quotient. It’s quiet rather then rushed, and the jacketed waiters are unusually attentive and helpful. These are waiters who actually make suggestions.

The menu is upscale Mandarin, meaning, for starters, that in addition to hot appetizers there are cold cuts, including vegetarian imitation ham and sliced (real) beef shank made aromatic with star anise. Likewise, the list of soups is not limited to hot and sour and egg-drop. For instance, there’s an unusual duck and mushroom soup, with strong duck broth containing substantial quantities of duck meat, a good deal of bamboo and both black and paddy mushrooms.

Among the hot appetizers, the best appears to be minced chicken. The chicken meat is mixed with mushrooms, little chunks of ham and pine nuts (these are evidently what the menu calls “olive seeds”) and served in a lettuce leaf cup. There are also spring rolls, fried dumplings (not fried very brown, but the mustard they come with seems a little hotter than usual), and a good chicken salad with a sharp dressing including pickled red ginger and toasted almonds.

The owner comes from Shanghai, and the Taiwanese chef first worked in Los Angeles at the Shanghai Palace. The menu does have a few Shanghai tendencies, such as the use of a rich, slightly sweet brown sauce. You find it, for instance, on the abalone with tender greens (the greens are lettuce). It’s always welcome to see abalone on a Chinese menu, especially when it’s reasonably priced, and this is a very good version, tender and full of flavor.

On the hot, braised whole fish, the brown sauce is enriched with ground pork and green onions. Enriched is the word; this is a very filling dish. Traditionally you’re supposed to finish a Chinese meal with a fish, and this one definitely has end of the meal written on it.

Jasmine Tree excels at the sort of dish where little chunks of meat have a pungent sauce fried onto them. The citrus chicken is a little bit peppery, and there is a trace of blackened orange peel lost among the chicken nuggets, but the informing flavor is of the coating of sweet-sour sauce; sweet and pungent chicken is much the same, but sweeter. They’re very clean and well-balanced.

Moo shu here includes the tiger lily buds (called golden needles) but not the scrambled eggs nor, so far as I can tell, the mushrooms. Lily buds aside, the spring pancakes, available as an appetizer, are very similar to the moo shu except that you can choose other fillings besides pork.

This is solid, carefully done Chinese cooking, with no reek of scorched frying oil. It has a few limitations, one being a certain squeamishness about hot peppers. The kung pao dishes are very meaty, big chunks of chicken or beef with lots of peanuts, but not really very hot. The only really flawed dish seems to be the scallops in lemon sauce; it’s really in a sweet orange sauce, mawkish and out of place with these delicately fried scallops.

There are no desserts at Jasmine Tree, just fortune cookies with happy faces on them. This is authentically Chinese, and fitting for a place upstairs from a health club. And what did you expect in a tree?

Suggested dishes: mushroom and duck soup, $4.75; minced chicken on lettuce, $8.95; citrus chicken, $8.50; sliced abalone with tender greens, $17.50.

Jasmine Tree, 11057 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. (213) 444-7171. Open for lunch and dinner daily, weekdays from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Fridays, 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Saturdays, noon to 10:30 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 10 p.m. Beer and wine. Parking lot; also valet parking at dinner. American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $23 to $55.