Yes’ Spread Leans to Light, Shuns National Identity

“How come fettuccine’s on the menu?” I asked the hostess as I picked up my order of Cantonese takeout. “Where do you think Marco Polo discovered pasta?” she replied.

Before I could do a G. Burns on the G. Allen logic, she whisked me on an eye-dazzling tour of Yes Bar and Restaurant. Color-coordinated by none other than Peter Max (and designed by Santa Monica architect Johannes van Tilburg), Yes is a small village of spaces: a greenhouse, a gazebo, a banquet room and a big round bar done up in lipstick red, bubble-gum pink, sailcloth blue and lawn green. If you have your food delivered by their “express courier,” you’ll never know how adventurous this Hong Kong-based corporation’s first Southern California venue is.

Happy Hour is big business at Yes, and the combination appetizer platter (golden shrimp balls, cheese dumplings, scallion rolls, fried won tons and spring rolls) is fun to scarf down, seconds out of the kitchen, as you nurse your second mai tai. It’s not the same experience when they are delivered. Those fried stuffed things turn greasy and leaden en route, all except for the large, simple, ground chicken won tons and the house specialty, those golden shrimp balls.

I’m usually wary of adjectives but Yes’s “golden” shrimp balls ($5.50 for a platter) are really just that. A smooth light paste within, the thinnest skin of battered crunch without, they’re terrific. Fried calamari is fine too. Just skip the “garlic dip” accompaniment, which tastes like an execrable party soup mix.

Yes’s ace in the hole is lightness. They don’t over-sauce, they’re easy on the salt, they control the sugar on typically sweet dishes. But this light hand can go too far. None of the “spicy” or “fiery Sichuan” dishes come within 100 yards of making the eyes water or the mouth blaze.

While not spicy by a long stretch, the quickly deep-fried “spicy” string beans with slivers of onion and garlic are particularly swell. “Spicy” Kung Pao prawns ($12.95) is actually a generous portion of plump, scallion-dotted shrimp bathed in a lady-like, chile-garlic sauce. Boneless, skinless apricot-ginger glazed chicken, while more apricot than ginger, is about a third as sweet as Cantonese duck.

Both the magic wok flank steak salad ($8.50) and the Mandarin chicken salad (two sizes, $4.95 and $7.95) with their fresh greens, rich roasted flavors and light dressings would make a good lunch. (Make sure that the “specially baked sourdough loaf”--or wheat bread--is included with your order. Ours was not.)

The very lightly stir-fried Yes vegetable deluxe ($7.75), an assortment of perky cruciferous things, is totally simple and satisfying with but a scant spoonful of the announced “garlic, Dijon mustard and wine sauce.”

Under the “pasta” heading (there are four Italianate dishes to one chow mein), both the chicken pesto pasta (tender, very creamy, very mild) and the pollo basilico fettuccine (light with fresh tomatoes, bright with basil threads) are tasty and, at $8.50 for large portions, well priced. The pedestrian salmon steak at $16.75 (and, on arrival, overcooked) is not. I’d also avoid the unctuously sweet, commercially made, overpriced desserts.

When manager George Luk told me the menu would change regularly, I asked whether one of these days they’ll serve rice. “We have no intention of becoming a Chinese restaurant,” he said. “We’re California cuisine.” Ah, Toto, maybe we’re not in Kowloon anymore, but we’re not yet in Chinois.

Yes Bar and Restaurant, 11620 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, (213) 478-7383. Call-in hours: 11:30 a.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-2 a.m. Friday, 11:30 a.m.-3 a.m. Saturday, 5 p.m.-midnight Sunday. Delivery hours: noon-9 p.m. Monday-Friday, noon-7 p.m. Saturday, 5 - 9 p.m. Sunday. Deliveries available within a five - mile radius; $10 minimum order. Validated parking (entrance on Federal Avenue). All major credit cards.