New Mandarin House Updates Decor, but Menu Keeps Old Standards : MANDARIN HOUSE 1820 Garnet Ave. 273-2288 Lunch and dinner daily. Credit cards accepted.Most entrees cost $6.25 to $9.95.

The Mandarin House in Pacific Beach features a much lighter and notably more modern decor than that found at the great run of Chinese eateries.

That describes in a nutshell what is new about this Mandarin House branch, because the place otherwise seems very much a sort of utilitarian Chinese restaurant for the 1990s, one that offers all the old standards and a few--but not too many--more recently popularized preparations.

The mere presence of a Mandarin House in this neighborhood is a testament, of sorts, to the nearly universal acceptance in San Diego of standardized Chinese cooking. This is the Americanized form that the small but long-established Mandarin House chain takes to its zenith, both here and at its considerably older branches in midtown San Diego and La Jolla.

You wouldn’t come here for novelty or innovation, to be sure. Most dishes, in fact, suggest that the kitchen cooks by the numbers, measuring out garlic and hoisin sauce and all the other major flavoring elements by rote-memorized dribs and drabs. In this sense, the restaurant seems a place that one goes to for utilitarian feeding rather than a night on the town or a night of culinary experimentation and exploration.

However, that is not to say that any restaurant needs to be innovative as long as it supplies the basic goods, which Mandarin House does to a reasonable degree.

The flaming “ po - po “ platter offered as the ne plus ultra among appetizers rather neatly encapsulates the spirit of the Mandarin House menu, which updates the lists of the old Cantonese cafes by offering hot and sour soup and various Szechuan dishes, all of them tried and not found wanting in the arena of public opinion. The “ po - po “ platter, unsampled but observed in its pyrotechnic enthusiasm around the room, offers tastes of spareribs, sesame shrimp, won ton, tempura shrimp and chow chow beef, of which all, except the last, also are offered on their own.

The spare ribs lived up to their name with a vengeance on a recent occasion; there was virtually no meat at all to be found on the slender bones encased in crisp, flavorfully basted fat. These were a dismal starter compared to the sesame shrimp, which, as things develop, actually are shrimp toast, or fried bread triangles covered with shrimp paste and sesame seeds. The flavors, all brought to full bloom by the frying process, combine nicely in this snack.

One could also applaud the savory fried dumplings were it not for the pre-mixed dipping sauce of soy, vinegar and slivered ginger, which gives the impression of having been made at some unidentifiable moment in the past. The approved method for the full enjoyment of dumplings is to splash some freshly made gingered vinegar on each diner’s plate and mix in droplets of soy and chili oil according to individual preference.

As have many Chinese restaurants, Mandarin House has added a “chef’s specials” page to the menu, but in this case the list seems to reflect more the popularity of certain dishes than any exceptional method of preparation. The orange beef--hardly an uncommon dish--is indeed very well made, and the bitter pungency of the orange rind nicely balances the quivers of heat from the few dried chilies; the crisp texture of the meat adds yet another area of interest. The ginger shrimp, however, are a sorry excuse for a “chef’s special,” since these shrimpy crustaceans are encased in thick, heavy sarcophagi of soggy batter. Here, the ginger flavor is most evident, but is utterly wasted.

The yu-hsiang eggplant is yet another disappointment from the specials list. The dish can be brilliant in its juxtaposition of hot, sweet, savory sauce with meaty-textured eggplant. But the Mandarin House kitchen sent out a sort of sticky stew in which the sauce had an overbearing, syrupy sweetness that hid any other characteristics. The eggplant version alone is mentioned as a specialty, but the menu also offers pork and shrimp yu-hsiang , as well as an unlikely sounding preparation of beef in this sauce; beef simply does not seem suited to this sort of treatment.

The regular menu proceeds apace with the usual kung paos , moo shus and even moo goo gai pan , a fine holdover from the Cantonese days (which doubtless will return, as everything does in good time) that gives breast meat a delicate and engaging treatment. The same comment does not apply to the sliced chicken in hot sauce, which was neither delicate nor sliced; the chunks seemed to have been hacked with little regard for appearances. The chow san shein , a kind of catch-all dish that combines shrimp, beef, chicken and assorted vegetables in brown sauce, was an altogether more convincing offering, since each element featured both tenderness and taste.

The kitchen seems at its best with the sizzling platters, a none-too-challenging but still pleasant method of cooking that combines, at table, a stir fry of vegetables and the selected meat with a pungent black bean sauce. When the assorted elements hit the red-hot metal dish, a good deal of steam rises, carrying fine aromas with it. Both beef and chicken ordered in this fashion were cooked to a good, tender finish, and the sauce, reasonably deep in flavor, did a good job of marrying the meat with the assorted tender-crisp vegetables.

There are few other notable offerings. Among them would be the whole fish of the day, cooked in whatever fashion the guest requests (or so the menu says), the pan-fried noodles and the ever-available Peking duck. Despite the popularity of this dish, some restaurants continue to require 24 hours advance order, and it is encouraging to find it available at a moment’s notice.