San Diego Spotlight : A Clever Blending of Diverse Tastes From the Pacific Rim

Chop Suey may have been the first example of Pacific Rim cuisine, although so fancy a term never would have occurred to either the cooks or customers who first experimented with this unique Chinese-American hybrid.

Although chop suey unquestionably was mothered by necessity (and usually tastes like it), Pacific Rim cooking is the child of invention. Rather like Esperanto, the artificial, international language based primarily on borrowings from Western European tongues, the Pacific Rim style results from deliberate artifice, by reducing cuisines on both sides of the ocean to component parts and recombining these parts in novel ways. Depending on the skill of the recipe writer, this food can taste pretty good--or like chop suey.

Cafe Japengo, one of the quartet of eateries in the Aventine restaurant row in the Golden Triangle (and operated as an out-station by the nearby Hyatt Regency hotel), has improved its Pacific Rim technique enormously since opening two years ago. There are several remarkable dishes here, but remarkable or not, virtually every preparation stands as a deliberate creation, a melding variously of Asian, Californian, Mexican and European flavors, ingredients and techniques. This is an impressive menu, rather expensive at times--especially the appetizers--but rewarding when you’re in the mood for something unusual.

Strip the appetizer of “seared rare ahi won ton Napoleon with avocado and wasabi aioli” of its glamorous if impenetrable name and you get, ultimately, a deluxe fish taco--and it should be deluxe at $9.50. This is one of Japengo’s remarkable creations, a Japanese-Mexican arrangement of crisp won ton skins overlapped by buttery bites of nearly raw blue tuna and creamy crescents of avocado. Spiced with peppery daikon sprouts and arranged like dominoes, the repeating elements rest finally on a bundle of slivered cucumber, dabbed with wasabi aioli, which is to say French garlic mayonnaise flavored with hot Japanese mustard. Further squiggles of aioli, dusted alternately with blond and black sesame seeds, decorate the bare spaces on the plate--the attention to detail becomes fascinating, and the flavors are a match made in Pacific Rim heaven.

An attempt can be made to turn the meal into an Asian-Mexican combination plate (although you’ll turn up an enchilada shy) by following the ahi won tons with the “slow roasted duck with crisp vegetables, plum-black bean sauce and flour tortillas.” In essence, this plate contains the makings for Peking duck burritos, and is a good, solid entree, although the vegetables, when sampled, were damp and limp rather than crisp.

There is an element of mad science to the sesame crust pizza, based on a thin, cracker-like dough that, as it happens, includes Chinese black bean sauce among its ingredients. Where do ideas like these arise? This is not a criticism, but a wonderment, because the crust is good, as is the lavish and inventive topping of smoked chicken, goat cheese, basil and a sauce of sun-dried tomatoes. This sort of cooking really would seem wildly improvisational were it not so obviously planned, mapped out and engineered.

All dishes are described in a laundry list fashion that mentions virtually every ingredient, although these frequently arrive in unpredictable arrangements. Among less exotic starters, the duck pot stickers with “coriander” pesto amounts to a trio of well-stuffed, lightly browned dumplings with a spicy cilantro relish, and the simple green salad takes on the look of a patch of forest, with infant frisee lettuce curling fern-like around clumps of enoki mushrooms; the zesty ginger dressing is perfect. The hot and sour tomatillo soup sounds, once again, like blend of Chinese and Mexican influences.

The entree list divides itself into three categories, wok-cooked dishes, grills and items roasted in a wood-burning oven. From the wok, the toss of chicken, broccoli and other vegetables with soft rice noodles and a black sesame-chili-flavored butter (the Pacific Rim touch because butter does not appear in Asian cooking) is satisfying, if rather tame, while the Thai-influenced stir-fry of pork, sliced Japanese eggplant and cabbage is explosive and wonderful, thanks both to the hot, gravy-like sauce and the bed of crisp, shoe-stringed sweet potatoes that replace the noodles that might be expected in this dish. The eggplant and cabbage bring mild respites to what is a fairly spicy concoction.

Equally clever, the wood-roasted rack of lamb, divided into chops and thoroughly flavored with fresh rosemary, rests on a bed of potato “risotto,” or minced spuds, braised in rosemary-scented lamb stock and blended with a bit of Parmesan. With a just-tender texture, the potatoes mimic both the rice of Italian risotto and the rice of Asian meals; the combination with the lamb is brilliant. Shiitake mushrooms add enough Asian influence to qualify this dish for the Pacific Rim label.

Other entree choices range from a “Pacific paella with Asian flavors,” a potato-crusted halibut in spicy Japanese vinaigrette, rice paper-wrapped salmon on a bed of arugula and grilled Maui onions, marinated mahi mahi with yellow tomato coulis and avocado salsa and an over-sized T-bone steak with wok-cooked sweet peppers and garlic mashed potatoes. It all sounds clever.

The dessert list includes both a bombe and a firecracker (a chocolate bombe with kumquat sauce, and a firecracker-shaped pastry filled with apples and dried cherries), but beyond this ordinance is the simple, rich pleasure of a very well made chocolate almond tart, served with sweetly spiced cardamom ice cream.

The style of the restaurant echoes the menu to a fair degree, and is Asian, especially Japanese, with modern Western overtones. The setting includes a sushi bar that hums along most nights (sushi can be ordered from the tables as well) and a cocktail bar that also gets rather busy; an unfortunate side effect is that the volume of the rock music increases with the crowd, an annoyance for diners.

CAFE JAPENGO

3787 La Jolla Village Drive, in the Aventine Center

450-3355

Dinner nightly

Entrees cost $13.75 to $27; dinner for two, including a moderate bottle of wine, tax and tip, about $80 to $100

Credit cards accepted