Dim-Sum Palace of the Moment

Ask any Chinese food connoisseur to name the area’s best grand Chinese restaurant and the answer will always be: The new one. Unlike most Westside restaurants, which need time to settle in, big-deal Chinese restaurants are almost always at their best in their first few months. The trick is to get to the new places before the hot chefs move on.

The Chinese restaurant of the moment is Ocean Star and it has to be one of the largest in Southern California. Set in Monterey Park’s new Mar Center, a multi-level mall that seems to have been built just to provide company for Ocean Star, the Hong Kong-style seafood and dim-sum palace is nothing like the more modest original Ocean Star a couple of blocks away.

Last weekend, the restaurant’s huge foyer was packed with families waiting for dim sum. Most stood, listening intently to the call of numbers that determine who sits where; a few grabbed seats on nicely upholstered sofas set around glass-topped coffee tables. The place is so big that a walkie-talkie-system is used to inform the hostess when a table opens up.

Once inside, the eating was fantastic: suckling pig with skin so crisp it shatters in your mouth; a Chinese version of pate en croute , fantastic shu mai (open-topped pork dumplings with black mushrooms), a terrific noodle soup with chicken and pickled vegetables. Things are less chaotic at dinner when the restaurant serves from the menu: tank-fresh shrimp, scallops and crab; whole fish cooked two ways (steamed and in a sort of chowder); and other Hong Kong specialties.

Ocean Star, 145 N. Atlantic Blvd., Monterey Park, (818) 308-2128. Dim sum for two, $15 to $30; dinner for two, food only, $25 to $80.