MAIN STAY : Chinois Classics, Chef Tanaka’s Latest Creations and Cookies of Good Fortune. This Is Living.

When Wolfgang Puck opened Chinois on Main, the only reservation you had a chance of getting was either very early or very late. More than 10 years later, that’s still the case, unless you plan ahead. The groundbreaking restaurant with its quirky melange of East and West is still sizzling hot because the food is still seriously good.

Chef Makoto Tanaka and his skilled kitchen staff produce dishes with such intensity and focus that it is impossible not to be impressed. One bite of the barbecued baby pork ribs with their honey-chile sauce or the first taste of the extraordinary tempura ahi tuna sashimi in a masterful, mysterious uni (sea urchin) sauce, and I know I want to eat these dishes again and again.

If (that is, when ) you have to wait for your table, it’s nice to linger outside in the balmy night. Despite the crowd at the door, the hostess won’t abandon you there. Once you’re seated, a complimentary dish arrives swiftly to acknowledge the delay, the Chinois Chinese chicken salad in our case: shredded cabbage, chicken and bits of crunchy, deep-fried wonton skins tossed in chile-spiked dressing. Nobody makes this popular salad better.

The dizzyingly eccentric decor by Puck’s wife and partner Barbara Lazaroff isn’t as shocking as it once was; it actually looks a bit dated. But I still love the splayed metal table bases with their turquoise lacquered tables set with black bamboo place mats. The orchid blossoms, kept fresh in tiny glass tubes behind a picture window, still induce a peculiar claustrophobia. The noise level, clamorous at best, is intolerable if a large table or two is making merry. Once you put something in your mouth, though, none of these annoyances seem to matter.

The menu is evenly divided between Chinois classics and the latest creations, about a dozen of each. Those marvelous baby pork ribs and the tempura ahi tuna sashimi belong to the former category, as do the astonishingly good curried oysters. They’re rolled in curry powder, cooked just enough to bring out the spice’s flavor and presented in the shell in a puddle of cool cucumber sauce. Although I’ve never had foie gras cooked better in this country than it is here, the marinated grilled fresh pineapple is too sweet to be a great foil.

Several of the classic entrees seem out of touch with the times, like the beautiful Cantonese duck in a cloyingly sweet crimson plum sauce. The dramatically presented catfish is not something I crave time after time. However perfectly cooked, these farm-raised catfish just don’t have much flavor. Our waiter one night described the Mongolian lamb chops as awesome--and that they were, with a deep lamb flavor, tender texture and a bracing green cilantro sauce.

But the newest dishes are where Tanaka’s cooking comes to the foreground. To my mind, these are the most interesting--no mean feat considering the quality of the Chinois classics, perfected by former chef Kazuto Matsusaka, who left two years ago to open Zenzero. This winter, Tanaka served gamy, rare roasted loin of venison in a lake of blood-colored sauce made with Port and sun-dried cherries spiced with ginger. A fetching duck-and-shredded-vegetable salad in a refreshingly bitter citrus dressing was recently replaced with a remarkable grilled squab and wild mushroom salad spiked with bits of pancetta. The new lobster spring rolls are not that exciting, but Tanaka turns out spectacular Louisiana shrimp in a pretty plum-shiso sauce fired with Chinese mustard.

If you want to know why this restaurant works so well, spend an evening seated at the counter overlooking the kitchen. The woks are immense, the heat intense. One cook throws live lobsters into a pan; another pulls catfish after catfish from the boiling oil. Hand-pleated ravioli with a tender, moist stuffing of chicken and vegetables brown in a skillet while the cook untangles black and gold noodles for a grilled salmon dish. All the while, Tanaka stands at the center, firing orders. Every dish has to pass by him before it goes out to a table.

By the end of the meal, it’s often hard to muster an appetite for the bevy of desserts. Fortunately, they’re not all as rich as the warm chocolate truffle cake topped off with chocolate sauce or the mandarin orange cheesecake paired with raspberry coulis. The three tiny crocks of creme brulee , flavored with ginger, hazelnut and chocolate, are a lovely diversion. The shimmery coconut flan could use more coconut, however. The individual layered hazelnut-chocolate torte garnished with gold leaf is elegant and delicious. You can order a pinwheel of orange slices with a fine grenadine caramel or simply--and this may be the best idea--a plate of homemade ice creams and “cookies of good fortune.” I always hope they will slip in a fortune that reads, “You will return soon to Chinois.”

Chinois on Main, 2709 Main St . , Santa Monica ; (310) 392 - 9025. Lunch served Wednesday through Friday; dinner nightly. Full bar. Valet parking. Major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $75-$110; lunch, $56-$80.50.