Peking Duck on a Whim? You’re in the Right Palace

Dozens of coral-shelled prawns cluster at the bottom of a home-style aquarium near the front podium of China Palace. Soon they’ll be steamed, peeled and eaten with a mahogany-colored ginger-soy dipping sauce.

Live prawns are hardly a rarity in Chinese restaurants nowadays, but we are in Newport Beach here, not San Gabriel, Westminster or L.A. Chinatown. It’s China Palace that is the rarity--a quality Chinese restaurant catering to a predominantly non-Chinese clientele.

China Palace is one of those hokey-looking, tropical-themed beachside restaurants cast from the same mold as Don the Beachcomber or the more urbane Trader Vic’s. But in the dozen years owner Jack Mau has been operating this place, he has been sneaking authentic Chinese dishes onto his menu one by one. I am not surprised when the steamed prawns with ginger-soy sauce turn out to be fabulous.

Few driving south on PCH past Newport Boulevard can fail to notice the restaurant’s blue-and-red, Op Art-style sign. It’s that thing that hurts your eyes as you drive by. For that matter, the inside of this place might hurt your eyes too, at least at first.

The main dining area could pass for a transplanted rain forest resort; it is that crowded with jungle plants and cane furniture. The south end of the restaurant has a sushi bar, closed at the moment because Mau’s longtime sushi man is on hiatus in Japan. That means you will have book your table in the rain forest and content yourself with Mau’s largely Chinese American menu.

Look for an odd compendium of dishes such as salmon in black bean sauce (a very un-Chinese choice of fish; more traditional would be, say, steelhead) or red sticky ribs (instead of braised ribs) with pumpkin and rice crumbs. But not to worry. Almost everything that comes out of this kitchen is tasty, even if composed of ingredients that would cause curious stirrings in Mau’s home province of Sichuan.

Ask nicely, by the way, if you intend to eat with chopsticks. The management is expecting you to use knife and fork.

I never thought I’d be admitting this on the record, but my favorite things to eat here are these sticky red spareribs, throwbacks to the Chinese restaurants of our youth. Mau uses baby back ribs exclusively, and the meat is so tender and sweet it practically falls from the bone. They are the polar opposite of the tough, gristly ribs you can expect in unenlightened Chinese restaurants.

Two more appetizers not to miss are shau mai and fried dumplings, both mainstays of the Chinese tea house. Shau mai are essentially round, minced pork dumplings in thin noodle wrappers, sometimes (as here) crowned with shrimp. These shau mai are too meaty for the Chinese palate, but their fine, fatty pork fillings suit me. As for the fried dumplings, they’re crescent-shaped and eaten with a light rice vinegar. These golden-brown masterpieces, six to an order, spit appetizing juices when their thick skins are dissected.

The best soup is crab meat and asparagus, which costs $6.25 and yields four small bowls. The clear broth is chock-full of razor-thin slices of fresh green asparagus and lump crab meat which, remarkably, has retained much of its natural essence. The restaurant’s more mundane hot and sour soup is shot through with a heavy dose of vinegar, which obscures the taste of its fine components: tree ear mushrooms, dried tofu and chopped bamboo shoot.

The restaurant’s showpiece is Peking duck, a winged masterpiece with finely lacquered skin. This is one big, beautiful bird, presented whole at your table, carved and then served with scallions, bao zi (steamed buns) and pancakes, the latter waiting to be smeared with plum sauce by a team of solicitous waiters. Mau says he sells a dozen ducks a night on busy evenings, and this volume is what makes it possible for you to order one on a whim. In most places, Peking duck has to be ordered at least one day in advance.

Exercise caution with main courses. Many of them--particularly those marked with a symbolic chili to indicate added hotness--are overly sweet.

Aromatic shrimp, for instance, somehow rates a chili, but the only detectable flavor is sweet tomato sauce. Orange-flavor chicken is prepared with a light cornstarch batter and plenty of sauteed orange peel, but also with enough sugar to sweeten a pitcher of ice tea.

Ginger duck is the poor man’s Peking duck, where duck meat is sauteed with onions and lots of fresh ginger. It too has a cloying sweetness that renders it uninteresting after two or three bites.

I will vouch for the dry saute string beans--they’re crisp, snappy and spiced with zest. The moo shu pork, another pancake-wrapped novelty, is good too: shredded vegetables, egg and pork that you eat like a light, elegant burrito. (Make sure they go easy on the plum sauce, though.)

The popular kung pao in two flavors contains chicken, shrimp and peanuts, all sauteed with a spicy black chili sauce. Mau uses little more than a spoonful of fresh oil in the saute, hence the absence of the dish’s telltale oil residue at the bottom of the serving platter. Another good dish is salmon with black bean sauce. The fish is not overwhelmed by the salty, full-flavored sauce, and the natural sweetness of the salmon comes forward.

“Where else do you find salmon in a Chinese restaurant?” asked Mau with pride as he presented the dish at our table.

Not very many places, surely. Never mind that it is clearly a stretch to think of China Palace as textbook Chinese. After a dozen years in Newport, even someone from faraway Sichuan might up and go native.

China Palace is moderate to expensive. Appetizers and soups are $4.50 to $9.95. Main dishes are $7.75 to $26.

* CHINA PALACE

* 2800 W. Coast Highway, Newport Beach.

* (714) 631-8031.

* Lunch daily, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; dinner Monday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m., Friday through Sunday till 11 p.m.

* American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted.