Pumpitude

The heat and smoke of classic Sichuan cooking are just fine. So are the clean, lush flavors of Cantonese cooking, the hearty winter foods of chilly North China, the funky-fresh stews of Taiwan and the delicate, yet often chile-intensive, dishes from the Chiu Chow diaspora. But of all the Chinese cuisines represented in California, and probably in China itself, Shanghai-style cooking may be the most delicious: long-braised meats; juicy dumplings; lots of pork and river fish; all sorts of preserved vegetables; sweetish, subtly flavored brown sauces amped up with wine, roasted garlic and long-aged black vinegar. It can be torture to walk past a good Shanghai restaurant without going in.

The center of Shanghainese cooking in America, which for so long was New York’s Chinatown, shifted to the San Gabriel Valley several years ago, and there are probably more good Shanghainese restaurants in San Gabriel and Monterey Park than anywhere this side of, well, Shanghai. And not least of them, among the chic new-wave Shanghai bistros and the gutsy Shanghai noodle houses, the straightforward Shanghai cafes and downscale Shanghai dumpling joints, is Mei Long Village, a sleekly traditional restaurant in the inevitable San Gabriel mini-mall.

Mei Long Village is a tasteful earth-tone place--no neon, no black marble--that looks as if it were decorated to appeal to the parents of the people who hang out at Lake Spring; a restaurant comfortable both for the extended families who crowd the great circular tables at dinner time and for the fortysomething Chinese couples who come for quiet meals by themselves. The list of beverages can resemble that of a purist country-western club (the last time I was in, it was Bud or nothing) and the restaurant is not particularly vegetarian-friendly--the chef seems to put pork in just about everything.

But even if Mei Long Village served nothing but dumplings, it would be worth a visit. There are terrific steamed bao stuffed with sweet red bean paste or a pungent mince of strong greens and black mushrooms; crusty pan-fried bao; flaky sesame-flecked pastries, called vegetable cakes, filled with root vegetables and bits of pork; and flying saucers of what seems almost like Chinese filo dough, pork and vegetable cake, surrounding a meager but intense forcemeat of sauteed leeks, the perfect thing to moisten with the house dip of black Chiankiang vinegar and shredded fresh ginger.

First among the dumplings here are what must be among the most delicious Shanghai steamed dumplings in town: pleated Ping Pong balls of ultra-thin dough, 10 to an order, that explode into soup and pork and garlic when you pop them in your mouth. The crab dumplings, enriched with the sweet taste of the fresh crustacean, may be even better.

Not quite everything is completely great at Mei Long Village, though nothing is actually bad. The usual stir-fried stuff--kung pao chicken and walnut shrimp and ginger beef--may not be much better than they are at your favorite neighborhood place; the dry-fried string beans have been under-seasoned and overcooked. The chef’s tofu-constructed vegetarian impressions of meat, like the cold cured-pork aspic, are undeniably authentic but bland.

But Mei Long Village is a perfect place to try any of the famous Shanghai standards: sweet, fried Shanghai spareribs dusted with sesame seeds; garlicky, whole cod braised in pungent hot bean sauce; big pork meatballs called lion’s heads, tender as a Perry Como ballad, that practically croon in the key of star anise. The new-wave Shanghai classic jade shrimp, stir-fried with a spinach puree, is especially good here, firm, subtly garlicked, garnished with deep-fried spinach leaves improbably glazed with sugar, a combination that by all rights should be bizarre but tastes as familiar as something you’ve been eating since you were a child. Even the jellyfish with celery (not an appetizer likely to show up at Patina any time soon) is good, slightly sweet, clean-tasting.

The “pork pump,” that peculiar star of California Shanghainese menus, is a fist-sized piece of pork inside a piece of pure hog lard as big as your head, braised with rock sugar, soy and a host of aromatics, drenched in a brown sauce that one suspects is mostly drippings and served on a bed of spinach. Mei Long Village’s pork pump, far more than most, seems more of a soft insinuation of richness than 20,000 calories on a plate.

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WHERE TO GO

Mei Long Village, 301 W. Valley Blvd., #112, San Gabriel, (818) 284-4769. Open daily, 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Beer and wine. Lot parking. Dinner for two, $18-$30.

WHAT TO GET

Crab steam dumplings; jade shrimp; pork pump in brown sauce.