Asian Bistro Has the Alternatives

If you’re looking for authentic Asian restaurants in O.C., you either check out unusual Japanese pubs, such as Sui in Costa Mesa or the terrific Osaka Kappo in Tustin, or you head for Little Saigon.

Now there is a third option, sort of: a bright newcomer called Asian Bistro.

This pretty little place--full of exotic plants, its pale yellow walls painted with images of bamboo trees and a mural of Hong Kong harbor at night--bills itself as Chinese and Vietnamese. Vietnamese dishes are its strong suit, though most diners appear to stick to Chinese cliches such as mu shu chicken, kung pao shrimp and Mongolian beef.

It would be a shame if the South Coast never warmed up to Vietnamese food. It’s light, healthful and piquant, marked by an abundance of fresh herbs and a generally spare use of cooking oil.

The basic freshness and quality of ingredients is high here. Still, Corona del Mar is not Little Saigon, and the food has been toned down. The traditional condiment tray is missing from the tables, so if you want red chile paste, fish sauce (anuoc mam) or thick soy sauce, you’ll have to ask, and insistently at that.

Once that is settled, you’ll eat reasonably well. The popular beef noodle soup pho makes an excellent lunch. This is a delicious model, if excessively tame. It’s a generous portion of long, wispy rice noodles in a beefy broth, served with a side dish of bean sprouts, lime wedges and basil.

In Little Saigon you could order toppings such as meatballs, flank steak, tripe or beef tendon, but the only topping here is surgically trimmed flank steak, which gives it a sanitized feel, better suited to a hospital cafeteria than an Asian market stall.

Owner Anh Tran is a charmer who defends the version. “People around here don’t like stomach and tendon,” she says, “and [Vietnamese] meatballs are crunchy; the customers won’t eat them.” Looking at her menu, it is apparent that she is determined to introduce Vietnamese cooking to the area. And a few of the dishes are similar to the best Little Saigon has to offer, give or take a little fish sauce.

You can’t go wrong with the goi cuon. Unlike its better-known cousin cha gio (Vietnamese egg roll), goi cuon is not deep-fried but assembled out of a combination of raw and cooked ingredients. You wrap thin rice paper crepes around leafy vegetables, shrimp and chicken breast (in Little Saigon it would be pork). Asian Bistro serves its goi cuon with hoisin sauce enriched with crushed peanuts.

Most of the Vietnamese specialties in this restaurant come off with finesse. Even the simple act of eating cha gio is sensual. These are peppery, bite-sized cylinders filled with minced pork, crab, celery, carrots and clear noodles. Wrap a roll in a little lettuce cocoon along with some mint leaves, bean sprouts or basil, then dip the whole thing in fish sauce for extra pungency.

Com suon nuong consists of two slightly sweet, nicely blackened pork chops on a mound of boiled rice, garnished with cucumbers, tomato, radishes and pickled carrots. Chao tom is a kind of forcemeat made from shrimp, wrapped around lengths of sugar cane and then charcoal broiled on these sweet “skewers.” It’s presented on tender rice noodle cakes, delicately laced with crushed peanuts, and you eat it with hoisin sauce.

If you are truly hungry, order com ga roti or bo luc lac. The first is roasted chicken on a heap of rice that gets its red color from a sweet tomato sauce. The chicken is already vaguely sweet from a light glaze. It’s also crisp on the outside, thoroughly moist on the inside.

Bo luc lac, often called French beef in Vietnam, is nothing more than broiled cubes of tender filet mignon brushed with a sweet soy and ginger vinaigrette. I like this dish, but I wish the restaurant hadn’t chickened out on it. In every other version I’ve had, the beef was heavily flavored with garlic; here there is no garlic at all. “Americans don’t like garlic,” the waiter said.

You may have guessed what the restaurant’s Chinese dishes are like. The meat choices are restricted to chicken, beef and shrimp; no fish, no squid, no offal and only a tiny bit of pork, though these are the foundation of the menu at any Chinese neighborhood restaurant. But again, all the dishes are fresh and well prepared, which gives them solid appeal.

Spicy shrimp (jumbo shrimp, lots of them) come in a deliciously salty sauce with green bell peppers, onion and tomato, though it’s far from spicy. Beef steak kao--tender cubed filet mignon of a better quality than you encounter in most Chinese restaurants--comes in much the same sauce.

Pot stickers--six chewy, thin-skinned dumplings with a subtle filling of minced pork and green onions--might be the best dish from the Chinese menu. As for the fried rice, chow mein and chop suey preparations, they’re fine but not unlike the kind you get in takeouts lining PCH from Seal Beach to San Clemente.

It’s risky to be different. We can only hope that Asian Bistro finds the courage to be more so.

Asian Bistro is inexpensive: appetizers, $3.15-$7.85; soups, 95 cents-$5.95; Chinese entrees, $3.85-$8.75; Vietnamese entrees, $4-$8.

BE THERE

* Asian Bistro, 2600 E. Coast Highway, Corona del Mar. (714) 720-1289. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 3-8 p.m. Sunday. American Express, MasterCard and Visa.