Flavors in Full Flower

New Jasmine’s sign tells us it serves Manhattan-style Chinese cuisine. I’m not sure this describes the dishes, but the efficient, rather abrupt service does remind me of a New York Chinese restaurant. As do the complimentary bowl of crunchy fried noodles, the fierce mustard and the sticky red sweet-sour sauce.

At any rate, the Encino restaurant is a very pink place, from the tablecloths to the bright pink walls hung with Chinese paintings. It does a lot of party business; you sit either in a booth or at a large table complete with a Lazy Susan--and the best dishes are ideal for sharing.

Despite the appeal to Big Apple nostalgia, there’s no need to eat retro here, because what you really want at New Jasmine are the Hong Kong-style dishes: chow fun rice noodles, roast duck, pepper-and-salt shrimp and Chinese vegetables.

The best appetizer is chicken with pine nut, one of those “lettuce taco” snacks with plum sauce, and no one in the Valley does it better. The filling is chicken minced with bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and black mushrooms. The addition of toasted pine nuts gives the mixture a unique taste. Few Valley Chinese restaurants bother using pine nuts in this dish, a pity.

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Real Chinese roast duck is also a rarity in these parts; most of our restaurants just throw chopped up duck into a fryer and call it roasted. This is lean duck, too, and a mammoth (half-bird) portion costs under $10. The crisp skin is redolent of star anise, and the meat is mildly smoky.

Delicious salt-and-pepper shrimp come fried in the shell, in a light cornstarch batter crusted with spicy salt. This is another huge portion, further embellished with a sprinkling of green onions and red chiles.

Even familiar old cashew shrimp tastes good here. This version is stir-fried shrimp, green onions, carrots, celery and lots of roasted cashews.

New Jasmine is one of the few places on the Boulevard for chow fun, dry fried flat rice noodles served with a variety of toppings.

Two versions I highly recommend are a tasty black pepper beef chow fun and one made with tender barbecued pork. These noodles, sauteed with bean sprouts and soy sauce, are deceptively filling.

As for vegetable dishes, take your pick of crunchy dry-fried string beans, a nice dish of baby bok choy and sauteed black mushrooms or spicy eggplant with a heady brown sauce.

BE THERE

New Jasmine, 17267 Ventura Blvd., Encino. Open 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Parking in lot. Beer and wine only. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, $23-$39. Suggested dishes: chicken with pine nut, $6.95; salt-and-pepper shrimp, $10.95; roasted duck, $8.50 (half)/$15 (whole); chow fun, $5.95. Call (818) 905-6555.