A Pipeline Directly Back to Old Paris

Amid the thousand or so Asian eateries that sprawl across the San Gabriel Valley stands one notable French restaurant, La Vie, completely obscured by the hulking 99 Ranch Asian supermarket up the street.

The menu at this sweet, family-run dinner house is thoroughly old-fashioned. Of course, dishes such as escargots and canard au Grand Marnier suggest the hackneyed Continental restaurants of the ‘70s, which Calvin Trillin justly lampooned as “La Maison de la Casa House.” Actually, though, La Vie is just the kind of terrific, offbeat find Trillin would be thrilled to discover.

The boxy, vintage-’80s dining room has been made cozy and welcoming with valentine-pink tablecloths, flickering candles and modest reproduction art. The cuisine is French as interpreted by La Vie’s Vietnamese owners. Each dish takes you straight to old Paris, although the chef does know how to lighten rich sauces. The sumptuous aromas of roasting meat and caramelizing sugar drift in from the kitchen whenever a waiter--one of the family’s teenage sons--strides through the swinging doors, arms filled with plates of the house specialties.

Most dishes are textbook Escoffier; the chef doesn’t impose lemon grass or fish sauce or any other element of Asian flavor or technique. Hors d’oeuvres include a thin slab of homemade pork and chicken liver pate, infused with juniper berries and garnished with a fanned cornichon; it’s the size of a CD and would probably satisfy two people.

The escargots may be a tad rubbery, but they come in a good, garlicky parsley butter.

The familiar French soups, usually purees of seasonal vegetables, have the uncomplicated taste of their main ingredient and enough cream to make them silky yet not so rich that they blunt the appetite.

When I ordered duck with orange sauce, I expected the familiar lacquered duck slathered with sweet sauce. As a measure of the kitchen’s skill, what came instead was boned duck, slightly flattened and roasted to render the fat almost completely from the skin, making it as crisp as pork rind. The juicy meat lay on a pool of brown sauce that subtly balanced the flavors of oranges and rich duck stock. It was generously accompanied with artfully cooked green beans and seasoned rice. (Some entrees, such as the rack of lamb in garlic crust, may come with potatoes Anna, a sort of gratin of potato slices baked in cream.)

The chicken in the coq au vin is also partially boned before being braised with wine, bacon and mushrooms. The braising liquid is then meticulously reduced to a thick, glossy sauce. There’s a similar exactness in the preparation of lapin chasseur, stewed rabbit with a chunky tomato-mushroom sauce, and in the tender sweetbreads (ris de veau) in Madeira cream.

If La Vie has an imperfection, it’s excessive caution in using strong flavors. A generous hunk of expertly grilled salmon, though moist throughout, comes with sorrel sauce that barely tastes of the herb. A special of lamb chops (cotes d’agneau) in peppercorn sauce contained only a few lonely peppercorns.

Still, there is plenty of good news here. Unlike the many places that make everything a la carte, even a sauce, La Vie includes soup, butter lettuce salad and good coffee with each entree (average price, $13.95).

The dessert to get, a souffle au Grand Marnier about four inches across, comes billowing dramatically from its mold. It gets the full traditional flourish at the table: The young waiter ceremoniously punctures the souffle top and pours creme anglaise into its center. Order it in advance, as usual.

Creme caramel and creme brulee with the usual crunchy sugar surface are both deftly prepared. On the other hand, the pear belle Helene--made with canned pears, commercial ice cream and chocolate sauce--doesn’t live up to the rest of La Vie’s cooking.

La Vie may seem out of touch in its neighborhood of dim sum and Taiwanese noodle parlors. But the restaurant has already built a fan club among locals who haven’t forgotten why haute French cooking from the right kitchens endures as a classic.

La Vie, 2547 San Gabriel Blvd., Rosemead, (626) 571-1180. Dinner, 5 to 10 p.m. daily. Beer and wine. Lot and street parking. All major cards. Dinner for two, food only, $23-$50.

What to get: canard au Grand Marnier, coq au vin, lapin chasseur, cotes d’agneau vert pre, ris de veau Parisienne, souffle au Grand Marnier, creme brulee.