Beyond ‘All You Can Eat’

Chinese cuisine is not cut out for steam tables. Accept that and you’ll have a decent time at Yee Mee Loo, an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant that opened in Chinatown this summer.

It’s not the original Yee Mee Loo with the famous ornate bar that appeared in the 1933 Frank Capra film “The Bitter Tea of General Yen.” That restaurant closed in 1989, its building eventually torn down. (The bar, with its embroidered silk panels, figures of Kwan Yin and other paraphernalia, survives--at Cinnabar in Glendale.)

The new Yee Mee Loo, on the second floor of the rather sterile building that replaced the old one, is a sleek and simple place with long tables that draw large groups of office workers and birthday celebrants, plus a few individual tables and booths.

The crowd--sometimes you have to wait for a seat--comes because the restaurant puts out an astonishing assortment of food for the price, including premium items such as crab claws, baked mussels, fried shrimp and grilled salmon. There’s a lot of chicken--sweet and sour, teriyaki, fried wings, General Tsao’s chicken, chicken on a stick, foil-wrapped minced chicken too.

Plate not full yet? Then pick up pork chops, barbecued ribs, pork with black bean sauce and broccoli beef. There might be squid too, and fried fish and vegetables. You can pile these onto steamed or fried rice or lo mein noodles, then add steamed dumplings, fried wontons and egg rolls.

At the end is the Mongolian barbecue corner with its vegetables, seasonings and meats. You place your selection on the counter, tap a bell to summon the chef, then take a seat until the bell rings again.

This provides time to pick up soup and sushi, which are at one end of a separate salad and dessert bar. The soup choices are Chinese--hot and sour or egg flower--but the salad fixings are Western. Desserts include seasonal fruit, small frosted cakes, sweet bean soup and gelatins.

This roundup varies. One day I saw pig’s feet, another there was pork with black bean sauce. How does it all stack up? About as you’d expect. Some things are quite good, others suffer from standing.

The steamed dumplings are heavy, even those fresh from the kitchen. Fried foods such as won tons and General Tsao’s chicken lose their crispness quickly. Teriyaki chicken swims in thin dark sauce. The sushi is a tad dry. My squid was unappealing because the translucent cartilage known as “pen” had not been removed.

Pick and choose carefully, though, and you can assemble a pretty good meal. Definitely include the Mongolian barbecue, because it’s cooked to order and there are enough flavorings to make it interesting.

Although the salmon sits in a lot of liquid, it’s one of the better dishes, nicely seasoned with pepper and a hint of lemon. Baked mussels on the half shell are something you don’t find in every buffet. Chicken on a stick, alternating with chunks of carrot and zucchini, is more appealing than the heavy fried chicken.

The lo mein noodles, mixed with a few vegetables, are simple but well-seasoned. All the vegetables seem excellent, especially the sweet, fresh green beans with onion, garlic and dried shrimp.

The egg flower soup has a full-flavored chicken broth. The pared-down hot and sour soup is fine for a starter, though it won’t knock your socks off.

Watermelon is the best dessert after indulging in so much rich food. But I also like the light little cakes--one pink-frosted, the other chocolate. Once there were Chinese egg tarts with a curious green-tinged filling. My favorite dessert was a cold sweet soup of tapioca, mung beans and black-eyed peas, but it’s not there every day.

After I saw Chinese customers choose the gelatin desserts--familiar flavors, in a plastic cup--I tried one too. It made an excellent ending to a Chinese meal.

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Yee Mee Loo restaurant, 126 Ord St., No. 202, Los Angeles. (213) 620-0162. Lunch, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday; dinner, 5-9 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. No alcohol. Street parking. Visa and MasterCard. The lunch buffet is $6.99; dinner, $8.99. What to Get: Mongolian barbecue, salmon, baked mussels, chicken on a stick, lo mein noodles, seasonal vegetables.