The Power of One

Since Yujean Kang closed his West Hollywood restaurant late last year, I’ve been to his Pasadena place several times for a Chinese food fix. I’ve always preferred the original over the chilly elegance of the Melrose Avenue Yujean Kang’s, and I wasn’t alone, if the empty tables at the Westside location were any indication. I suspect Kang does, too, because now that he’s back here, this rumpled bear of a chef seems much more at home.

With its persimmon-colored walls, white-draped tables and savvy wine list, Yujean Kang’s is more an Asian-themed bistro than the usual nondescript neon-lit neighborhood Chinese restaurant. The crowd, in fact, comes from all over, not just Pasadena. Kang’s elegant cooking is the main draw, as the setting is modest (and in need of a touch-up). The service is always good, and when Kang is in-house, you can count on having an excellent Chinese meal.

The Taiwan-born chef’s style of cooking is informed by his knowledge of historical recipes and techniques and a willingness to experiment. If he thinks a nontraditional ingredient might work better, he doesn’t hesitate to make a serendipitous substitution. That’s why you’ll see Parma ham instead of the Virginia ham most Chinese chefs use, which in itself is a substitution for Yunnan’s famous raw-cured ham. It’s also why he favors Blue Lake beans over Chinese long beans. When it comes to seafood, he has slipped sea bass, salmon, Louisiana white shrimp or even Mediterranean calamari onto his customers’ plates.

Yujean Kang’s menu doesn’t read like any other Chinese restaurant’s. As an appetizer, he offers playful miniature dumplings, about the size of a fava bean, drizzled with a sizzling hot chile oil. They’re delicious, but they do call on all your chopstick skills to ferry them from plate to mouth. He’s updated the idea of “sweet and sour” with his julienne of fish (the variety depends on the night) with puckery kumquat and a sweet-tart passion fruit sauce. Don’t forget a big bowl of Northern-style wonton soup for the table, laden with pork wontons, plump rosy shrimp and ribbons of soft, wrinkly cabbage with raw egg swirled in at the last minute.

Kang’s cooking is clean and fresh, and he never uses MSG. I’m not big on fried rice, though I have to say Yujean’s is particularly appealing. It’s laced with all sorts of diced vegetables, shrimp, beef, chicken and, of course, that all important egg.

I don’t know why, but it seems unusually hard to find a good version of cold noodles in sesame sauce in L.A. Too often the sauce tastes like a relative of peanut butter. Here the dish is beautifully modulated. The noodles have a nice tooth, the complex sauce is sparked with a little hot pepper, and the dish is cooled down with julienned cucumbers.

His Chinese “polenta”--served with a stir-fry of fat shrimp, slivered scallions and swatches of greens and mushrooms--is still a favorite of mine. What looks like triangles of grilled polenta are really more like a light corn custard deep-fried to present a thin golden crust. The texture is seductive and the flavor intriguing. Another unusually delicate dish is chicken in plum wine with silk squash and wisps of fried Parma ham. I also like his sliced pork in a honey and chile sauce with pressed tofu, black mushrooms and Chinese mustard greens.

Call two days beforehand if you have your mind set on the traditional Peking duck. When it’s ready, the waiter will bring out the magnificent mahogany-colored duck, then carve it and roll the meat up in crepe-like Chinese pancakes with a dab of plum sauce and slivered scallions. Me, I’m less interested in the pancake bundles than in gnawing on the crisp, skinny duck wings.

This is one Chinese restaurant that makes a real effort with the desserts. The most unusual sweet is the pancakes filled with red bean paste, served warm and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. There’s a fine mandarin orange cheesecake, too, paired with that passion fruit sauce again. If you’ve already overindulged, Kang will send out a plate of sliced kiwi or other fruit, with balls of pineapple or watermelon sorbet.

Before moving to Pasadena in 1991, Yujean Kang had a restaurant in Berkeley. Back then, the idea of a Chinese restaurateur with a keen interest in wines and the way they can enhance Chinese cuisine was unheard of. Winemakers and wine buffs made it their hangout, and most nights you could find tables covered with eclectic wines from Alsace, Germany, Burgundy. When he moved to Pasadena, Yujean Kang’s clean, delicate cooking and phenomenal wine list quickly won him fans here, too.

Except for Joss in Beverly Hills, which also has a large wine list, most Chinese restaurants get by with a short list of popular, mostly mediocre bottles. Though the second Yujean Kang’s made inroads into what was once a much more extensive wine list, expect to find enough interesting bottles to make choosing just one difficult.

For an aperitif, try Belgian ale served in a Champagne flute with fresh peaches or cherries in season. The restaurant also offers a limited but enticing selection of French Champagnes, including Alfred Gratien Cuvee Paradis and a 1983 Salon Blanc de Blanc. Alsatian Riesling or Gewurztraminer are terrific matches with Chinese food, too. Among the Pinot Noir choices are several older vintages from Williams Selyem in the Russian River Valley and a handful of French Burgundies.

It’s Yujean Kang’s curiosity about food and wine that made his restaurant fresh and interesting when it opened. Now that he’s back at home in Pasadena, I’m hoping he’ll have the energy and interest to take his menu even further.

Yujean Kang’s

67 N. Raymond

Pasadena

(626) 585-0855

Cuisine: Contemporary Chinese

Rating: **

AMBIENCE: Cozy, bistro-like Chinese restaurant.

SERVICE: Cordial and professional.

BEST DISHES: Dumplings with chile oil, sauteed fish with kumquat and passion fruit sauce, Northern-style wonton soup, cold noodles with prawns in sesame sauce, Chinese polenta with shrimp and mushrooms, pork with honey, chiles and mustard greens, sauteed Blue Lake green beans, warm sweet red bean pancake. Appetizers, $4 to $8. Main courses, $12 to $32. Corkage, $10; $15 for Champagne and magnums.

WINE PICKS: 1994 Kante Sauvignon Blanc, Friuli, Italy; 1996 Flor de Pingus, Ribera del Duero, Spain.

FACTS: Lunch and dinner daily. Valet parking. Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.