Take a seat for a tour of Asia

After years of seeming on the verge, 3rd Street west of Fairfax is heating up. Every time I drive down it, there’s something new: an adorable shoe store, a savvy knitting shop, a travel store selling sleek luggage and other accouterments. Joan’s on Third, the popular cafe, caterer and gourmet grocery store all rolled into one, seems to have acquired more sidewalk real estate every time I pass by.

Now 3rd Street seems poised to become a new restaurant row. Everybody wants a spot there. La Terza, Gino Angelini’s new Italian restaurant, is slated to open July 21. Meanwhile, Yi Cuisine has quietly opened on the site of the former Tahiti.

It won’t be quiet long if even half the crowd that hangs at Koi, where Yi’s chef/owner Rodelio Aglibot was executive chef, follows him to his new restaurant. At Yi Cuisine, Aglibot and partners have gone with a sleek minimalist aesthetic, taking advantage of the site’s flow of indoor-outdoor spaces. The feeling is serene and sophisticated, befitting a restaurant that describes itself as “a sanctuary for your palate or your soul.”

Sorely in need of said sanctuary, I’m there.

Aglibot’s menu throws out the sushi bar to focus on what the chef calls classic and contemporary Asian haute cuisine. In other words, Asian fusion. On a first spin around the menu with friends, we found more contemporary than classic in the equation.

Aglibot grew up in Hawaii, went to culinary school and cooked around the country, most notably at E & O Trading Co. in San Francisco. Eclectic is the only word to describe his cooking.

The menu is organized by technique: salads, “eat it raw,” crispy (fried foods), grilled, steamed, roasted, etc. Not to worry how to order: Just mix and match small and larger dishes.

They’ll come out when they come out. The night I was there, the staff acted like deer caught in the headlights. Chalk it up to opening jitters.

For salads, Aglibot’s got spicy pickled cucumbers, a colorful papaya and avocado salad with chile-ginger dressing or an American Kobe beef salad perfumed with lemon grass.

The raw category includes straight-ahead sashimi. After that, though, it’s creative all the way. That means a delicious Kobe beef tartare tataki, seared salmon “dynamite” and an oddball dish of ahi tuna medallions crusted with crab cake that seems more about doing something different than making something delicious.

It’s fun to see ahi tuna poke from the islands on the menu, and chicken and jicama lumpia from the Philippines. But I wasn’t entirely convinced by honey-spiced tempura rock shrimp with glazed walnuts and radicchio. Why are these ingredients hanging out together?

For vegetarians, Aglibot offers a slew of noodle and vegetable dishes.

Dessert? Make that Valencia orange creme brulee inset with tapioca pearls. Picking a wine is helped along by a list that ranges far and wide to come up with choices that marry well with Asian cuisine.

In my experience so far, the simpler dishes, such as sesame-rubbed flatiron steak with house kimchi or steamed island-style ginger chicken, are better bets than the more complicated moves.

A perfect summer night with moon and stars above made for a relaxing evening at Yi Cuisine. Did any of us achieve inner harmony? I’m not sure.

But wouldn’t that be swell?

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Yi Cuisine

Where: 7910 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles

When: Dinner 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, to 11:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday;

6 to 10 p.m. Sunday. Full bar. Valet parking.

Cost: Appetizers, $4 to $22; main dishes, $9 to $32; desserts, $10

Info: (323) 658-8028