San Diego Spotlight : Ocean Kitchen Bans MSG, But Sticks to a Basic Menu

The new “Pacific Rim” cuisine, thus far available at just a few San Diego restaurants, performs the ritual of East meeting West with an emphasis that maintains Western styles in a dominant position and uses Oriental motifs primarily for seasoning and accent. That this situation should be so is not unreasonable, given that the style was developed on this side of the Pacific.

It is more than likely that, when writing the current menu, La Jolla’s Ocean Kitchen had not the slightest intention of viewing Pacific Rim cooking from the opposite shore. This result nevertheless is a side effect of the restaurant’s highly emphasized adherence to certain very American “health food” standards, headlined at the top of the menu in a notation that announces “No MSG. Brown Rice. Low Oil. Low Salt. Low Cholesterol. Fresh Vegetables. Pure Vegetable Oil. All White Meat Chicken.”

To most of these trumpeted blandishments, you might reasonably respond, “I hope so,” particularly since MSG (monosodium glutamate, or “flavor powder,” as this chemical compound is called in the Far East) is a friend to no one, and a Chinese restaurant that uses anything but fresh vegetables betrays the cuisine it purports to serve. The issue of brown rice is a little sticky because Chinese cooks generally serve white, short-grained, highly glutinous “sticky” rice, which clumps compliantly for transportation to the mouth via chopsticks and indeed seems better suited, flavor-wise and otherwise, to most preparations.

But that brown rice should be available to those who wish it is all to the good; white rice is of course available, as is the typically soulless “fried rice” that most San Diego restaurants offer as a no-extra-charge alternative. (Generally speaking, fried rice is only done well hereabouts when ordered a la carte as a dish in its own right.)

The restaurant, although new in some ways, is a successor to the Sun’s Kitchen that occupied the location for some years. When Sun’s proprietor retired, a trio of employees purchased the establishment and updated the menu in several ways, including those mentioned above. What they did not update is the decor, which is serviceable at best and offers nothing more than the most basic amenities. The quality of the service seems to depend much upon who provides it, and varies from the strictly perfunctory to the helpful and friendly.

The Ocean Kitchen name might seem to imply an emphasis on seafood, but a reading of the menu suggests that the name probably derives from the proximity of the Pacific, since there is no pronounced bias in the direction of seafood.

The list is reasonably comprehensive and includes most of the standards that local Chinese restaurants seem currently impelled to offer, fleshed out by a few dishes from a supplementary page titled “new specialties.” To call these items specialties is to emphasize the middle-of-the-road stance that seems to prevail here, since the list includes such standards as the “flaming pu-pu platter” of assorted tidbits, chicken corn soup, and moo goo gai pan (the great Chinese-American restaurant classic of all time).

Rather more interesting are the “special soup,” a very typical, rather rich broth thickened with egg whites and made luxurious by the addition of minced chicken and king crab, and the “salted shrimp crispy,” or fried-in-the-shell prawns flavored with Chinese-style seasoned salt. They’re messy to eat, but tasty.

Another new “specialty” called sesame shrimp turned out to be the familiar fried triangles of bread spread with shrimp paste, an item usually known as shrimp toast. These were ordered on two separate occasions, and both times were notable primarily for their oiliness (usually a result of insufficiently hot frying oil), a situation inconsistent with the restaurant’s claim of “low oil” preparation.

From the regular appetizer list, the pan-fried dumplings that have become a standard treat were no better than usual, and were served with a bland dip of little interest. Egg rolls, on the other hand, now usually just a shadow of the quality that made them ubiquitous (most restaurants buy them frozen, from factories, which is unforgiveable and negates one of the basic motivations for dining out), were freshly prepared and packed with a crisp, flavorful filling.

The menu features quite a number of at least purportedly “hot and spicy” dishes, although the tilt seems toward mild dishes. A featured item, “Ocean’s special chicken,” was attempted twice and found disappointing twice, the batter-fried slices of chicken immersed in a sauce that barely hinted at the advertised hot seasoning. The eggplant in garlic sauce, again noted as hot, did offer more definitive seasoning, but arrived as a soft, dense stew; eggplant is more appealing when it retains a little texture.

A certain and agreeable pungency marked the crisp Mandarin shrimp, drawn from a list that includes shrimp with almonds, lobster and oyster sauces, assorted vegetables and the black bean treatment of Cantonese cooking that is rarely enough found on local menus and can be quite good. Another relative rarity among the shrimp choices is that once-common dish invented on American soil, chop suey, a treatment extended to chicken, pork and beef, as are such other styles as Chinese curry and kung pao .

One of the better received dishes here was the ginger beef, a relatively straightforward preparation that offered tender bites of meat well-seasoned with the strong, attractive flavor of fresh ginger. Black mushroom beef and chili pepper beef also appear on the typical list. The restaurant aims at more variety under the rice and noodles heading, which includes such things as Shanghai-style pan-fried noodles and the refreshing “soup” noodles.

JUST A TASTE HIGHLIGHTS OF OTHER NELSON REVIEWS

THE BOONDOCKS, 8320 Parkway Drive, La Mesa, 465-3660. Out-of-sight if not truly out-of-the-way, this comfortable, somewhat folksy eatery in the corner of a suburban strip center has the virtue of doing a much better job than is usual with the generic Southern California restaurant menu of prime rib, steaks, Alaskan king crab, shrimp tempura and teriyaki chicken breast. The menu expands widely on these themes to allow for more complicated and tasty preparations such as the Chicago-style pepper steak (buried beneath a saute of mushrooms and chopped bacon), rack of lamb and crab-stuffed shrimp. Yes, it serves rice pilaf, but also offers the unusual Odessa potato, a baked spud seasoned with a bit of vodka and caviar. Entrees $10.95 to $19.95. Moderate to expensive.

LA TAPENADE, John Gardiner’s Rancho Valencia Resort, 5921 Valencia Circle, Rancho Santa Fe, 756-1123. Claude Segal, one-time executive chef at both Maxim’s in Paris and the exclusive Ma Maison in Los Angeles, has written an innovative and often brilliantly realized menu for the dining room of this North County luxury hotel. Outstanding dishes include such appetizers as the mille feuille of salmon and the salad of seared, sashimi-grade tuna; the entree of John Dory in a light lobster sauce, and the prepared-to-order apple tart based on a disc of the lightest puff pastry. This is an elegant, relatively formal restaurant, with a wine list to match. Entrees from $17 to $27. Very expensive.

SCARLET LOCO, 1400 Front St., San Diego, 234-2000. Partners Andy Schneider and John McCarthy, both veterans of San Diego’s very own Pacifica restaurants, dish up a feisty selection of contemporary offerings at this low-key, comfortable downtown eatery. Flavors tend to be robust and earthy, and dishes to watch for are the grilled shrimp cocktail with Creole-style tomato sauce, the whiskey-marinated rib eye steak, the crispy Thai duck and, when available, the outstanding grilled albacore. Entrees from $8.95 to $17.95. Moderate to expensive.

OCEAN KITCHEN, 5525 La Jolla Blvd.

459-3993

Lunch Monday through Saturday, dinner nightly

Entrees $4.50 to $19. Dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $20 to $45,Credit cards accepted