Golden State Revives Authentic Cantonese

Feel free to pat yourself on the back if you’ve been to a restaurant that serves fish maw.

Even better, award yourself an extended round of applause if you ever have ordered and eaten such a dish.

Fish maw, after all, is a slightly less explicit way of writing fish stomach, an item not generally appreciated by Occidental audiences and one rather difficult to locate on menus here in the land of surf ‘n’ turf. Served with abalone and “sea cucumber” (a strange beast from the sea floor that also is known by the name beche de mere ), or with snippets of ham and oyster sauce, this is a Chinese specialty of the sort that most local eateries never would consider listing. But its presence on a menu is a sure sign that serious cooking is taking place on the premises, and that the flavors of real Chinese food--of traditional dishes aimed at a primarily ethnic audience--are available for the asking.

The very new Golden State Seafood Restaurant, near Interstate 15 at the bottom edge of North County, is the second recently opened establishment to largely ignore American-Chinese food conventions in favor of authentic mainland dishes cooked, flavored and served as they are in China. Many of these (the fish maw preparations could be considered radical examples) might seem fairly challenging to Western tastes, but are in fact rewarding when taken on their own terms.

As an example, chicken has come to be accepted as a “healthy” alternative to red meat in this country, but generally is given perfunctory treatments that fail to make the bird attractive. Golden State’s steamed chicken with mustard greens, succulent, juicy and so softly meaty that it seems “plump” in the mouth (the old-fashioned description for this quality is “full”), treats the chicken so well that it seems a fowl of another feather. It is served in the Chinese style, which means chopped into squares and reassembled, so that each piece contains bones--Western mouths may find this a challenge, but that is the price of authenticity.

Chicken of the same marvelous quality, this time boned and slashed into savory ribbons, joins tangles of tooth-teasing jellyfish and slivers of pungent, somewhat spicy preserved vegetables in an appetizer plate. Sufficient to serve four, this is a grand introduction to Golden State’s cuisine, but be warned that the dish--like much traditional Chinese cooking--is highly salted. Also salty but very good, the appetizer of Peking-style pork chops offers crisp slices of meat tucked in a “bird’s nest” of fried noodles.

The impressive menu mentions a few familiar dishes, such as sweet and pungent shrimp and moo shu beef, but generally emphasizes mild, savory Cantonese preparations, such as frogs cooked with black bean sauce, filet of flounder garnished with crisped flounder fins, sea cucumber with duck feet, deep-fried squab, watercress with a sauce of preserved bean curd, braised duck with seafood and sauteed conch. Compared to the dishes offered by the vast majority of local Chinese houses, this obviously is not typical fare. The prices in virtually all cases seem quite reasonable; exceptions would be for such special-occasion luxuries as the “braised superior shark’s fin” (listed under the soup heading), which costs $25 a person.

The arrival of Golden State may herald the local revival of Cantonese food, which--given the version of it served in this country--sank into obscurity when the spicier, more aggressively flavored Szechuan style was introduced. But this restaurant’s Cantonese style is notable for displaying the true flavors of foods to immense advantage. Very, very few dishes are marked with the stars that denote spicy heat, and these mostly are in garlic sauce; the kitchen does these well, especially the braised scallops, which maintain their flavor in the breathy, sweet-hot sauce.

Supplementary pages list casseroles and noodle dishes that get no or scant attention at most local Chinese restaurants. Among these would be the casserole of braised lamb, the salted fish fried rice and the mai fun rice noodles, mixed with an assortment of seafood. There are also several types of chow fun noodles, surprisingly similar to fettuccine and, to tell the truth, a little on the gooey side, at least if you like your pasta al dente .

It should be mentioned that the menu and premises are attractive in an inverse ratio, which is to say that the decor is not so much plain as nonexistent. A few creature comforts can and should be expected in a restaurant, especially one in a just-built shopping center. The establishment seems to focus its attention solely on the cooking, a position that would be difficult to argue with if the walls were less painfully bare and the chairs less agonizingly hard.

Golden State Seafood Restaurant

9460 Mira Mesa Blvd., San Diego

Calls: 578-8818

Hours: Lunch and dinner daily

Cost: Entrees $5.95 to $16; dinner for two, including one Chinese beer each, tax and tip, about $25 to $50