Song of Hong Kong

Joss was the first chinese restaurant in Los Angeles to offer contemporary Chinese cuisine along with an extensive wine list, some 13 years ago, well before Yujean Kang opened the Pasadena restaurant commonly credited with setting the trend. Joss owner Cecile Tang Shu’shuen comes from the world of Hong Kong cinema, and she and her kitchen staff have always been up to date with trends in Hong Kong, stealing ideas and, in turn, having her creations show up from time to time in Hong Kong restaurants.

I’ve always liked Joss’ quiet dining room, decorated in what was cutting-edge contemporary style at the time it opened--squarish chairs in khaki upholstery, tiny halogen diva lights and minimalist Chinese brush drawings. This was not your mom-and-pop Cantonese, or even Madame Wu’s Garden. The setting is Hong Kong sophisticated. And the barman makes a mean Manhattan. I hadn’t been to Joss in a while, and I remembered the food as slightly generic, pleasant, tailored to a non-Asian palate. Perhaps it was time for another look.

Once my friends and I are seated at a comfortable window table, we pore over the wine list. Our first choice, a Kalin Sauvignon Blanc, can’t be found after a lengthy search. Nor can the second, a Dageneau Pouilly Fume. Our third selection, a German Riesling, turns out to be a Kabinett, not the Auslese listed. At this point, we take it, happy to have something to drink, but we ask the waiter to check the price: a Kabinett should cost less than an Auslese. The price is lowered, but I wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t noticed the error.

A soup of supple duck dumplings makes a nice start. The dumplings, filled with hand-chopped duck and vegetables, float in a mild chicken broth with shredded cabbage. Another entree, quail finely minced with crunchy Asian vegetables, is meant to be wrapped up in lettuce leaves with a dab of plum sauce. It’s a pleasant, if unremarkable, version of this popular lettuce dish. Sweet and sour litchi spare ribs are chunks of fried pork with bell peppers that are cold by the time we get our plate. The sauce is less cloying than most, though. Indochine spring rolls, however, are unacceptably greasy bundles filled with a gloppy mix of limp bean spouts, shredded crab and some shrimp. I would never order it again.

When the fried rice of the night--ginger and scallops--arrives, I’m confused. How can the same kitchen turn out this fluffy, perfect rice? Or the enticing Peking shrimp dish of barely cooked shrimp in an intensely spicy mahogany sauce? I get the idea the kitchen could do much better given the opportunity and the inspiration. It’s surely bored with doing Peking duck, which every other table seems to order. Its skin isn’t particularly crisp, it’s more dried out than moist, and it’s painful to watch our inexperienced waiter attempt to serve it.

I return with a few friends on another night and find that Tang is a dignified, gracious hostess, helping us choose dishes. When she’s there, the restaurant has a warmer feeling. The food is also better, I suspect because she’s monitoring every dish. Still, the weakest items are the dim sum--Peking duck pot stickers that taste as if they’ve been fried ahead and reheated, steamed shrimp dumplings in a sticky rice wrapper and spring rolls with a bland filling. Yet with the less traditional items, there again is a glimmer of what the kitchen can accomplish. I taste it in the mini scallion pancakes topped with a pinch of crab meat and spring onions, and a splendid “five mushrooms napoleon,” fried spring roll skins layered with sauteed Chinese mushrooms.

The specials are even better. I love the charred long beans and asparagus in a pungent and salty black bean sauce. The Maine lobster Cantonese is wonderful. The fire-engine red lobster shell hides large chunks of lobster and a swirl of flat handmade noodles in a richly nuanced lobster sauce. It’s the best Chinese noodle dish I’ve had since Hong Kong. From the menu, we try the Mongolian lamb: tender, bite-sized pieces of lamb wok-fried with leeks and whole red peppers in a spicy red sauce.

A week or so later, I have my husband make a reservation under the name “Taylor.” He asks Tang, who happens to answer the phone, whether she can prepare any special dishes. She suggests a stuffed blue crab from a family recipe. He mentions tea-smoked duck or chicken. They decide on a menu for six. “The cooks love to do special menus,” she says. “It takes routine out of the kitchen.”

When we arrive, we are led to a round table in the far corner, where we find at each place setting a “Mr. Taylor’s Dinner Party” menu. Tang is not there, but we proceed to have a splendid meal. It is as if we are eating at an entirely different restaurant, much closer in style and tone to dining in Hong Kong.

We begin with a delightful soup, served in a narrow green muuqua melon, that tastes at first like a delicate clear broth but gains in complexity with each bite as we discover diced melon, salty bits of ham, beautifully tender bites of scallops and shrimp and an occasional piece of chicken. Then comes Tang’s family dish: a blue crab shell stuffed with finely diced water chestnuts, incredibly flavorful shiitake mushrooms and the sweet crab meat.

The highlight is the steamed snow fish (the poetic name for black cod), an enormous slice presented in a dark sauce that sets off its snowy flesh. Oh, and it is strewn with white chrysanthemum petals. Its texture is remarkable--firm yet meltingly tender--and the sauce, made from aged Chinese vinegar, is sweet and complex. It’s a stunning dish.

The Peking duck is crisper than it was on our previous encounter. And our waiter is skilled at serving it. The best part, though, is the rich, fatty leg, which runs with juices when you take a bite. The duck is served alongside a silky tea-smoked chicken that’s tastes as if it’s just been caressed with smoke. It’s stuffed with several kinds of rice and red beans. By the time we get to the roast pork shank and wilted pea shoots, another exemplary dish, our appetites are flagging, but not enough to neglect the scallop and asparagus fried rice.

For dessert, we choose the litchi nuts on ice and, at the waiter’s prompting, order a steamed chocolate pudding, which has a cake-like texture and is, thankfully, not too sweet.

Now I know Joss’ kitchen is capable of truly satisfying cooking, I want to go back and have a Yunnan menu. (Tang’s parents are from Yunnan province and Hong Kong, so she has cooks from each region.) She tells us, too, that she’s thinking of starting a chef’s table for which the kitchen would cook a special menu each night. I hope she does it.

*

AMBIENCE: Contemporary restaurant with slipcovered chairs, diva lights and Chinese brush paintings on the walls. SERVICE: Expert to inattentive. BEST DISHES: Muuqua melon broth, duck dumpling soup, mini scallion pancakes with crab meat, fried rice, Peking prawns, Mongolian lamb, roast pork shank. Appetizers, $5 to $10; main courses, $13 to $38; special menus, $35 to $85 per person. Corkage, $15. wine PICKs: Billecarte-Salmon nonvintage brut, Champagne; 1996 Hugel Tokay Pinot Gris, Alsace. FACTS: Dinner daily; lunch weekdays. Valet parking.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. eeee: Outstanding on every level. eee: Excellent. ee: Very good. e: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.

*

JOSS

9255 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood,

(310) 276-1886

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: **