RESTAURANT REVIEW:

Community redevelopment always makes me shudder, especially in the suburbs. When a land owner decides to remodel places like Panda Palace, customers usually pay the price.

Except when Panda Palace was in Seal Beach, it was called Panda Panda and had a loyal following. That didn’t matter when the bulldozers came calling. The restaurant was plowed under so the “new” mall could be filled with such scintillating places like California Pizza Kitchen, because we don’t have enough of those already.

But the owners of the restaurant found a new home in Sunset Beach, a town that has exactly three chain establishments, none of them restaurants.

It was a bit ironic that the restaurant relocated to Peter’s Landing. That plaza had done a bit of remodeling as well, failing to renew the lease of a couple of tenants because they wanted to upgrade their property.

This town has welcomed Panda Palace, and apparently the restaurant has not only picked up new diners, but some of the faithful from Seal Beach have crossed the bridge to visit a place they miss.

It is easy to see why.

This restaurant is not cheap, not by Chinese food standards anyway. Dishes range from $9.95 for a couple of pork selections to $17.95 for the grilled sea bass filet.

A friend of mine and I went there the other night, and I was running uncharacteristically late. When I walked in the door, Danielle was sitting at the bar sipping on a specialty cocktail.

Some of the concoctions they offer are grand melon-tini. It is Midori melon, and orange, cranberry and pineapple juice, topped with dark rum. The key lime pie, which consists of Absolut vanilla vodka, lime juice and a little pineapple juice with a sugar rimmed glass, is another favorite. The one I thought was the most intriguing was the green tea. That has green tea liqueur, vodka, lime juice, muddled cucumber and mint.

The restaurant has an elegant bar area. The whole restaurant is well decorated and it is easy to see why it took the owners more than a year to open.

The wait was worth it. This has easily turned into one of Sunset Beach’s best restaurants and the chef/owner, Fong Peng, has more than 40 years of experience cooking Chinese cuisine.

His expertise was evident in the very first dish we received. We ordered the pu pu tray. It is a wood platter with a little black pot in the middle that has fire inside warming the beef, which is very tender.

There were six other items, including crab Rangoon, which was delicious. The crab was so plentiful and the blend of the cream cheese and the shellfish was incredible.

Another favorite was the paper-wrapped chicken. The meat was so tender and moist you almost wanted to lick the foil.

Danielle and I then discussed the entrees. She is a semi-vegetarian, which makes her a semi-pain in the neck. She eats chicken and seafood, but not shrimp.

We could have gotten one of the combination meals, but they seemed too limiting for us. We tend to be adventurous diners, so we wanted to pick a couple of items.

Danielle picked the General Tso chicken and I selected the scallops with garlic sauce.

I figured scallops were OK with Danielle, but she told me when I offered her the plate they were too close to shrimp and she was passing. She did, however, eat the Portabello mushrooms and red and green peppers that came with them.

She missed out on the scallops. They were large, not chewy and very well prepared. They seemed to soak up a lot of the garlic sauce, which was good, but I should have asked for more garlic.

The General Tso chicken was really good. The lightly-breaded meat was crispy, and the red chili peppers gave the dish some spice.

We could have finished the meal off with green tea ice cream, which is one of my favorites, but the portions were so plentiful there was no room left.

It is something we will plan for on the next visit, however. There are many more dishes I want to try.

PANDA PALACE

ADDRESS: 16400 Pacific Coast Hwy., Sunset Beach

PHONE: (562) 592-3048

CUISINE: Chinese

SPECIALTY DISH: Grilled sea bass filet

ALCOHOL SERVED: full bar

DRESS: beach casual

FAMILY FRIENDLY: yes

CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover

RATING: *** out of 4

For links to local restaurants, a calendar of local restaurant events and quick links to dining reservations, go to www.hbindependent.com/ dining.

JOHN REGER reviews restaurants for the Independent.