RESTAURANT REVIEW : If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Try Hunan Garden’s Gentle Cuisine : Oxnard restaurant goes easy on the peppers, spices. While a few dishes suffer, many succeed because of the light touch.

Question of the day: How many California communities don’t boast at least one Chinese restaurant?

Few, very few. Immigrants from the Asian nation, during the last couple of hundred years, have introduced their varying cuisines far and wide over California. Their culinary presence here got its biggest boost when Chinese laborers were imported to build our transcontinental railroads after the Civil War. But even before there were soup-and-noodle joints in the Golden State.

Not that you’d call Hunan Garden a soup-and-noodle joint. Run by Chef Carl Huang, Hunan Garden took over a space off Oxnard Boulevard that used to host a Mongolian barbecue. In an environment of white tablecloths, dark red Naugahyde booths and light pastel walls, everything about the decor seems gentle. Perhaps not accidentally, the gentleness extends to the food itself. In fact, those of us looking for the palette-tickling peppers of traditional Hunan cuisine or the spices of the Szechuan dishes on the menu can come away a bit disappointed.

The way to begin at Hunan is with a Sixth Happiness tray ($7.50). It’s a perfect sampler of appetizers, featuring a small, flaming brazier heating a skewered beef stick for dipping in a Shanghai sauce and a delicious fried won ton filled with creamy, succulent crab Rangoon.

The appetizer selection, which also includes deep-fried shrimp and paper-wrapped chicken, turns out to be a good indicator that the kitchen uses a gentle hand, avoiding the frequent sin of overcooking these delicate meats.

A couple of Hunan’s dishes are nearly addictive. At the top of that list is the Hunan chicken ($8.95). Pieces of the bird are deep-fried and served in what they call Chef Carl’s special sauce, which is lots of garlic and ginger, hot chilies and herbs. The combination of crispness and the spiciness of the sauce keep you wanting to eat just another bite--to the point where you’ve got to cut this out or there won’t be room to try anything else.

The other dish that belongs out in front on this menu is the fried eggplant, Szechuan style ($5.50). Slices of eggplant are lightly breaded, beautifully crisp on the outside to contrast with the tongue-tantalizing soft textures of the inside. The vegetable sauce is rich, spicy and crammed with garlic, ginger and soy. (The main difference between his Szechuan and Hunan sauces, says Chef Huang, is the emphasis on ginger and soy in the Szechuan sauce.)

The pan-fried noodle plate ($8.95) also deserves attention, with its gentle saute of shrimp, beef, chicken and vegetables over a bed of soft noodles.

But one of Hunan’s specialties, kung pao three flavor ($10.95), is an unfortunate victim of the house’s reluctance to properly use hot peppers in dishes crying for just that. In this particular case, you find a few whole peppers tossed in and then cooked very briefly--not the most effective way to spice up the dish.

The same gentle touch from the kitchen that first became apparent in the appetizers carries over to fish dishes. A platter of fish with garlic sauce ($7.50) comes melt-in-the-mouth tender, its fillets mixed with water chestnuts and vegetables in a heavy--but not too heavy--hot garlic sauce.

In a more familiar direction--harking back to what actually may be a California addition to Chinese cuisine--there’s a simple but excellent vegetable chow mein ($4.95), just what we need to offset some of the more exotic dishes. Perhaps this is California’s version of Chinese comfort food.

And who could leave a Chinese restaurant without trying the duck? In this case, it is not a crispy or a Peking variety. Hunan’s Mandarin special duck ($8.95), sauteed again in that special sauce of Carl’s (but not spicy this time), is served with sauteed mixed vegetables. The duck is lean, as ducks go, and meaty, the vegetables properly crisp.

Details

* WHAT: Hunan Garden.

* WHEN: Open 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, noon to 8:30 p.m. Sundays.

* WHERE: 1621 N. Oxnard Blvd., Oxnard.

* HOW MUCH: Lunch or dinner for two, food only, $12 to $24.

* FYI: Major credit cards accepted; reservations accepted; full bar.

* CALL: 988-9395.