Dining out -- Mary Furr

Taste of China, a restaurant in the southwest corner of the L-shaped

mini-mall on Edinger Avenue at Springdale Street in Huntington Beach, is

a low-key, muted place with lovely gray and black prints by Chinese

artist Hou Fengnien on one wall and a space-enhancing mirror on the

other. Cloth-covered tables centered by real Shiite roses reinforce a

minimalist serenity.

The express lunch menu ($4.95 to $6.95) of 25 classic dishes offers

bargains that hint at the ability of chef Cazeno Lu.

Born in Taiwan, the son of an airline pilot, he adds originality to

his selections, using what he has learned from the chefs he has worked

with in Beverly Hills and Pasadena.

Sweet and sour shrimp (lunch, $6.95; dinner, $9.95), a typical

Szechwan dish, is a large serving of colorful green bell peppers, orange

carrots and onions combined with sweet pineapple and fat, medium-sized

shrimp in a tart-edged sauce.

It’s a well-defined dish served with a cup of egg flower or sweet and

sour soup, a fresh iceberg lettuce salad with ginger dressing, wontons, a

cabbage-stuffed egg roll and fried rice.

Chicken with string beans (lunch, $6.95; dinner, $7.95) has a subtle

garlic sauce with bits of garlic sprinkled over the slender beans. This

well-prepared dish is good for sharing.

The set deluxe ($12.95) and gourmet ($15.95) dinners have soup

choices, a simple salad and eight entree choices each. Three ingredients

with snow peas ($15.95) was my selection.

For the soup, I’d recommend the sizzling rice, a chicken broth of snow

peas, mushrooms, rice, chicken and shrimp into which the server poured

fried rice to sizzle and pop. It’s a table-side preparation that is one

of the fun things about a Chinese restaurant.

The appetizer plate with this dinner had shrimp Rangoon, a crisp

triangle filled with good creamy cheese, a wonton with a thicker skin

with a dab of chicken, an excellent egg roll, an intensely flavored,

minced chicken in foil and a nice, crispy butterflied shrimp.

The three ingredients I selected were partially successful. The shrimp

were tiny and not very succulent and the chicken strips were

well-seasoned but the small beef pieces were not firm or even meat-like,

sort of squishy as if pounded to tenderize them. The plentiful, bright

green snow peas gave the dish a fresh taste, however, and really

brightened it up.

The fish fillet in black bean sauce, another selection (lunch, $6.95;

dinner, $8.95) also was soft to our taste.

It was smothered in green pepper and onion pieces and sprinkled with

tiny, mild black beans. Fish is rare in Szechwan cuisine because rivers

race down from mountains too fast for leisurely breeding.

Charming owner Eilene Shue, who circulates among the diners, brought

out a new dessert that is very popular with the Chinese -- peanut soup.

It has a mocha-colored broth filled with peanuts, which is an acquired

taste but a big hit with my companion.

Shue, a former nurse in Taiwan, came to the United States 25 years ago

and served as a hostess at a friend’s restaurant. She fell in love with

food and eventually became owner of a restaurant in Pasadena. To escape

the hot summers, she settled in Huntington Beach, bringing Lu with her.

It’s a winning combination, one to discover in the deepest corner of

the strip mall across from Marina High School.

* MARY FURR is the Independent’s restaurant critic. If you have

comments or suggestions, call her at (562) 493-5062.

TASTE OF CHINA

* Where: 5864 Edinger Ave., Huntington Beach

* Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily

* What else: Carry out and catering; credit cards accepted

* Phone: (714) 846-1660