Some V.I.P. Service for the Westside : RESTAURANT REVIEW

Some of the best Chinese food in the States can be found in San Gabriel. Westsiders I know who never drive east of La Cienega to visit anybody have been known to make exceptions for a great Chinese meal. It was only a matter of time, then, before some of this food moved west. V.I.P. Harbor Seafood of San Gabriel is among the first to test-market the Westside. Its new restaurant can be found upstairs on the corner of Wilshire and Barrington.

V.I.P.’s spanking-new, corporate-crisp pale mauve room can, and does, accommodate a crowd--and Westsiders are indeed flocking here in droves: dressy dates, casual diners, kids en route to a school dance. Some of the large families clustered at round tables speak English, some Chinese. A special banquet room is equipped for karaoke. Live sheepshead, cod and crab loll in tanks against the far wall. A central pillar is topped with halos of pink and yellow light. Black vinyl chairs are shaped like tall scalloped shells.

The menu is vast, so vast that after a number of visits and grossly over-ordering each time, we hardly make a dent in the 212 proffered options. I did not, for example, have sashimi “Japanese style” or any shark’s fin or abalone or, for that matter, chicken--V.I.P. does serve, in addition to seafood, many beef, pork, chicken and vegetable dishes.

The food here, despite some elaborate presentations, can seem hastily mass-produced, without the care and attention found in my favorite San Gabriel restaurants. Pan-fried dumplings are undercooked and greasy. Both a crab and winter melon soup and a won ton soup share the same tasteless brown broth.

*

Waiters tactfully, yet forcefully, try to steer us to the food they think we want, and in at least one case, they’re right to do so. We order BBQ shrimp with spicy salt, priced seasonally--$18 that day. Our waiter insists we want the $11 baked shrimp with spicy sauce. “It’s the same thing,” he says, only the shrimp is “a little smaller.” He is absolutely right: We get whole, crisp, somewhat spicy salt-battered shrimp. They’re fine.

Tableside service is gracious and deft. Shrimp moo shu is filled and folded before us into open-ended burritos; the filling of fast-fried scrambled egg, shrimp and sprouts is a bit oily, the sauce quite sweet. A lettuce bun with minced seafood is more interesting with tiny cubes of toothsome, well-seasoned fish cupped in a cool, crisp leaf.

Peking duck is brought, whole, to the table and ceremoniously skinned. The skin, in small slices, is served with a touch of plum sauce and curled lengths of scallion, folded in soft, white biscuits akin to savory marshmallows. The rest of the duck is taken back to the kitchen, cut up and returned on a platter. The meat is dark, meltingly soft, with a whiff of sweetness.

Too much here is sweet. “Chef’s special deep fried crispy fish” is a small rock cod, split open, deep fried and smothered with a sticky-sweet red sauce with peppers and strips of candied fruit rinds. Spareribs with honey sauce in a clay pot are also profoundly sweet.

String beans “with X.O.” sauce are flash-cooked bright green beans with chile, pork and lots of oil. Chinese broccoli, a staple on dim sum carts, is served in a bright green hank with a thick, faintly sweet oyster sauce that reminds us of maple syrup.

Sizzling scallops wear a garlic sauce that’s bland and, well, sweet. Kung pao scallops, while spiked with deadly red chiles, aren’t much better: The peanuts are still raw, and like much else here, there’s a surplus of oil.

We expected the kitchen to excel at seafood, but even these dishes are lackluster. Lobster, crab and most fish dishes are seasonally priced. A whole, chopped-up crab, served in a hot pot, comes on a snarl of greasy, bland, clear noodles seasoned with scallions and ginger. Somehow, the crab is so oily, it’s difficult to crack.

The service runs like clockwork and is the best thing about V.I.P.--oh, and--for Westsiders--not driving to San Gabriel.

V.I.P. is open for dim sum and lunch during the day. Lunch specials, an entree served with soup and rice, are a bargain at $5 and $6.

* V.I.P. Harbor Seafood Restaurant, 11701 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 979-3377. Open seven days for dim sum, lunch and dinner. No alcohol served. MasterCard, Visa and American Express accepted with a minimum charge of $20. Dinner for two, food only, $21-$70.