Review: Lu Lu Seafood Restaurant in University City

With the Chinese New Year a little more than two weeks away -- Feb. 1 is the exact date -- the Guru continues to be extremely pleased over the number of new, and excellent, Asian restaurants to take up residence in the last decade or so. And it's more than just restaurants. Food stores also have proliferated, on South Grand Boulevard, along Olive Boulevard in University City, even on Lindbergh Boulevard in Kirkwood, and those who want to cook in the Asian style at home can easily find raw material.

Among the newcomers is Lu Lu, which moved into the University City spot where Chaney's had served barbecue for many years. Lu Lu, offering seating on two levels, obliterated all signs of its past life and looks more like the restaurants the Guru has enjoyed in Hong Kong. Lights are bright, decorations are in the Chinese style and weekends are devoted to Dim Sum, where servers wheel carts to tableside with an almost endless collection of dishes.

It's a little difficult to believe that St. Louis only broke out of the mold of Cantonese cuisine in 1972, when Yen Ching brought the spicy preparations from the Chinese provinces of Hunan and Szechuan to Brentwood Boulevard.

Lu Lu is a spinoff of the Great Chef Garden, at Manchester and Woods Mill Roads, and it's designed with large tables, just right for family groups and large parties, with many dishes to share with families and friends. The menu, and the serving style, also provide the opportunity to increase familiarity with new and different flavors and textures. Dishes are not necessarily hot and spicy, either, though requests for same will be honored.

The menu at Lu Lu, one of the largest in the city, deals with preparations in the styles of Hong Kong, Shanghai, Canton, Singapore, Beijing and other areas. And it covers a giant selection -- those in search of the esoteric can find pig ears, kidneys, quail, goat, rabbit, shark's fin, abalone, chicken and duck feet. Everything we sampled ranged from very good to exciting and delicious, with the large preponderance of dishes at the latter end of the scale.

Beijing (or Peking) duck also is available, without advance order and served in the traditional, three-course style. First comes the brown, crisp, delicious skin atop rice puffs that absorb what little grease remains, accompanied by slivers of green onion, plum sauce and rice pancakes for making roll-up sandwiches. Next are slices of duck, stir-fried with pieces of red and green bell pepper and bamboo shoots. Finally, there's a huge tureen of delicious soup, filled with chunks of duck on a variety of bones ready for gnawing. It's finger food, like spare ribs, but it's splendid and flavorful. One duck, by the way, is more than enough for two people.

Service is quite good, though there are occasional language barriers, but a fine air of cooperation like that which sent the manager to the kitchen in search of a raw vegetable whose English translation was not understood at our table (it turned out to be a green that was similar to watercress).

The menu selection offers dishes as familiar as broccoli with oyster sauce or chicken with sweet and sour sauce. We're more experimental, and we sampled steamed clams in black bean sauce, a real delicacy with delicious, plump clams in a sauce that made them sing, and a thick slab of Chinese bacon with vegetables and a mild red sauce. Congee, a mild rice porridge that is a Hong Kong breakfast favorite, is an excellent appetizer, and the porridge is laced with bits of meat and vegetables for color and flavor. Old-fashioned won ton soup, with lots of spinach and bok choy, also was a winner.

Shanghai dumplings bolster the standard dumplings. Both types are excellent, but those specified with the name of the Chinese city hold meat juices as well as meat (they sometimes are called "soup dumplings") and they must be eaten carefully to avoid either spilling or scalding, but they're splendid. The Lu Lu version of kim chee, a very spicy Chinese cabbage salad, also is just right.

Hot pots are filled with soup and many other things, like braised meat balls and crab, or salted fish and eggplant, or stewed beef in soy sauce. Spare ribs can be either braised in Shanghai-style sweet and sour sauce, or dry sauteed in garlic sauce; speaking of the wonderful stinking weed, eggplant with garlic sauce is rich and garlicky enough to threaten some relationships.

Pan-fried noodles, a Shanghai specialty, are tasty and a testimony to Marco Polo, who reportedly carried noodles from China to Italy and began a new culinary culture. Rice noodles in the Singapore style also are delicious.

Among the things the Guru does not know is whether Chinese dim sum is patterned after Spanish tapas, or if it went the other way. Both involve many small servings of appetizer-style dishes; they are designed for sharing, but one can eat a large number and call it dinner, or a smaller number and supplement it with an entree. Either way, there is plenty to eat. Some restaurants have dim sum to be ordered from a menu, and tapas are usually ordered from a menu, but classic Chinese style demands servers with carts that come out of the kitchen filled with a variety of dishes. One cart may have a number of dumplings, usually steamed but sometimes fried, then stuffed with shrimp or pork or beef. Another may serve noodles, including the soft, crepe-like ones that are filled with shrimp and topped with soy sauce. Another may have tureens of soup or congee.

Tripe in black bean sauce brings an overtone of Mexican menudo, a spicy soup with beef tripe. Soft buns, stuffed with roasted or fried pork, or vegetables, are winners, and one of my favorite dishes is sticky rice wrapped in a lotus leaf. Steamed squid in curry sauce and shrimp fried in a crispy, tempura-like batter, are delicacies, and spring rolls or stuffed green pepper bring familiar sights and flavors. Clams in black bean sauce, which I know I've mentioned before, deserve mention again. They're just as special on a Sunday morning as on a Tuesday evening.

And when the stomach is close to being filled, think of dessert, like egg custard tart, or buns filled with sweet red bean paste, or almond pudding. Much better than fortune cookies.