Chow Mine!

Well, it´s all China all the time in the news these days, isn´t it? Between filthy tea, carcinogenic dried apples, and bacteria-laden swordfish imports turned back at our own squeaky-clean borders; the brouhaha over whether Americans should be eating (avian-flu-carrying?) Chinese chickens; the lethal pet-food scandal; and the no-quotas Climate Change report issued from Beijing, our Silk Road trading buddies are taking some hits on the old P.R.-o-meter. But scary food news always brings out the curmudgeon in me -- if I´m gonna die from eating, I want to go out with egg foo yong on my face.

In a personal effort to stem this tsunami of anti-China sentiment, I´ve been chowing down a lot of Cantonese takeout in the same vein as I guzzled French Bordeaux during the Freedom Fries hysteria a few years back. My tongue may have been stained purple as a chow dog´s, but I was one happy drunk while restaurateurs all over town were patriotically pouring their expensive Burgundies into the gutters. Who´s sorry now?

Unfortunately, most Chinese takeout in Palm Beach County is hardly worth the effort of rummaging through your drawerful of paper menus. Making a pass through Boynton Beach on the recommendation of a friend who raved about Fon Shan (4735 N. Congress Ave., Boynton Beach, 561-641-0500), I can report no particular pleasure in the stale noodles, sickly sweet and dry pork ribs, soggy egg rolls, and ultra-bland fried rice we carried home, about 15 pounds of food in total, for $25. Almost everything was underseasoned, probably as a sop to the dullsville palates of Fon´s geriatric clientele. I did like the special house wonton soup ($5.25 for a quart) a whole bunch: crunchy, bright green broccoli, carrots and bok choy, slices of roast pork, and gigantic minced pork-stuffed wontons. Another plus: Fon´s has a full liquor lounge with TVs permanently tuned to ESPN, so you can down a couple while you wait on your moo goo gai pan. When in Boynton, though, I´d as soon go to China Dumpling (1899 N. Congress Ave., 561-737-2782) for its cheapo dim sum luncheons; the dumplings are scrumptious; the rest of the menu is only so-so.

Lauderdale is another matter. We´ve got a pretty big range of noodle shacks and dumpling houses here and a couple of serious Hong Kong-style restaurants (Silver Pond, in Lauderdale Lakes, is my favorite). Last year, the much-beloved Christina Wan´s Mandarin House moved up to Lauderdale from Hollywood, leaving South County folk gnashing their teeth and Lauderdalians high-fiving one another. The Wans have been running Chinese restaurants around South Florida for more than 40 years, and they´ve pretty much cornered the market on Szechwan/Cantonese/Mandarin that´s just exotic enough to satisfy cravings for fermented black beans or Peking duck without inducing any Fear Factor-type gag reflexes -- no jellyfish or clotted pig´s blood. Today, Christina Wan´s menu includes an occasional foray beyond the Chinese border with Asian ingredients like miso and lemongrass or a hot-and-sour Vietnamese soup. But mostly, this is Chinese streamlined over four decades to middlebrow American tastes the kind of restaurant you might remember from the 1960s, when we were just discovering the entirely scrutable pleasures of wood-ear mushrooms and noodles tossed with ground pork and kids were going wild for General Tso´s chicken, the closest thing to a heaping, steaming plateful of candy we were ever likely to be allowed to eat for dinner.

Ms. Wan is a presence at her new place -- she´s chic and sharp-eyed, working the room with a phone hooked to her belt and hobnobbing with longtime customers whose names, professions, life histories, and dietary restrictions she knows backward. Wan is likely responsible for the quality of the service; it´s efficient and friendly and keeps the tables turning without ever seeming to rush. As always, the restaurant purveys a decent selection of vegetarian dishes: Chinese greens and string beans in garlic sauce, spicy tofu, Buddha delight, chow fun noodles with vegetables, a nutty vegetable fried rice (you can get this made with brown rice), and a couple of meat substitutes like garlic wheat ¨sausage¨ or soy ¨chicken.¨ On an earlyish Sunday evening recently, the place was about three-quarters full, and we slipped in without a reservation, taking the corner booth by the window and tuning in to the secrets and lies being bandied around us. A guy on a first date with a local actress was spinning out his oh-so-impressive acquaintance with Wellington socialites; a couple of big Chinese families were arguing over soup tureens at the round tables; some guy was yakking with his lawyer on his cell; a few straggling snowbirds were too busy slurping Singapore noodles to even bother with talk. When we went back on a Tuesday night, things were more serene, and the place, with its low-wattage lighting and white tablecloths, was eminently relaxing.