Restaurant Review - Wok the wok

Chinese Gourmet Classic delivers the goods — under the right circumstances

“Mmm ... good burn on these noodles,” I say as I spoon another heap of shrimp chow fun onto my plate.

“A ‘good burn’? Is that what you call it in English?” responds my friend Karen. “In Chinese, we call that nice smoky taste you get from stir-frying ‘wok-hay.’”

It’s Friday night, and four of us have gathered at Chinese Gourmet Classic in Sandy Springs. We all scrutinized the lengthy foldout menu, but when it came time to order, it was Karen’s show.

She spoke Cantonese with the server to clarify exactly how she wanted each dish prepared: live lobster with ginger and scallions over soft, fat “e-mein” noodles; Peking duck in three courses; deep-fried tofu with greens; and the shrimp chow fun, “dry-wokked” with no sauce.

This all had a faint ring of deja vu. I’d eaten in this space, which has changed hands several times, nearly a decade ago. The Chinese owners of a nearby restaurant I’d worked in had treated us to a meal. I’d remembered the room to be gloomy, though it radiates a more cheerful spirit these days. The latest owners have painted the walls a silky shade of red, the color for good luck in China.

Seafood is the specialty at Chinese Gourmet Classic. There are tanks of restless fish and lethargic crabs and lobsters on view next to the kitchen. Maybe I’m projecting, but I get the feeling these creatures sense their days are numbered.

Fortunately, we’re too busy eating our first course of Peking duck to see anyone tussle with a lobster. Our server has brought over a cart and is rapidly wrapping moist, gamy meat and a bit of crispy skin in Mandarin pancakes with a smear of hoisin sauce and thinly sliced onions. We each wolf down at least two pancakes.

On to the next course, which is a soup made from simmering the duck bones with cubes of tofu and vegetables. The broth lacks the richness of a long-simmered stock but has an appealing, vegetal clarity.

Finally, the last course: pieces of meat stir-fried with scallions and other vegetables. Karen is disappointed. She prefers an alternative to the third course, in which the duck meat is ground and wrapped in lettuce leaves, but she forgot to ask for it. She has a point: As is, the third course is a typical stir-fry without much character or complexity.

As soon as the stir-fry is set down, though, servers pour forth from the kitchen and laden our table with the other dishes. The lobster has also been stir-fried and cut into pieces, left in the shell. Tools are brought and we dig out sweet lumps of meat, scented with the pungent warmth of ginger. The noodles, thick and tangled under the lobster, have the same smoky wok-hay as the shrimp chow fun. Someone in the back certainly knows how to heat a wok to a searing temperature and wield it appropriately.

The deep-fried tofu surprises me: I’ve never seen this preparation before. Balls of crusty, golden brown tofu are clumped together on a plate. They resemble beignets, or the cinnamon-dusted monkey bread my grandmother used to make. The tofu is creamy inside its crust. Deep-frying has imparted an almost nutty taste, which marries soulfully with the Chinese broccoli and soy-based sauce underneath.

This is one of the best Chinese meals I’ve had in Atlanta. I thank Karen profusely, anxious to return and explore the menu further.

My other two visits, unfortunately, prove far less satisfying than my first.

I come twice more at lunchtime. Without Karen’s guidance, I resort to the ol’ your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine method of exploring unfamiliar dishes. (Most of the Caucasian clientele is eating fried rice and spring rolls, but I prefer to treasure hunt for funkier finds.)

Not surprisingly, given the tanks in the back, there’s a page full of lobster, crab and fish options. A random choice of crab in black bean sauce yields a platter full of meaty, messy Dungeness crab claws swaddled in an earthy, gingery sauce. We aren’t as lucky with an enormous mound of rubbery jellyfish in a vinegary chile sauce. And a seemingly safer order of steamed sea bass in XO sauce is so fishy it’s practically inedible.

My next visit sinks into a comedy of annoying errors. We order a deep-fried whole flounder; dried scallops and crabmeat with spinach; and ong choy (a Chinese green) with tofu sauce. Five minutes go by. Our server comes and tells us the kitchen is out of dried scallops — would we like to pick another dish? No problem, we’ll take sesame shrimp. Five more minutes pass. Our server approaches again, apologetically. Out of flounder. Live tilapia in a ginger-scallion sauce? Okeydoke. Yet another five minutes pass. Here she comes again, sheepishly bowing her head. You’re kidding, right? Nope, no joke — and no more ong choy, either.

So, instead of our intrepid culinary adventure, we end up with bland, farm-raised fish; soapy-tasting greens in oyster sauce; and sesame shrimp that, while fresh, needs way more sesame in the sauce. Totally discouraging.

This kind of incident, while perhaps an isolated event, plays into a perpetual frustration: It can be damn difficult to get a superb meal in a Chinese restaurant if you don’t speak Chinese or have a Chinese cohort to help steer the meal. If Kung Pao chicken is all you’re looking for, you’re in great shape. Otherwise ...

Nonetheless, I’ll be back to Chinese Gourmet Classic. But I won’t return at lunch, and I’ll stick close to the lobster and crab selection. If you don’t have a friend like Karen along with you, I’d advise you to do the same.

bill.addison@creativeloafing.com