NBC: THE AGE OF AQUARIUMS

NBC Seafood Restaurant, 404-A S. Atlantic Blvd., Monterey Park, (818) 282-2323. Open daily, 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Dim sum breakfast and lunch. Parking in lot. Visa and MasterCard accepted. Beer and wine. Dinner for two, food only, $25-$50.

As the number of fine Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles continues to increase, it is inevitable that they will be compared with those found in Hong Kong. Restaurants there still have the upper hand when it comes to freshness of ingredients, but beyond that the differences are largely matters of scale.

For one thing, when you open a menu in a Hong Kong restaurant, you are likely to see 20 or 30 dishes in every menu category. For another, many Hong Kong restaurants seat 500 or 600 people and have massive, beautifully equipped kitchens. In the United States, there are few Chinese restaurants half that size. The overhead is just too punishing.

Well, somebody forgot to bring that to the attention of Robert Lee, president of NBC Seafood Restaurant in Monterey Park, and the same man responsible for the very fine ABC Seafood Restaurant in Chinatown. Lee is determined to make a Hong Kong-type operation work in Los Angeles and has opened a restaurant seating 700 people, a restaurant whose main dining room has dimensions which would have suited it for the SS Titanic. Let’s wish this one a longer voyage.

The restaurant prides itself on fresh seafood, most of which is pulled straight from the tank, and prepared by a team of chefs with Hong Kong experience. There are so many aquariums that the management must have made a deal with Marineland. Separate tanks for lobster, crab, lake fish and ocean fish line the dining room, and a waiter told me that there was a tank of turtles in the kitchen. It seems that the turtles don’t like the brightness of the dining room.

But the dining room is more than merely bright--it’s almost phosphorescent. In addition to brass columns, hand-painted glass, a Gaudiesque pole dominating the entrance and crystal chandeliers hanging from the towering ceiling, the room has the shimmering feel of a giant speak-easy; you almost expect to see bubbles float past your table.

Waiters are what you see, though, and plenty of them, scurrying past your table with live fish squirming about in nets. You might see a manager standing at a table holding a pair of live crabs that wriggle to get free as he discusses the best manner in which to cook them.

Begin your meal with one of the soups, like a flavorful abalone and sliced chicken, or the special winter melon soup. The abalone is fresh and has a slightly smoky flavor. The winter melon soup, which must be ordered in advance, is made with a whole game hen and red dates.

Then dig into a platter of fresh seafood. We began with Canadian sea scallops served in the shell, and followed them up with a classic dish of pan-fried clams in a thick black bean sauce with green pepper and spring onion.

Eating steamed fish at NBC, which may be lake perch, rock cod, sand dab, covina or anything you bring them, is an absolute must. We had perch, steamed Cantonese style with ginger and garlic. The fish was like sweet butter, fresh from the churn, and the light sauce merely served to accentuate its freshness.

Hot pots are another specialty at NBC. I recommend the catfish with garlic. Chunks of catfish are pan-fried before stewing, then potted with sliced barbecued pork, black mushroom and braised tofu.

There is one slightly disappointing aspect of the restaurant, but the management swears it will soon be remedied. NBC keeps its best dishes under wraps, hiding them on a paste-up menu addition of hand-written, indecipherable characters. When you look at them, you just know you’re missing something.

Dishes like fun si loong he bo (Maine lobster hot pot with glass noodle and straw mushroom) or sai chap haap to ha (crystal shrimp with crispy walnut) are bound to delight Western diners. Why they are hidden is a mystery to me. When you inquire, you always get the same answer. All together now . . . you wouldn’t like it.

Perhaps that’s true of some dishes, like soft-shell turtle stew with yak choy (a medicinal herb), turtle meat, chicken feet and a touch of ng ka py (Chinese whiskey), but I personally found this rich soup to be the single best dish I ate at NBC. It is specials such as these that make a restaurant really exciting.

Right now, there is entirely too much similarity in the English menus of our leading Chinese restaurants. If NBC keeps its promise and starts regularly translating the special dishes, it will take a big step in bringing Hong Kong a little closer to Los Angeles.