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Panoramic Pagoda

Photo by Christopher Gardner

Chinese All-Stars: San Jose's Pagoda Restaurant offers the gamut of multi-regional Chinese cuisine.

The cuisines of China share top billing with the formal opulence of the Fairmont's Pagoda Restaurant

By Christina Waters

So attractive, so positively Architectural Digest, is the interior of the Pagoda Restaurant that it would surprise absolutely none of its designer patrons to find Marlene Dietrich and Orson Welles sipping tea in one of the tomato-red booths. Any Hong Kong art director would be proud to take credit for the mammoth faux marble columns that stand guard over monumental floral arrangements at the center of the room. Sleek black enamel wainscoting echoes the dramatic motif of oversized porcelain, and uniformed waiters--possibly the most flawless staff in town--are everywhere, unobtrusively, at once.

In short, Pagoda--one of the culinary options to be found within downtown San Jose's Fairmont Hotel--has dedicated itself to being so beautiful and elegant (yes, a bit stuffy for some tastes) that the menu has to work hard to keep up.

Fresh from assignment in the Gobi, my videographer companion Katya had pretty much decided to be unimpressed by it all until she observed the swiftness with which beautiful pots of tea and gleaming plates of condiments arrived. When inquiring about wines by the glass, we were told that one very nice chardonnay was available, whose actual name remains a mystery to both of us though it was repeated twice. Let's just call it the Pagoda "house chardonnay." And it was dry, fruity with a touch of oak, in all ways a perfect partner for the great wall of Chinese foods to come.

Toasted cardboard would probably taste just fine in surroundings this flashy, but Pagoda takes no chances and offers the gamut of multi-regional Chinese all-stars. Kung pao this, barbecued that, tea-smoked trout, salmon and duck--from Peking, Canton, Hunan, Mongolia and Szechuan come the classic gastronomic ideas that had our mouths watering in the shake of a chopstick.

First came small bowls steaming with soups: mine a distinctive hot and sour filled with plush tofu, strands of pork and tiny bay shrimp; Katya's an overly salty but otherwise well-made egg drop variety ($2.95 each).

As soon as we finished, the bowls were whisked away and new ones arrived, one bearing a succulent slab of tea-smoked salmon, and another with three pot stickers. Small black-and-gold porcelain saucers appeared filled with a vinegar and chile paste sauce and a hot mustard. At $5.25 for three wonton pastries, we felt the pot stickers were overly pricey, especially since the sauce provided was unduly acrid, and the wrappers themselves were pastily undercooked. The filling of vegetables and ground pork was just fine, though it deserved better treatment.

I liked the hauntingly tea-smoked salmon ($7.95) more than my companion; I ignored the fact that its resident sauce was indeed bland, and admired instead the amazing moistness of the salmon filet. The sauce was light and slightly lemony--it probably would have sprung to life had I added a few spoonfuls of the hot mustard. But then I wouldn't have been able to admire the effect of the delicate tea-smoking.

Entrees at Pagoda are served with flair, as dramatic to the eye as the surrounding blaze of decorator color. Katya's daily special, something called "Triple Crown Szechuan-style," was a rosy stir-fry of huge scallops, tender ribbons of calamari and chubby prawns, all tossed with red and green bell peppers, onions and rather aggressive wedges of serrano pepper ($12.95).

My companion loved the seafood generously contained in this pretty platter, and we both found ourselves sweating happily over the spiciness of this Szechuan dish. "It needs some more user-friendly vegetables," Katya finally said, observing that both of us were avoiding the aggressively large chunks of peppers and gravitating strictly toward the seafood.

My order of that old treasure of the Chinese repertoire--Oyster Sauce Beef with Chinese Broccoli ($12.50)--was easily the best version I'd ever tasted. Clouds of gingery, garlicky steam rose from the platter, mounded high with succulent strips of lean, high-quality beef and brilliant emerald broccoli--everything cooked just moments before and arriving at the table still perfectly al dente. In each morsel of buttery beef, the garlic, ginger and rice wine combined with pan juices to remind me just why Chinese cuisine is perhaps the one indispensable cookery on the planet. Certainly in this dish, the flavors more than matched Pagoda's splashy ambiance.

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Pagoda Restaurant

Address: Fairmont Hotel, 170 S. Market St., San Jose
Phone: 408/998-3937
Cuisine: Chinese
Extras: full bar, dazzling decor
Ambiance: sophisticated
Entrees: moderate/expensive


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