West End's China Star Review

"Do you have another menu?" I ask, looking around the room filled with Cantonese-speaking diners.

"You mean the Chinese menu?"

"Yes."

The waiter picks up the booklet, filled with beef and broccoli and hot and sour shrimp, eggrolls and shrimp toast, and ambles to the host stand. He returns with another booklet.

"Do you have anything special?"

Double blink. A long pause, and then the waiter says," The snow pea shoots are good tonight, and the whole fish."

I thank him and ask about wine and beer options.

"We have merlot and white zinfandel and Chinese beer."

I don’t see anyone drinking any alcohol in the room, which is crowded, painted red and green like tacky Christmas, with a large flat screen TV and karaoke machine in its center. Maybe the beer flows later. I can’t imagine that much wine flows with such limited options, but then, until someone opens a Chinese restaurant with a modern cocktail menu, one that eschews such syrupy staples of old school Americanized Chinese diners, such as the "Suffering Bastard" and also includes a full wine list, I don’t expect much cocktailing to happen here.

This is my fantasy.

The wildly seasoned dishes of the various regions of China are perfect partners for wine. Full Kee tried it once. About six years ago, they added a legion of Alsatian whites and German Rieslings to their list. The expanded wine list languished next to the steaming hot pots that go so well with pinot gris and pinot blanc.

But, with the expansion of upscale Indian joints in Short Pump, I think the timing may be right for authentic Chinese places, such as China Star, Full Kee and MaMa Wok to try again. This time, with some large-bowled wine glasses on the tables and maybe a suggestive decanter or two in the wait stations.

Until then, I order a Tsingtao beer to chase the heat of the Sichuan and Hunan options at China Star.

The menu is a hodgepodge of regional specialties, double fried eggplant (my favorite dish here — vinegary, spicy and crisp-shelled), pork bung and pan-fried scallion cakes.

I start with two fried vegetable cakes, $3.25, each the size of a Hot Pocket, filled with egg, scallions and rice noodles. The exterior is browned and dotted with hot sauce, giving it the appearance of a tanned and leathered breast. Its contents spill out steaming and in search of chili oil and soy sauce.

The snow pea leaves,$9.99, a fresh pile of greens, have yellowed around the edges, like a book left at a beach house, and though overcooked, are satisfyingly garlicky and mild.

Onto the spicy pig ear, $4.95, and the desire for something sweet, like a glass of Riesling, returns. The plate is swimming in red chili, black pepper and spices that remind me of donuts in Pennsylvania Dutch country. The Pickup Sticks of pig, fleshy but firm in the center, are a lot for one to eat. I wish that I had come with a group and sat at one of the round tables in the middle of the dining room. Two bites are enough of this rich dish — piles of belly easing, spring scented cilantro aside.

One dish that intrigues me at China Star is the spicy Sichuan beef noodles soup, $6.95. It’s as thick and sticking as napalm. The dish grows panic-inducing hot the closer to the bottom of the bowl the spoon gets. This dish is one to overcome.

When my pork bung with special hot sauce, $9.99, hits the table, its serving dish, underlined with lit Sterno to keep it warm, draws guests out of their shells. An Asian lady walks over to my table and compliments my choice, but looks shocked that I ordered the dish.

"I love this dish, but he won’t touch it, "she says, motioning to an older white guy at her table.

"It’s cultural, what you like. What you grew up on affects your preferences. You don’t like liver and onions," the gentleman says to her, teasingly.

She shivers in disgust at the thought of his liver and onions while inhaling the ginger from my dish.

Another customer enters the room, which is surprisingly busy for a Tuesday night (someone is having a birthday) and the bouncing orange flame under my dish catches his eye.

"What is that?"

"Pork intestine with red tofu."

"What does it taste like?"

"Deflated dimsung wrappers, earthy wonton skins, lemongrass, ginger, leeks. The red tofu, here, that reminds me of liver."

I instinctively look behind me at the lady who complimented my order and see her wince.

The waiter walks over to us and says, "It’s clean, my mother washes the intestines six times, front to back, back to front. It’s very clean. It’s delicious.

"Yes," I say, "Everything is…but I wish you had a wine list."

China Star Restaurant **1/2

3423 Cox Road, Tower Plaza

(804) 968-5989

What’s in the Stars:

0—don’t go

*-average

** above average

*** very good

**** excellent dining experience

Imagine learning to process caviar in Russia after a childhood of Cup-a-Soup. Needless to say, Varmit Pickeral was inspired. Thus began 20 years of restaurant gypsy-hood, beginning with Varmit’s first job as a dishwasher in an institutional kitchen and then trying out most any job Varmit could get in the hospitality industry, including; NC BBQ pit line-cook, cheese steward at Artisanal in Manhattan, grape picker, and specialty buyer for Balducci’s Food Lover’s Market in Northern Virginia.