By Lorraine and Phil Shapiro

Beverly Hills has become a culinary crossroads, bringing Asian flavors and cooking techniques out of ethnic enclaves and into stylish dining rooms.

Past the plain-wrap exterior, Linq Restaurant & Lounge is the in-place to go on Third Street. Have a drink at the elevated bar and people watch (there’s a large celebrity clientele), then enjoy a candlelight dinner in one of four dining rooms linked by tall glass doors framed in ebony wood. By design, Linq unites fire, water and wood, reinforcing its dramatic light and dark contrasts and happy buzz with global fusion cuisine.

Since it opened a year ago January, this collaboration by owner, Mario Oliver (with supper clubs here and in France), interior designer Dodd Mitchell and Chef Andre Guerrero, Linq has become another link in the chain of Oliver restaurants.

Today, it’s easier to get a table at Linq, now serving lunch weekdays. The lunch menu recreates some top dinner specialties, beginning with sweet white corn soup and crisp-fried Filipino lumpia spring rolls with sweet-hot dipping sauce, and adding satisfying salads and entrees.

As a former UCLA art major, Guerrero combines exposure to cultural diversity in his native Philippines, experience in his family’s Cafe Le Monde in Glendale, and Californian creativity into architectural presentations. Tasty as well as striking, the roasted beet salad is a stack of deep-flavored sliced beets crowned by a golden ball of fried goatcheese, set off by splashes of balsamic vinaigrette. This unusual salad appeared at tables throughout the restaurant: it’s popular!

Guerrero knows his audience, pleasing them with the expected and the unanticipated filtered through his culinary sensibility. "A few of our dishes have Philippine roots, most show Mediterranean and other Asian influences, with mainstream appeal," says Guerrero. His signature soy-mirin glazed Chilean seabass on green beans with an a la mode topping of wasabi mashed potatoes has the punch of sweet and salt, $16.50 at lunch, $19.50 at dinner. Moroccan-seared chicken breast with mango-ginger chutney and couscous also has lusty flavors, from $10.50.

The wine list will knock you back on the white banquettes, with a large cellar of outstanding French and California wines. There are 22 by the glass. We found the 1999 Domaine Jean Paul Balland Loire Valley Sancerre has an pleasant honeyed fruit edge, at $32.

Pastry chef Jan Purdy shows her passion for sweets and baking with a inspired apple galette set in a moat of caramel sauce, accented with a melting scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

Appetizers range from $5.75 to $9.75 with roasted beets and corn soup at $6.75 and lumpia at $7.50, entrees range from $13.50 for a vegetarian stir-fry to $28 for filet mignon, desserts are $6.50.

The restaurant is open for lunch Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., dinner daily from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Linq Restaurant & Lounge
8338 West Third Street
Los Angeles
(323) 655-4555

azia, say asia, the Pan-Asian restaurant on Little Santa
Monica Boulevard, open about a year, combines cutting edge cuisine with the comforts of a casual modern restaurant, at moderate prices. With just two booths, they’re in demand.

Partners Vicky Mense, who brought us Xi’an, and Ron Magnin, son of Jerry Magnin of Spectrum Foods fame, offers a menu of mostly Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian and Indonesian influences with a touch of Californian. It’s not fusion cuisine, since each dish adheres mostly to the precepts of its country of origin. Says Magnin, "It’s a trip around the world for your taste buds."

Consultant chef Sang Yoon, formerly at Michael’s, now cooking at his Santa Monica "Father’s Office" restaurant and bar, designed the eclectic menu. Their sleek, stainless steel kitchen turns out a variety of dishes, one better than the next, without an executive chef.

Appetizers are an excellent introduction to their ambitious menu. Try the duck tacos, baby back ribs, Hawaiian ahi tartar (poke) and crispy tofu dice with a kicky honey-chile sauce.

New items are constantly being added to the already ambitious menu. Look for panko-crusted salmon or an Asian tapas platter. Tempura vegetarian sushi roll, playing fresh against cooked, and more traditional sushi now are being offered.

The entrees include up-dated versions of Chinese honey walnut shrimp bedded on sugar snap peas, Japanese teriyaki chicken breast over mushroom ragout, topped with crispy fried spinach, and shrimp pad Thai. Listed as an appetizer, grilled Japanese eggplant in sweet-spicy miso sauce also makes a nice side dish.

Noodle and rice bowls, made with white or brown rice, are recommended for lunch for hearty eating at reasonable prices. You can choose chicken, beef, seafood or vegetarian versions.

Magnin has put together a small, but well-chosen wine list of mostly Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, with the 1999 Clarksburg Bogle Sauvignon Blanc, at $17 a bottle, and Gekkeikan Sake, at $6 a flask, good choices. There’s a full bar, too. On Thursday from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., their Lotus Lounge features a special guest DJ each week and a late night appetizer menu with sushi.

Desserts depart slightly from the Far Eastern theme with, perhaps, fresh fruit pie, warm macadamia walnut tart, cinnamon caramel ice cream, green tea ice cream or a tart, refreshing ginger lemon sorbet.

Appetizers from $5.95, noodle and rice bowls from $6.95, main courses from $8.95, desserts from $2.95.

The restaurant is open for lunch Monday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., dinner daily 5 to 10 p.m.

azia
9601 Santa Monica Boulevard
Beverly Hills
(310) asia-599