Fusion Confusion -- Seattle's New Pan-Asian Restaurants Have Adventuresome Menus, But How Do They Compare With Traditional Cuisine When It Comes To Taste?

It was the duck that did it.

Served at Wild Ginger, a popular restaurant near Pike Place Market, the order of half-duck was everything you could possibly want in a cooked bird: delicately flavored, succulent and crispy-skinned. It was also pricey: "Geez," we thought, "we could have gotten a WHOLE duck for less money in the International District."

It's a nagging feeling that lingers like an aftertaste for lovers of Asian food who venture into Seattle's new pan-Asian restaurants.

Those restaurants, sometimes labeled fusion, are tied by at least one common ingredient: menus made up of reinterpreted classic Asian dishes. Some, like Roy's Seattle, emphasize experimentation - say, tossing in radicchio with Japanese soba noodles - while others, like Wild Ginger, take the best-of-Asia approach.

In one place, and often in one dish, the flavors of the great Asian cuisines mingle. Indian chutneys pair with Thai curries, Vietnamese satays with Chinese noodles. All served in upscale surroundings, with upscale prices.

The restaurants are, in effect, a cultural Cuisinart, and they've started a food trend that's wasabi hot. But as we dug through that duck, we continued to muse: Beyond the showy presentations and fancy ingredients, how do the trendies stack up against traditional restaurants of the ID when it comes to what should matter most: taste?

The tug of history intruded on our musings: Ever since the first Chinese immigrants were brought to this side of the Pacific for cheap labor, Asian food has been interpreted and reinterpreted by or for the dominant culture. "Chop suey," after all, never existed in the old country.

So is fusion a '90s nouveau chop suey, as authentic as Uncle Ben's rice? Could the new restaurants be playing a role equivalent to Pat Boone "covering" Tutti-Frutti - offering an alternative for those too timid to venture out of their neighborhood and comfort zone?

Or maybe traditional dishes and approaches simply have crossed that hazy line between classic and old.

Inquiring stomachs demand to know.

To cut through the fusion confusion, we decided to check out four widely hailed downtown restaurants: Blowfish Asian Cafe, ObaChine Asian Restaurant and Satay Bar, Roy's Seattle, and Wild Ginger Asian Cafe & Satay Bar. We selected dishes from each menu that had clear links to items in traditional restaurants, then headed to the International District, less than a mile away, seeking their closest counterparts. (One caveat: Because we sought similar dishes, we didn't necessarily include the "signature dishes" of a particular restaurant.)

Over the course of five days we ate more than 40 dishes at a dozen restaurants, jotting notes between nibbles. Yes, a really tough assignment.

We were assisted and ably guided in our culinary expedition by Maxine Chan, a longtime ID activist and part-time caterer specializing in pan-Asian cuisine. Chan grew up in a Chinese restaurant family and is an occasional lecturer and consultant on food and culture.

Taste, of course, is highly subjective. What is a Japanese delicacy to one person is uncooked fish to another. Then there's the matter of upbringing. As lifelong admirers of Asian food (all three of us were raised on it), we knew it was clearly the trendy restaurants that had to prove themselves to us. But winning over new customers is a challenge that all new restaurants take on with every diner.

Overall, what we found was a smorgasbord (to mix cultural metaphors).

When it came to decor and ambiance, the downtown restaurants had the clear advantage. Nothing in the ID matches the visual opulence of ObaChine or the understated elegance of Wild Ginger.

Service is also generally more attentive at the downtown restaurants, with wait staffs at ObaChine and Wild Ginger knowledgeable about ingredients and preparation. (In one Chinese restaurant in the ID, Chan recalled, she had to push to identify an ingredient in a tofu dish; the answer came back: "cheese." After she persisted, the waitress came back again, with amplified information: "yellow cheese.")

It's also true that language differences can make communication beyond the basics more of a challenge at some ID restaurants.

But as Asian Americans, we found it more than slightly odd having Caucasian waiters explain "family style" eating to us. It became a running theme in our outings. At Blowfish, our waitress asked us if we'd eaten there before, and, when we said we hadn't, told us "the way people usually do things here" was to share dishes. At ObaChine, the waiter (who asked us, "Are you going to share?") inquired of a table of eight business people: "Is the family-style thing working for you?"

And although otherwise impeccably decorated - if California-flashy -ObaChine's perfection was marred by a touch likely to offend some Asian- American sensibilities. A large framed poster behind the hostess stand depicts a Chinese coolie figure complete with pigtail and exaggerated slanty eyes. Perhaps this is someone's misguided attempt at "camp," but it's a drawing straight out of racist turn-of-the century depictions of the Chinese.

"Would you put Sambo up there?" Chan asked as she noticed the poster on our way out. "Let's get real."

There were no clear winners when it came to food.

At the downtown restaurants, the dishes were always served with a keen eye toward presentation. Wild Ginger's crab was cut up, then reassembled with the shell on top. At Hing Loon, the crab was simply laid out on a plate.

At Roy's, bouquets of kaiware radish sprouts topped entrees, which typically were served stacked vertically on the plate, leading one diner to ask a waitress whether the chef might have a Napoleon complex.

Of the restaurants we tried, Roy's tried hardest to push the fusion envelope - with results veering from harmonic convergence to culture clash.

Most of the others followed Wild Ginger's lead by reworking traditional recipes. The biggest disappointments were dishes that promised something innovative through the use of more expensive ingredients - like Dungeness crab shumei or duck spring rolls - only to produce bland concoctions. Why bother?

Even everyday classics, such as won-ton soup and phad thai, sometimes proved a challenge. ObaChine's watery won-ton soup was the worst we have ever had.

ObaChine chef John Trejo said that the restaurant is now on its fifth recipe for phad thai. The earlier ones were either too sweet, too spicy or too bland. "But I think we've got it now," he said. "It's not too sweet and there's just a hint of lime juice and fish sauce."

There were also some dishes that clearly surpassed the originals. (Our top picks: Roy's seafood Thai curry lemon-grass soup; ObaChine's Chinese-style pork spare ribs; Wild Ginger's green beans Sichuan style). And the new restaurants, unlike some of their International District brethren, also tended to be more careful in the use of fat.

Traditional restaurants, in the meantime, find that standby recipes sometimes "evolve." For example, Kozo Nakayama, the 51-year-old owner of Maneki, the oldest Japanese restaurant in Seattle (operating since 1911 in the same ID spot), said that customers sometimes ask for butter sauce on seafood.

"Japanese food is more simple; we don't use butter," he said. "I want to see the customer happy, so we do it. But it doesn't feel good."

But when he eats out, he also has to do some adjusting. At a banquet dinner at a Japanese-fusion restaurant, he was served a succession of entrees. Throughout the meal he kept expecting the servers to bring rice, but they never did. After the meal he headed back to the ID just to get some steamed rice.

"I couldn't believe that we didn't get rice," he said. "It just didn't seem complete."

We had expected the traditional ID restaurants to offer the most food for the least money, and for the most part, they were the better penny-pincher choice.

(And you can do even better ordering special banquet-style meals: The three of us spent $71 for five dishes at a lunch at Wild Ginger - appetizer, two vegetables, duck and crab - but at China Gate, we could have gotten the $78 dinner meant to feed six to eight people, including prawns in the shell, champagne pork chops, two roasted squabs, pan-fried live crab, and clams in black bean sauce.)

But there were some surprises, too: Blowfish's lunch prices weren't wildly different from ID restaurants, and whole crab at Hing Loon and Wild Ginger came within $2 of each other.

Side dishes and appetizers, however, tended to be considerably cheaper in the ID. And you might even get free tea.

Clientele, on the other hand, wasn't much of a surprise. Although both trendies and traditionals enjoy "cross-over" clients who eat at one or the other, depending on mood, money, and whom they're trying to impress, for the most part traditional restaurants drew mostly Asian crowds (with the notable exception of Tai Tung at lunch), while fusions usually drew largely non-Asian clienteles.

Familiarity, it seems, spells comfort. Though many of the new restaurants have Asians on staff or even at the helm, the trendies seem to offer the possibility to non-Asians of an adventure with a guide who speaks their language. Chef John Trejo notes that at ObaChine, probably 30 percent of diners ask the restaurant to choose dishes for them. And there's the "kung pao contingent" who insist on ordering tried-and-true dishes even when they're not on the menu. (Yes, the restaurant obliges them.)

When all the plates were cleared and the leftovers packed, we concluded that the new culinary melting pots do have more to offer than faux pho. We'd pay the higher prices without grousing for some dishes where we thought it was justified. We'd go, too, if we were flush and just felt like being fawned over in plush surroundings.

But in side-by-side comparisons, the traditional dishes proved more often the winners - either because they tasted better, or they tasted about the same but were cheaper. The score: 8 for traditionals and 4 for trendies, with 5 dishes rated as "ties."

Most of the time, we can do without the radicchio. ----------------------------------------------------------------- MENU MATCHUPS

Time to dig in.

After recently eating our way through four of downtown's best-known fusion or pan-Asian restaurants, we went to the International District seeking the closest counterparts of the dishes we'd had. Then we compared the trendy dish with the traditional version.

What follows is a list of the dishes, along with some brief table-side commentary on the culinary combatants.

These aren't, however, intended as restaurant reviews. While The Seattle Times' formal reviews are based on repeated visits, our bite-size assessments are based on a single visit. We dined and dashed. Ate and ran.

And no, we're not professional reviewers (well, Maxine Chan, our culinary accompanist, is, but not us two reporters). We came to the table, as it were, with a lifetime of eating Asian food behind us, graduating early on from Gerber's to humbaos.

Let the food fights begin . . .

APPETIZERS ObaChine's Dungeness shumei ($7.95 for 5) vs. Sun Ya's shrimp har gow ($2.25 for 4)

Fancy is as fancy tastes: The crab in the shumei was just lost; prawn in the traditional har gow made for a tastier seafood stuffing. (Har gow seemed a fairer comparison to make, since traditional shumei is mostly pork.)

Winner: Traditional

Blowfish's five-spice roasted duck spring rolls ($5.80 for 3) vs. Sun Ya's spring roll ($1.80 for 3)

Another case of a wasted high-end ingredient - in this case, duck in the Blowfish rolls; the only flavor in these came from the shiitake mushrooms. BF's rolls, standing on end, looked prettier than Sun Ya's slapdashed flat on the plate. But Sun Ya's pork version, with bean thread noodles and black fungus, had more flavor, though it failed the grease test, turning a napkin translucent in 3 seconds.

Winner: Tie

Blowfish's chicken potstickers ($4.80 for 5) vs. Maneki's gyoza ($4.95 for 6)

If you like your gyoza sweet and light, go for Blowfish's. But Maneki's pan-fried version had more flavor and you get a bit more.

Winner: A tie.

Wild Ginger's peasant's satay ($2.25 each) vs. Bangkok House's chicken satay ($4.95 for 5; lunch prices and portions)

The chicken tasted dry at Bangkok House but was even drier at Wild Ginger. Though it's pretty hard to go wrong with peanut sauce, WG's complex version boiled down to all heat and little flavor. At a fraction of the price, BH's more typically sweet, standard recipe was the better bargain.

Winner: Traditional

SOUP ObaChine's seafood won ton soup and baby bok choy ($3.95) vs. Hing Loon's won ton dumpling soup ($3.50)

Sure, ObaChine's came in a lovely, small, dove-gray, cracked-ceramic bowl, but during our visit, the soup was cold, the baby bok choy raw (and suspiciously grown-up) and the won tons partly raw. Reheating didn't help much. Chan: "It tastes like they opened a can of Swanson's, added some soy sauce, and voila!" Hing Loon's was minus the veggies, but the sweet broth had good flavor - and the serving was much larger than OC's.

Winner: Traditional

Roy's seafood Thai curry lemon-grass soup ($5.25) vs. Bangkok House's tom kah talay ($8.50)

Bangkok House's seafood-rich soup was good but didn't stand a chance against Roy's sinfully rich and creamy version, even at double the portion. This time complexity works. We were a little in the dark about what made Roy's soup so yummy (reduction of the coconut cream? The mix of lobster, oyster, white fish, royal purple basil?), but we'd be happy to keep plumbing the depths for clues.

Winner: Trendy

SIDE DISHES ObaChine's Chinese-style pork spare ribs ($9.25 for four) vs. Kau Kau's barbecued pork spareribs ($5.50 for about five chopped ribs)

ObaChine's meaty, lean ribs were some of most wonderful we've ever encountered. Even the curls of red beets that topped the dish were good. Oink. At Kau Kau, the sweetly sauced ribs were chopped into tasty, bite-size chunks; not for the fat averse.

Winner: Trendy

Roy's crispy tofu and chilled somen noodle salad ($5.50) vs. Maneki's zaru soba ($5.95) and age-dashi tofu ($3.95)

You play Russian roulette with the unevenly distributed wasabi in Roy's somen, which was otherwise flavorless, getting no assistance from the chichi salad greens or two Styrofoam-dry tofu triangles.

In Maneki's bento box, noodles never looked so neat. The dipping sauce for the noodles was simple and simply good, as were the three fat pillows of melt-in-your-mouth tofu.

Winner: Traditional

Wild Ginger's green beans Sichuan style ($9.95 on the lunch fresh sheet) vs. China Gate's Chinese long beans Sichuan style ($7.50)

China Gate's were yummy, if a bit oily, with nice heat from jalapeno and red chili pepper, but Wild Ginger's, with their unusual, crunchy-snappy texture (rather than long beans' usual rubber-squeaky bite) zinged up with pickled radish and tiny bits of pork, are in a class by themselves.

Winner: Trendy

Wild Ginger's gailan in ginger oyster sauce ($9.25 on the lunch fresh sheet) vs. Honey Court's Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce ($5.25)

There's a dash of brandy in Wild Ginger's, but we tip toward the unadulterated taste of a good, intense oyster sauce. WG's dish included some bitter vegetables, while Honey Court's were fresh with no pucker. With portions about equal, HC is cheaper, too.

Winner: Traditional

Blowfish's rice noodles with chicken and Thai basil ($8.70) vs. Bangkok House's phad thai ($4.95 lunch)

Both phad thais were generous and ordinary renditions of this standard. Blowfish's was a touch overcooked and a little salty; Bangkok House's a little cheaper with more colorful vegetables. Neither, though, was particularly memorable.

Winner: Tie.

RICE Blowfish's shrimp and Chinese sausage fried rice ($8.80) vs. China Gate's fried rice ($6.50)

Blowfish upscales its dish with jasmine rice and garnishes with banana leaf. But the dish we tried was swimming in grease. China Gate's version was lighter and greaseless - and two dollars cheaper.

Winner: Traditional

ENTREES Wild Ginger's fragrant duck ($7.95 at lunch for quarter duck or $14.75 at dinner for half duck) vs. Honey Court's barbecued duck ($6.95 for half duck or $13.50 for whole duck)

Honey Court's is classic traditional roast duck: The meat is fine, but this dish is really about skin - crispy-oily, glistening honey brown, with a thick pad of flavorful fat underneath. (If you're going to eat duck, this is no time to get squeamish about fat.) Wild Ginger's doesn't scream heart attack quite so loudly; the skin is crispy with star anise and cinnamon, but less overtly fatty. Moister meat, but a lot less of it than HC. Served like Peking duck, with buns and plum sauce. A toss-up depending on your taste, pocketbook and guilt.

Winner: Tie.

Wild Ginger's wok-fried crab with ginger and scallion (depends on market price; we paid $26.95 for 2 1/2 pounds) vs. Hing Loon's crab with ginger and green onion ($24.85 for 2 1/2 pounds)

Similarly delish; $2 cheaper at Hing Loon, where you pick your own from the tank. Wild Ginger provides hot towels and a bowl of rosehips and hibiscus tea water for greasy fingers; Hing Loon offers

extra napkins and brown tea water. WG also gives you a poker tool to ferret out meat. At HL it's your fingers and chopsticks. WG's presentation was prettier (the dish looks ready to crawl with the crab shell on top). HG's was practical - the good-eatin' legs on top.

Winner: Tie.

Roy's miso Maine lobster stir fry, with rice paper chips and snow peas ($8.25) vs. China Gate's whole lobster and yee mein noodles ($12.80; it was priced by weight; this was about a pound of lobster)

Roy's looked elegant with its garnish of kaiware radish sprouts and ginger curls sprinkled with black sesame seeds.

But China Gate's whole lobster, featured on special, was a slurp feast. Fresh from the tank, stir-fried in the shell. No finger bowl, no pick - be prepared to get down and dirty.

Winner: Traditional.

ObaChine's green curry shrimp ($14.95) vs. Bangkok House's green curry shrimp ($6.50 dinner or $4.95 lunch, comes with soup and rice)

ObaChine's was more than twice the price, but we liked the East Indian-plus-Thai twist and side dishes that came with the curry - fresh mango apple chutney and cucumber raita - and stewier texture and complex flavors. The Bangkok House prawns were more tender.

Winner: Trendy

Roy's miso seared king salmon in black bean oyster sauce ($17.25) vs. Tai Tung's steamed king salmon ($9.75)

"All hat, no cowboy." We assumed with Roy's salmon that black bean meant the classic Chinese fermented black bean, but it turned out to mean little Mexican-style beans. The tower of food rested on a pool of French-style buttery cream sauce. Sandwiched somewhere in the middle was baby bok choy and the salmon, topped by a wild spray of fried saifun noodles. Sounds weird? Tasted weird. Instead of working together, the assorted ingredients simply added up to a discordant combination. Chan: "Culture clash." The less fussy traditional preparation - a little scallion and ginger - wasn't particularly exciting, but in this case we vote for voluntary simplicity.

Winner: Traditional

DESSERT ObaChine's coconut rice pudding napoleon, with mango and papaya ($5.50) vs. China Gate's coconut pudding ($1.95)

There's really no comparison when it comes to dessert. You just won't find the elaborate, sweet concoctions you can get in the trendies in the traditional restaurants. Like ObaChine's rice pudding sandwiched between two crunchy coconut cookie things and pooled in creamy sauce - wow! You can get toned-down versions of that sort of thing in the ID's Hong-Kong style bakeries, like A Piece of Cake and Cake House. But restaurants are more likely to offer something like China Gate's coconut pudding: The quivering, off-white colored cubes may look unappealing, but for those who like it light, they're sweet and refreshing.

Winner: We're full. You decide.

Tale of 3 Baos

DAINTY ObaChine ($4.50 for 3, $5 a dinner): Dainty buns, with spongy breading and goopy barbecued pork filling with no fat globules. "You can eat a whole order and not feel guilty," says chef John Trejo.

AVERAGE Sun Ya ($1.80 for 3): Not that much bigger in diameter than ObaChine's, but the denser, cakelike breading breaks open into peaks on top. "Like I remember growing up in Hong Kong," says Chan fondly. Filling is drier, sweeter, redder and fattier than the other baos.

ON STEROIDS Tai Tung (90 cents each): "It's on steroids, compared to ObaChine," commented Chan, noting that two of ObaChine's boutique baos could fit into one of Tai Tung's grapefruit-size versions. Similar filling to Sun Ya's. Fragrant, fluffy breading with just the right hint of sweetness. The best deal. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Traditional vs Trendy, Round II

Food isn't the only thing that defines a restaurant. There are also the little touches that add up to ambiance. Here's our cheeky look at some things that just "say" traditional, followed by their trendy counterpart:

Cooks/Chefs

Tacky decor/Campy decor

White leftover boxes/Black leftover boxes

Daily specials handwritten on sheets taped to the wall/Daily specials on printed menu inserts

Chinese deities displayed for good luck/Buddha displayed for decoration

Portraits of the king and queen of Thailand/Framed ancestral Chinese paintings

Chinese characters in menu translations/Faux Chinese characters as door handles

White steamed rice/California brown cracked rice

Kitchens as kitchens/Kitchens as performance space

WHAT YOU'RE NOT LIKELY TO FIND IN A TRADITIONAL RESTAURANT:

Complimentary tampons in the women's bathroom; chatty waiters; pickled vegetables presented as "palate cleansers"; dishes described as "ethereal" and "exotic"; menus in which the chefs get prominent billing.

WHAT YOU'RE NOT LIKELY TO FIND IN A TRENDY RESTAURANT:

Karaoke; Chinese lanterns with red tassels; condiments in plastic bottles; crab tanks with the approximate murkiness of the ocean floor; electric incense sticks; and alas, fortune cookies.

Chopsticks Test:

When eating at a Japanese restaurant, the satisfying snap of chopsticks cleanly pulled apart is the starting gun that signals eating is about to begin. Chopsticks that separate into splintery sticks are false starts that only delay the race for the plates.

Blowfish, with chopsticks neatly tucked in napkin rings along with linen-wrapped silverware, wins our best-chopsticks award. Best of East and West, plus the sticks split beautifully. No need to rub, campfire style, to shed the splinters - a habit, by the way, that would get you dirty looks in Japan, where it's considered an insult.

Rice Test:

At ObaChine, steamed jasmine rice can be yours for $2.50.

At Honey Court, $1.50 gets you a generous portion of long-grain rice in a beat-up red plastic Thermos.

Free rice, once a given at a Chinese restaurant, is a rarity these days.

But at Wild Ginger, a large bowl of brown or jasmine rice, is, indeed, complimentary.

Tea Test:

But there is free tea.

Honey Court, Hing Loon and Tai Tung all had complimentary tea.

At ObaChine, a see-through French press with a mug's worth of jasmine tea cost $3.50.

Roy's offered only tea packets.

Ambiance In a Nutshell

China Gate: Straight out of a Chinese opera

Hing Loon: Just the food, ma'am

Tai Tung: A look that's aged and ageless

Roy's: Tropical old boy's club lounge

ObaChine: Screams money

Wild Ginger: East meets Northwest

Numbers and Addresses:

Blowfish Asian Cafe, 722 Pine St. in the Paramount Hotel, 206-467-7777

ObaChine Asian Restaurant and Satay Bar, 1518 Sixth Ave. 206-749-9653

Roy's Seattle, 1900 Fifth Ave. in the Westin Hotel, 206-256-ROYS (7697)

Wild Ginger Asian Restaurant & Satay Bar, 1400 Western Ave. 206-623-4450

Sun Ya Restaurant, 605 Seventh Ave. S. 206-623-1670

Kau Kau Barbecue, 656 S. King St. 206-682-4006

Tai Tung Restaurant, 655 S. King St. 206-622-7372

Hing Loon Seafood Restaurant, 628 S. Weller St. 206-682-2828

Bangkok House, 606 S. Weller St. 206-382-9888

The Maneki Restaurant, 304 Sixth Ave. S. 206-622-2631

Honey Court Seafood Restaurant, 516 Maynard Ave. S. 206-292-8828

The China Gate, 516 Seventh Ave. S. 206-624-1730