RESTAURANT REVIEW:

My friends and I were unwittingly taken back in time a couple of weeks ago when we visited the retro Li’s Chinese Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge.

The restaurant is like the scene in “A Christmas Story” when Ralphie Parker and his family eat Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

None of the waiters sang for us, but there were plenty of people preparing their voices with cups of courage in the cocktail lounge.

Karaoke is a staple of the restaurant, as they offer it on Friday and Saturday nights, and apparently it is one of the most popular places to perform amateur crooning.

I prefer to chew on broken glass, so I made sure my friends and I were at the restaurant early and would be done well before the singing began.

The restaurant itself is entertainment enough. Walk into the lobby and you’ll see giant palm fans on the wall and murals of dragons and emperors.

The booths are what make the décor. On one side of the dining room are metallic-green booths so shiny they are almost blinding. If that doesn’t burn the corneas out of your eyes, the metallic-gold booths on the other side will. They are glittery, but there is something oddly attractive about them. They are so gaudy they are cool. You’ve entered a Chinese restaurant that is so retro, it is hip.

The same cannot be said about the food. This restaurant misses a great chance to be one of the best in the area. While the restaurant’s interior is bold and imaginative, the food is bland and unsatisfying. That could be easily fixed, however.

The meal begins with chow mein noodles and a dish of sweet-and-sour sauce and hot mustard. OK, that works for me; reminds me of every mom-and-pop place I ever ate at when I was a kid. Again, keeps with the retro theme.

The appetizers we had were simple and old-school: fried shrimp, barbecue rib, egg roll and rumaki. All of them were tasty.

It was the entrees that lost me. We had chicken chow mein, sweet-and-sour mandarin duck and Li’s special cashew chicken.

Of the three, the duck was the clear winner. It was pan-cooked with just enough sweet-and-sour sauce so that it wasn’t overpowering. It came with green bell peppers, carrots, onions and pineapple. There was a generous amount of duck, and the dish was flavorful.

The other two dishes, though, were absent of any taste. With the chow mein, I guess that could be expected given the nature of the entrée, but this one seemed especially bland. When you are cooking with chicken broth and your main ingredients are chicken breast, snow peas, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and bean sprouts, you can’t expect much. But all this dish needed was a little ginger and some more soy sauce and it would have been perfectly acceptable.

The cashew chicken was the most disappointing. I was expecting something rich in flavor, since it said it was a “special” dish. There was no hint of rice wine or sherry, which is customarily added, and even salt seemed to be absent. A lack of cashews didn’t help either.

I was left to look at the upholstery and wonder what could have been. The fixes to the food seem easy enough. If they are done, I will definitely be singing a new tune about this restaurant.

LI’S CHINESE RESTAURANT AND COCKTAIL LOUNGE

Address: 8961 Adams Ave., Huntington Beach

Phone: (714) 968-5050

Cuisine: Chinese

Specialty dish: One of the four combination dinners

Alcohol served: yes, full bar

Dress: Casual

Family friendly: yes, but no children’s menu

Credit cards accepted: American Express, Visa and MasterCard

Rating: ** 1/2

JOHN REGER reviews local restaurants for the Independent.