By Paul Reidinger

WHILE WE WAIT for imperial China to rise again on the world stage – and, by all the signs, we won't be waiting long – we might do well to reacquaint ourselves with what, at Xiao Loong Restaurant, is called "imperial Chinese cuisine." "Imperial" is a word with largely unfavorable connotations in our time; one thinks of huge Chryslers and the stupid wars in faraway deserts that must be fought to procure the oil to run them. As applied to food, though – or at any rate to Chinese food – "imperial" suggests the best, the freshest and tastiest, the stuff that was prepared for some long-ago grandee and his court. For even a splinter of such cooking to be available to us, here in our bubbling little cauldron of modern urban life, is a small proof of democracy in action.

Xiao Loong opened in the spring in one of those narrow but loftily airy spaces that line West Portal Avenue and help it keep its Main Street, USA character. Of the city's many neighborhood villages, West Portal (despite the persistent fog) is surely among the most attractive, having struck a balance between change and continuity that finds, on the one hand, the ageless Philosopher's Club just steps from the mouth of the Muni tunnel, and, on the other, a place like Xiao Loong that, with its youthful energy and high style, its cream and dark wood design scheme like that of a small art gallery, would not look out of place on Chestnut Street.

West Portal is underrated as a restaurant strip: Although even its best places tend to have a neighborhood rather than a destination air, the standard is high, and we should not forget that this was the place that gave birth to Fresca. Whether Xiao Loong follows a similar path is a story for a later year, but in the meantime there is no doubt that the restaurant raises the standard of Chinese – and all – cooking in its immediate environs.

The menu card notes that many of the recipes are drawn from the northerly regions of Beijing and Sichuan and tend to be quite spicy, but what one notices right off is that the food looks fresh. Before you touch the first prawn-and-chive-stuffed dumpling ($8.95 for 10) with your chopstick or raise a bite to your mouth, you notice the delicate, almost living texture of the pastry; the dumplings themselves, nestled on a platter, look like a colony of creatures just trawled from the sea. And their flavor, while mild (even northern Chinese chefs being capable of the occasional piano note), is deep and lasting; I can think of no higher praise to offer the kitchen, in fact, than to say that even such a potentially moribund dish as a simple lunchtime soup of shredded cabbage in a clear vegetable broth is full of flavor. Just as good is nori seaweed soup ($9 for four people), a potpourri of spinach, shrimp, shiitakes, seaweed, and whipped eggs in a reduced chicken broth.

A wealth of Crayola crayon colors also suggests vividness. Chicken chow fun ($6.95 at lunch), though consisting mainly of cream-colored noodles, a brownish sauce, and earth-colored shiitake mushroom caps, is enlivened by bright green lengths of split baby bok choy. As unforgettably green are snow-pea sprouts ($8.95) – something of a rarity in local Chinese restaurants, according to a connoisseur source – which resemble a cross between lawn clippings and seaweed salad and are healthily pumped up with garlic and scallions. Spicy chili prawns ($6.95 at lunch) bathe in a volcanic red, homemade chili sauce fortified by garlic and ginger.

For real chili-powered fireworks you will want one of the dry-fried dishes, whose principal ingredients, though flash-fried, aren't dry at all but napped with a honeylike, just slightly sweet sauce aflame with garlic, ginger, scallions, and red-pepper flakes. The chicken version ($9.95) features boneless chunks of batter-fried chicken and is perfect in its way; the calamari ($10.95) is diminished only by a slight toughness. Seafoodists would probably prefer the spicy lemon pepper prawns ($11.95), which arrive Burmese-style on a bed of sliced onions and feature a sauce similar to that of the dry-fried dishes but given a refreshing citrus pucker.

A conspicuous and improbable dud on the menu is the Xiao Loong beef ($9.95), a recommended specialty and presumptively bulletproof. The description sounded promising: sliced flank steak marinated in a garlic-pepper sauce, stir-fried, and plated on a bed of chopped cabbage with toasted sesame seeds. But the marinade turned out to taste mainly of soy sauce, and the cabbage was raw: a bare step up from iceberg lettuce. Even the color scheme – grayish meat, watery green cabbage – was drab.

Although the beef gave us all a slight shock of disappointment, it also reminded us of how easy it is for Chinese (or indeed any) restaurant cooking to fly off the rails if everything isn't fresh and the chef is indifferent – and of how fresh and marvelous pretty much everything else at Xiao Loong is. Imperialists and capitalist roaders alike will come away well pleased.

Xiao Loong Restaurant. 250 West Portal (at 14th Ave.), SF. (415) 753-5678. www.xiaoloong.com. Lunch: Tues.-Sat., 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Dinner: Sun. and Tues.-Thurs., 5-9 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-9:30 p.m. Beer and wine. American Express, MasterCard, Visa. Moderately noisy. Wheelchair accessible.