Green Tea is a restaurant in three parts. One part is a sophisticated menu of Hong Kong fare that probably delights the Chinese clientele who dine here. Another is a largely retro menu that one of the owners calls "Polynesian food." The third is a sushi menu (the restaurant has a bar, where you can order sushi, if you don't want to sit at one of the tables). I went for the Chinese fare, not the sushi. My advice is: Stick to the Hong Kong food, which is listed on a separate sheet as "weekly specials."
One night, we ate nothing but specials, including salt and pepper shrimp ($12.95), which were delectable. You just munch right through the salty, crisp shells and tails. Chicken with lily bulb ($12.95) looked plain at first -- morsels of white meat with dozens of curved white flakes that taste like a cross between an onion and a potato. In fact, these are the bulbs of the lily plant, which, when stir-fried, separated into wonderful little tastes.
Whole yellow fish ($14.95) was beautiful, bathed in a dark mushroom sauce, the flesh aromatic and flaky. "Three cups" chicken ($13.95) arrived in a small metal chafing dish set over a burner. The golden meat was simmering in a sauce that seemed lifted straight out of a French coq au vin rouge. It wasn't a Western red wine made from grapes, but rather a Chinese wine made from rice. It was the best dish on the table. No, perhaps the whole fish was. We spooned garlicky pea greens ($10.95) onto our plates, along with tangy and spicy green beans ($7.95) from the regular menu and we were delighted with the array. It was the sort of food you see Chinese customers in Chinatown eating and all you want to do is tell your waiter to bring you what they've ordered.
Green Tea is owned by Sunny Wong and his partner, Pandora Law, along with the two chefs. Wong worked for Billy Tse's restaurant in the North End and had been at the Boston Harbor Hotel for many years. Law is a former owner of Shanghai restaurant in Chinatown. One of the chefs had retired from Shanghai but came back to join this team. The service is incredibly attentive and solicitous.
The partners set up the two-tiered Chinese menu intentionally, Wong says. They wanted to cook for Newton's Chinese population, but they also thought they should include the type of dishes Americans love.
Hence, King Tu pork ribs ($9.95) from the regular menu. These were deep-fried pieces of pork and vegetables in a cloying sweet-and-sour tomato sauce that reminded us of the Chinese food of our childhood. Mongolian beef ($10.95) had not been fried beyond recognition; its oyster sauce was good but unremarkable. Crispy fish steak ($12.95) had more fried fish and more sweet red sauce.
Even the salt and pepper squid ($9.95) -- chubby matchsticks of tender fish -- were not as perfectly crisp as the shrimp were on the earlier visit.
A third meal brought our friendly waiter from the second visit. He wanted to know if we wanted the same beer as the previous time. When I asked if the tofu in one of the dishes was fried (I got worried about getting one of the sweet red sauces again), he asked if I wanted it steamed. I said it didn't matter how it was cooked, as long as it wasn't deep-fried with a red sauce. He took off quickly and reappeared with a plate of tofu, red peppers, broccoli, water chestnuts -- very plain and steamed -- that had no taste at all.
Sizzling sliced chicken ($8.50), with water chestnuts and broccoli in a light, pale sauce, needed a boost of something, which it got when moo shu pork ($7.95) arrived. Its cabbage, lily flowers, and tree ears were dark and rich, delicious plain or wrapped in pancakes.
Wong says that the menu has to appeal to all ages, that there's a generation in Newton who likes Polynesian food, as he calls his sweet-and-sour concoctions. But as the specials become popular, they'll be added to the regular menu a few at a time, he says. Will they get lost among the Polynesian fare? Instead of glancing at someone's plate and announcing, "Bring me that," we can just tell the waiter we want the real Chinese food. 