<a href="http://www.accessatlanta.com/dining/restaurants/156831/DetailedList.jspd?activity=156831">Cafe 101</a>

The vast regionality of a cuisine that feeds more than 1 billion people gets left behind when Chinese food is translated into the American diet. In his massive tome "The Oxford Companion to Food" (Oxford University Press, $65), Alan Davidson offers China no less than eight entries of explanation for a cuisine he says is based on the "opposition/correlation between what is necessary and what is superfluous."

For the Chinese, the necessary is rice or other cereal foods; the superfluous is meat and vegetables. Yet in the United States, "Chinese" means to most people a dish of stir fried rice or Peking duck (which is an actual Chinese dish, contrary to popular belief).

Chinese restaurants in the States haven't made this point any easier to digest: Menus here often offer six-pages of upwards of a hundred dishes or so, prompting the old joke that there are really only four Chinese dishes — they're just called a hundred different things on a menu.

Cafe 101 on Buford Highway is arguably one of the best restaurants of its kind in the Atlanta area, but it falls prey to some Chinese restaurant fallbacks: The menu is long, a little overbearing, and includes Chinese, Chinese-American and Szechuan dishes. Many are exceptional, most are better than average. Nothing is super hot — even the Szechuan dishes, such as dan dan noodles, lack the fire for which they are so often touted. On a first visit, your mind might be blown away by how savory and delightful a messy plate of shrimp in garlic sauce with dried Chinese black mushrooms is.

Or that, however mild, those dan dan noodles are a big bowl of stick-to-your-ribs, satisfying food, though they are nothing like the chili-and-Szechuan peppered souped-up version you may be used to. The classic Chinese New Year staple of potstickers appear somewhat happenstance (albeit appropriately) in the "noodle" section of Cafe 101's menu, and they are a find — plump, pan-seared dumplings filled with minced pork register a thumbs up from all around the table, especially when dipped in the restaurant's oddly sweet soy-and-vinegar sauce peppered with bits of scallion.

Subsequent visits that delve deeper into this savory Szechuan rabbit hole will leave you with the notion that not everything here is as exemplary — za jiang noodles, for instance, are a bit blah, lacking the rich, layered flavor from fermented black bean sauce. Chinese okra, though in a sumptuous shrimp sauce, is almost too bitter to eat.

Then there are the dishes that fall somewhere in between: funky Chinese-American pineapple shrimp, with its deep-fried, wondrous orbs of fat shrimp and sweet pineapple (both of which are indiscernible until you bite into them); or cashew chicken, a dish of undecided origin, part Chinese, part American, and rife with bits of stir fried chicken and lots of cashews in oyster sauce.

Cafe 101's unprecedented contribution to the area's Chinese restaurant scene is its offering of shaved ices drenched in sweetened condensed milk and topped with sliced fruit — a version with strawberries, kiwi and mango is a meal unto itself and a refreshing end (or beginning; I could start and stop with it) to the meal.

Much has been made of the restaurant's interior — a mishmash of copper and collage, with the wall separating the kitchen from the dining room pasted with square images of '70s album covers, tabloid headlines and bits of nudie art. Admittedly, the decor is far more involved than what's usually found along this corridor of Buford Highway.

But it's the solid food, strangely unknown yet oddly familiar, that has given the restaurant its rep for what is necessary, and — luckily for us — what is superfluous.

---

Food: Chinese

Service: Friendly and helpful, from navigating the menu to teaching how to say "hello" in Mandarin. Everything comes from the kitchen promptly, and arrives at the table hot (unless it's a cold dish).

Address, telephone: 5412 Buford Highway, Doraville, 770-458-8883

Price range: $ - $$

Credit cards: Visa, Mastercard

Hours of operation: Open for lunch, 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday-Friday. Dinner, 5-9:30 p.m. Sunday-Monday; Wednesday-Thursday; 5-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday (closed Tuesday).

Vegetarian dishes: Sauteed Chinese okra, basil eggplant, tofu and Chinese celery

Best dishes: Dan dan noodles, hot and sour soup, pot stickers, Chinese stir-fried string beans, shrimp in garlic sauce, shaved ices with fresh fruits

Children: Yes

Parking: Adjacent lot

Reservations: No

Wheelchair access: Yes

Smoking: No smoking

Noise level: Medium

Patio: No

Takeout: Yes

Website: www.cafe101atlanta.com

KEY TO RATINGS
Outstanding: Sets the standard for fine dining in the region.
Excellent: One of the best in the Atlanta area.
Very good: Merits a drive if you're looking for this kind of dining.
Good: A worthy addition to its neighborhood, but food may be hit or miss.
Fair: The food is more miss than hit.
Restaurants that do not meet these criteria may be rated Poor.

Pricing code: $$$$$ means more than $75; $$$$ means $75 and less; $$$ means $50 and less; $$ means $25 and less; $ means $15 and less. (The price code represents a meal for one that includes appetizer, entree and dessert without including tax, tip and cocktails.)