$250 gift card to Jue Lan Club restaurant

The New York Post says;

This new, clubland-inspired venue on two floors of the old Limelight disco traffics in Chinese for People Who Don’t Like Chinese. I feared it would be in the grim league of Philippe, the boldface den that Jue Lan owner Stratis Morfogen previously owned, known for baby food-like “Chinese” noodles soaked in tomato sauce.

But Jue Lan Club is no Philippe. Executive chef Oscar Toro turns out bright pan-Asian favorites that make the party rock. The setting is also cause for celebration. Brick walls, stained-glass windows and muted décor cleanse the space of residual Limelight-era sleaze.

Of course, Jue Lan is no Mission Chinese or RedFarm, either. Friendly waitresses pirouette in bright red dresses by trendy designer Chong Cha, but style can take a place only so far. Peking-“style” duck was a mess, with roll-your-own pancakes too small to hold duck chopped into a heap including rigid skin and even a few small bones.

Even so, the menu is manageable but extensive with a fair number of dishes that are light on calories but not on flavor. It’s a great spot to kick off the Year of the Monkey without killing all of your Western New Year’s resolutions.

Stephen Yang

If you’re not counting calories or sugar, splurge on “drunken” black sea bass fillet ($30), which is tossed in cornstarch and wok-fried before the restaurant piles on Chinese rice wine, abalone sauce, and citrusy and fiery heaven-facing chilies. A ton of shelled edamame beans might make you feel more virtuous. An appetizer of maple syrup-glazed pork spareribs ($15) beats any I’ve had in Chinatown since the Clinton administration — deep-flavored, chewy but not tough, and with just enough fat.

Best of all is crispy rock shrimp tempura ($16) that, for once, is truly crispy. In a lifetime of wrangling this bar favorite, I’ve never had it so good — perfectly battered shrimp that actually tasted like shrimp, beneath spicy lime mayo.

Raw-fish starters ($14 to $18) are as nutritionally unthreatening as they are satisfying. Pristine salmon (above) is tinted with mustard and blood-orange vinaigrette, while tuna comes with avocado puree, cilantro and red-pepper jam. The best is yellowtail drizzled in fiery ghost-pepper oil that’s more aggressively applied than other choices’ accents. For a main course, go with chili-spiced prawns ($28) tinted invitingly green from marination in Chinese water-spinach puree.