Restaurant review: Ling & Louie's looks good, but taste is not so great

"This food tastes like nothing," said my friend. I had to agree.

With that, he pushed aside his tacos, each one filled to the brim with chunks of fetchingly pink but utterly flavorless tuna and a dreary cabbage slaw possessing a depressingly singular sensory attribute: crunchy.

We were at Ling & Louie's Asian Bar and Grill — it's a small chain from the same company behind Rojo Mexican Grill — and the dish was an edible metaphor for the restaurant itself: great to look at (more on that in a moment) but ultimately skin-deep.

The expansive menu has a something-for-everyone vibe, and as is often the case, what happens is that by hoping to please everyone, it ends up pleasing no one. OK, that's a little harsh. But the kitchen seems to be inundated in one lost opportunity after another.

There are about a dozen wok dishes, and the six I sampled all suffered from Too Much syndrome: too much salt, or too much sugar; sometimes, oddly enough, it manages to be both, with dishes drowning in the same handful of indifferent, interchangeable, straight-out-of-a-bottle sauces. And the outcome could easily be so much better, given a modicum of effort.

Here's just one disheartening example: kung pao chicken. "Bland" is not a word that should ever come within a mile of this traditionally spicy dish. It's as if the kitchen fully embraces the cliché of the heat-averse Minnesota palate, ignoring the tantalizing hot-sour sizzle that is kung pao's signature. Instead, a dried chile appeared to be used as a garnish, rather than as an essential flavor-building component. Where's the bite?

Other efforts would surely blossom under a bit of discipline. A rote and indifferently prepared selection of sushi, sashimi and nigiri could benefit from a little love and a wider worldview; there's more to the sea than tuna, salmon and crab.

I was thinking larb — that wonderfully fiesty Thai salad — when the chicken lettuce wraps arrived, but it turned out to be rubbery chicken flecked with wilted Thai basil and drowning in a syrupy sauce of indeterminate nature.

Potstickers, steamed (limpid) and pan-fried (greasy), were probably delicious when they should have left the stove; unfortunately, they stayed beyond their due date. Such clueless cooking is not unexpected at a food court. But at a busy, beautiful restaurant on Minnesota's Main Street?

It's strictly hit or miss with a handful of hedge-betting, all-American crowd pleasers; welcome to the latter side of the L&L equation, a fictitious tale of love and cooking between a Shanghai gal named Ling and her Toledo galoot named Louie. Seriously. In the spirit of theme restaurants, all of these dishes unnecessarily include trace elements of a token Asian ingredient or two. Not that you'd notice.

Sliced beef sliders, loaded with blue cheese crumbles and bacon and drizzled with a garlic-ginger-soy sauce, were perfectly fine bar fare. Ditto the crispy fried calamari. And treating salt-flecked edamame like a healthier version of a bowl of peanuts — and washing it down with a Fulton Lonely Blonde ale — was a more-than-fine approach to happy hour.

"Asian nachos," with paper-thin fried wontons subbing for corny, salty nachos (and a sugary barbecue sauce infused with the faintest trace of hoisin), probably sounded amusing in a brainstorming session, but the novelty wears thin, fast.

Not all is lost. I'd happily return for the plump, juicy skewered chicken, served with a rich, well-seasoned peanut sauce. Tuna, seared but still coolly sumptuous, paired nicely with a tangy mustard. Although overdressed, a salad of greens topped with grilled, sesame-glazed salmon makes for a more-than-acceptable lunch; ditto a predictable cabbage-chicken salad.

As for the three desserts, exercise caution. Best, and that's a relative term, is a spring roll — hey, it's Asian! — that's filled with a gluey banana cheesecake, deep-fried and dusted in prodigious amounts of sugared cinnamon.

The restaurant has several not-so-secret weapons in its arsenal. The he-man portions, coupled with reasonable prices, certainly suggest value.

Someone has done their hiring and training well, because the dining room and bar are blessed with a friendly, accommodating, fast-on-its-feet service staff, one that's particularly adept at moving noon-hour diners in and out quickly, without making anyone feel rushed. That's a skill that other downtown restaurants could emulate. The greeting at the door is warm and welcoming, and if there's a water glass that has dipped below half-full, someone materializes with a pitcher, fast.

Finally, Ling & Louie's is a visual knockout, a wide-open, double-height space gracefully anchored by dramatic, beehive-shaped paper chandeliers. Remove the scene-setting Buddha likenesses and the swank backlit bar, and the industrial-loft space could easily be flipped into a hip CB2 store. Kudos also to the slick rooftop patio, now in hibernation.

Impressive as it is, the restaurant's alluring setting is a bit of a bait-and-switch. How could such promising surroundings deliver such mediocre food? Maybe the answer is filed in the business plan under N, for "No one will notice."

Follow Rick Nelson on Twitter: @RickNelsonStrib