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Buddakan is the second wave of Philadelphia restaurateur Stephen Starr (Morimoto)'s well-orchestrated shock-and-awe campaign to take culinary Manhattan. The centerpiece is the "Chinoiserie," a great hall with oak-covered walls two stories high, chandeliers as big as Volkswagens, and a banquet table seating 34. Off this room is a library lined with glowing golden bookshelves, and several smaller dining catacombs, with scenes from Chinese antiquity drawn like cave paintings on the walls. This strange, synthetic landscape doesn't feel like a restaurant. It feels like an oversize nightclub, or a random gathering in the semi-abandoned mansion of some absent Cantonese billionaire. But then the food starts to arrive, and the mood changes. There are traditional Chinese selections on the menu at Buddakan (very good Cantonese spring rolls, steamed sea bass buns served in properly steamy bamboo containers), and there are dishes that maintain their classic nature but have been updated in all sorts of inventive ways. The Chiang Mai chicken is sliced chicken breast with muddled tomatoes and spoonfuls of ginger-infused yogurt, and the tea-smoked chicken would cause a mini-stampede if it were served in Chinatown. — Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld

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