NOT YOUR TYPICAL CHINESE TAKEOUT: Zoe’s serves up exotic delights.

You need not opt for exotic choices with the appetizers, where the regular list features a competent version of honey boneless spareribs ($5.75), a generous but somewhat overbreaded vegetable tempura ($5), and a genuinely intriguing stuffed tofu crêpe with vegetables ($4.75). This last dish is tofu skin wrapped around shredded vegetables, and it is as good as any Chinese vegan dish I’ve had.

Most of the unusual appetizers are featured on a menu of “cold appetizers.” There is the usual Shanghai-style five-spice beef slices and such, but also things like garlic white pork ($6.45) and Sichuan green-bean tofu ($4.50), which looks like a bowl of noodles. It contains, in fact, neither green beans nor tofu as we have known it. Apparently the “noodles” are strips of some blander, rather fragile tofu made from green soybeans or green non-soybeans. Whatever delicate flavor they have is overcome by plenty of chili oil, chopped nuts, and a few scallions. The white pork looks like meaty slices of bacon or fatback, but the mouthfeel is somewhat crisp. It probably helps that the slices are dressed with an amazing quantity of chopped garlic and quite of bit of chili oil.

You could also use something like squid with salt and pepper ($9.45) as an appetizer, but this Hong Kong dish doesn’t show the kitchen at its best. The squid are beautifully cut into “dragon scales,” but there’s too much breading, and this dish isn’t as exciting as what you can get in Chinatown.

A little less breading works interestingly in a Sichuan entrée like “dry diced chicken with hot chili” ($8.50). The chilies are both dried red peppers fried in oil (and not intended for actual eating), and milder, fresh green chilies that a person who likes spicy food can eat, especially if he or she discards the seeds. Both flavors are well captured in the breading around the little cubes of chicken, which also have some flavor of coriander seeds.

Coriander seeds are also part of the novel lamb with cumin and spicy sauce dish ($11.95). Cumin and coriander make us think more of Indian than Chinese food, but this dish, probably inspired by Chinese Muslim cuisine, is a keeper. Stemmy coriander leaf is the wonderful flavor featured in the tripe with cilantro ($8.95). The tripe here is meaty and cut into strips, then stir-fried to a chewy texture, so it’s quite different than tripe dishes from other cuisines. I recommend this even to people who’ve tried tripe and not liked it. Tea-smoked duck ($11.50) is bone-in, but with plenty of smoke, and highly recommended if you have time to pick it apart.

Another dish I’ve never seen before but will order again is the hot-and-sour sliced potato with chili peppers ($7.25). The potato is served in long shreds with a slightly undercooked texture that makes it seem like a brand new vegetable — a kind of turnip, perhaps. The flavor is mostly from the fresh green chilies.

The white rice at Zoe’s is especially good. It’s fragrant as well as starchy and a little sticky, and that supports the food. It was especially good with the stir-fried vegetables of the day ($7.95) when I picked the baby-cabbage version. This was a simple stir-fry of baby bok choy, sliced garlic, salt, and oil, but it was a magical complement to the rice. The veggies resolved into rich, spinachy bites of leaves; crisper, sharper-flavored bites of stem; and (optional) very sharp bites of sliced garlic. What might have seemed like excess oil made the rice into something as rich as fried rice. Eggplant with garlic sauce ($7.25) was another vegan winner: slices of lavender eggplant with water chestnuts, bamboo-shoot slices, green bell pepper, and a lot of wood-ear mushrooms. The sauce is sweet-and-sour and hot.

What makes Zoe’s a little tricky is that not everything on the menu is as good as the best dishes. On an earlier visit, ordering peapod stems on that same stir-fry-of-the-day brought a plate of stringy, stemmy whatever swimming in grease. Ma po tofu ($7.25), another Sichuan classic, was only fair, with plenty of ground pork and hot-pepper flavor, but without the characteristic mentholated flavor of Sichuan peppercorns, which are again being imported. A fish-head hot pot ($7.95) was too bland. The broth, which initially tasted like dishwater, improved as it cooled and picked up meaty, fresh-fish, and ginger flavors. And the fish head resolved itself into bone-in cheeks and tongue, the latter mostly one piece that looked like a chunk of boiled beef fat, but had the subtle and exquisite lightness of marrow, or perhaps the codfish tongues in the old New England dish of cheeks and tongues. The rest of the filling was a lot of tasteless, soft tofu cubes. I can imagine an evening when this is the perfect soup, but not after a spicy appetizer.

The only dessert offered is factory-made fortune cookies, and hot tea is not served. Service is quite good, however. Both my servers let me order weird things without comment, and returned with accurate orders. Take-out is done quickly and packed effectively. Eating in, you’re in pretty basic surroundings: green-marble laminate on the lower walls, aqua paint above, with plastic tablecloths. The dining room is a happy place, with a reassuring mix of young Asian-Americans, savvy neighbors, and apparent regulars who banter with the servers.

Zoe’s Gourmet Chinese Cuisine, 289 Beacon Street, Somerville | Open Sun–Thurs, 11:30 am–10 pm; And Fri & Sat, 11:30 am–11 pm | AE, DC, DI, MC, VI | No Liquor | No Valet Parking | Access Up One Tall Step To One Table; Five More Steps To Most Tables | 617.864.6265  

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Robert Nadeau:RobtNadeau@aol.com