Restaurant P.F. Chang's, 317 S. Shackleford Road, Little Rock, (501) 225-4424.
   Order up: So there's this new, splashy Chinese restaurant in west Little Rock that we've finally gotten and that's famous for, like, two-hour waits -- What? Oh, you've heard of it? And already eaten there the requisite three or four times before deciding to either put into regular rotation or wave goodbye as you send it into a Planet-Hollywood kind of orbit of willful disregard? We missed the boat by more than a year? Well, P.F. Dang.
   Actually, for anyone waiting to surf the fourth or fifth wave of finally checking out the spectacle for yourselves, we're prepared to make a case for dipping your toe into takeout waters before committing to a full eat-in experience. If you like the food sitting at your glum dining room table -- where there's a weird smell coming from the sink and an even stinkier act on America's Got Talent that you don't feel like getting up to turn off -- you'll love it when you get around to trying it in P.F. Chang's dim, cool dining room, where the black-clad, headsetwearing hostesses will practically fight over who gets the privilege of seating you.
   We called up the chain's 10-category menu online (www. pfchangs.com) and, for our unflashy first time, selected the Ground Chicken and Eggplant ($8.95) and the Coconut Curry Vegetables ($7.95).
   Time factor: Over the phone, the restaurant's dedicated to-go worker of the evening estimated 20 minutes, and it took just that if not a few minutes less.
   Container integrity: Entrees and vegetable dishes meant for sharing travel in sturdy, oval serving tubs with black receptacles and clear plastic lids. Only the rice -- a choice of white or brown, and brown isn't code for fried -- goes home in the traditional wire-handled folded paper boxes. And everything goes Jenga-style into a brown paper shopping bag with handles of its own.
   Hot or not: Give the restaurant exactly as much time as they forecast on the phone and you'll miss the hand-off of your dishes from the kitchen; instead, the takeout counter worker will merely turn back to one of the retro-looking stainless-steel, under-the-counter warming ovens behind her and extract them as if the warmers are some kind of culinary wishing well. Between its alcove-style construction, the black marble countertops and those ovens, P.F. Chang's to-go stand resembles a cross between a coat-check area and standing at the island of the well-appointed kitchen of a well-to-do dinner party host and asking for seconds. The operation passes out hot food with cool, stylish efficiency.
   Extras: Include three designated to-go customer parking spots, more or less equidistant between the two large horse statues that flank the restaurant ; the offer of handsome knife-fork-spoon-napkin packets that will be fulfilled even if declined; cuplets of the restaurant's special sweet-chili sauce, traditionally mixed at the table; and enough generously sized pouches of Kikkoman to colonize your kitchen's junk drawer as soy-sauce central.
   Final take: Enjoyment of the Cocunut Curry Vegetables might depend on how you feel about this combination of words from the dish's menu description : "crispy silken tofu." But the dish -- with textures, including carrots, onions, snowpeas and mushrooms, always crispy but not always silken -- offers the pleasing, prevailing flavors of sweet coconut milk, curry and peanuts. The grinding of the chicken meat in the Ground Chicken and Eggplant could be read as an economic strategy of less-is-less, or an olive branch to those who find Chinese-restaurant chicken pieces occasionally too gristly for their tastes. Once you get past the essential weirdness of chicken acting as a condiment to the considerably larger eggplant chunks, the dish has a savory heartiness, not to mention, thanks to the soy-chili reduction, a distinct spiciness. A dining companion wondered why the menu doesn't award this dish a "Spicy" symbol, but then, with her delicate palate, she sometimes wonders that about the list of flavors at the snow-cone stand. We may be late to the P.F. Chang's party, but we're glad there's still plenty of party food left to take home. Spork Report is a monthly take on takeout. E-mail your favorite Styrofoam stop-offs to:
   

kbrazzel@arkansasonline.com

This story was published Friday, August 04, 2006