This is the Chinese place for people who don’t like Chinese food

If you dread Chinese New Year — when friends drag you out for scaly tongues and slug-like “sea cucumber” — Jue Lan Club is just for you.

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.

HEARTY: Drunken fried sea bass

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.

HEALTHY: Salmon with Chinese celery

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. They are sweet and fresh-tasting, though they could do without the heaps of water chestnuts and carrots that taste like they came out of cans.