Shia LaBeouf learns to pick his battles

New love, new frontiers for Shia LaBeouf!

Five months after stepping out together hand-in-hand, the "Transformers" star, 25, is still going strong with Karolyn Pho.

After splitting with Carey Mulligan in October, he met the Vietnamese-American stylist at a karaoke club in L.A.'s hip Echo Park neighborhood -- and she's helping him expand and refine his culinary palate.

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"Pâté? A cheese plate? That's a very 25-year-old deal," LaBeouf tells the Los Angeles Times. "I can get down with some fig jelly and some cheese on a cracker... [Karolyn's] having me try different things. I was scared of fish, 'cause of my upbringing, being Jewish. Gefilte can ruin your entire seafood life," jokes the star.

Another sign of maturity: LaBeouf is frank about using poor judgment during a February brawl at a bar in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

"He was just being demonstrative, antagonizing me in front of a crowd of 50 or 60," LaBeouf tells the LA Times of the man with whom he sparred. "My mother said it was below your dignity to engage in it."

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At the time, LaBeouf, then prepping to shoot indie film "The Wettest County in the World" (about Depression-era bootleggers), couldn't help himself. "But there's something in a 24-year-old mind where you're in front of a lot of people you respect and love and you're getting ready to ship off and go do a movie about the most violent brothers in Georgia who sell moonshine and you're sort of rooting for a certain mentality," he explained. "And somebody approaches you and you're in the wrong thinking and you're drunk. I have no excuses. I'm not happy with it, but I don't think it's a calamity." (No charges were filed in the incident.)

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Although the actor became a superstar via the mega-blockbuster "Transformers" franchise, he says he's ready for more sophisticated material.

"There's this coming-of-age thing that's happening within me," he says of his acting career. "I have these yearnings to do different things. Which way is this boy gonna go? I have no idea."