DIM SUM AT LEGENDARY PALACE

We're still trying to find a good dim sum place. I know it exists, we just probably need to go into SF to find it. But we made another try at finding dim sum in downtown Oakland with a trip to Legendary Palace. I knew of Legendary Palace because it's this giant gaudy restaurant that sits on a prominent corner in downtown Oakland. Plus, Huong and Kjell had considered having their wedding banquet there, so we thought it was worth a try.

When we entered (it was pretty early in the morning), the first floor seemed pretty full, so we were shown to the second floor, which was much emptier. This wasn't the prettiest restaurant in the world- the carpet was worn and generally not very welcoming or clean feeling, but that's often how dim sum restaurants can be, so we went with it. Here's a view of the upstairs banquet room where we were seated.

We ordered a few of our usuals- shrimp in rice noodles, steamed chicken buns and steamed pork buns. All of it was ok, but nothing spectacular. Plus this place was certainly not a friendly place for those who don't speak Chinese (or really Cantonese for that matter).

We wanted to order some har gaw or siu mai, but after giving a few carts a try, we finally gave up on it and felt it was time to head out. I can't say I was full, but I'd had enough at Legendary Palace. Overall, we don't plan on going back and are still looking for a great local dim sum place. I subsequently told Huong about our visit there, and she agreed that it wasn't the best place for dim sum. And so the search continues....

DIM SUM: WHAT CHINESE PEOPLE DO ON XMAS

It's starting to become a Xmas tradition for us to go to dim sum on Xmas morning- no matter where we are. Last year it was dim sum at the Pearl. This year, it was dim sum with my extended family in Monterey Park. I guess it's because there are so few places that are actually open and have good food, so people in the know flock to the open dim sum restaurants.

When I was a kid, I actually hated going to the dim sum restaurants in Monterey Park. Back then, there weren't any dim sum restaurants on the westside where we lived, so my parents would wake us up super early on Sunday (the only day we actually had the option to sleep in since we had Chinese school on Saturdays) and would haul our asses over to Monterey Park, which is East of LA. Ummm, maybe this is where you start seeing where I get my obsessiveness for food.

One place we often visited was NBC Seafood, which is where we headed on Xmas morning. When we arrived, we found out that NBC was under construction. It was still open and serving food, but there was very little parking, and a whole lot of people were trying to get in. We had 15 people, so we ended up splitting up into 2 tables. This place was sooooooooo busy. They were turning tables like crazy and they weren't very nice about it. But at least we got our fill or yummy dim sum dishes like:

Baked pork buns, chicken buns and fried sesame mochi

Spare ribs and flat rice noodles stuffed with shrimp or fried dough
This strange concoction of shrimp balls and corn- it was allright.
Panfried flat noodles with dried shrimp and green onions served with peanut sauce. The noodles themselves were rather tasteless, so you had to add the sauce to give it flavor.

These greasy, but super tasty cause they were just fried, shrimp dumplings.

And of course, the regular shrimp dumplings (Tom's learned how to call them by their correct name- har gow, and I made him show my mom), siu mai and some Chinese broccoli.

We spent over two hours there, and by the time we finished and left, there were even more people waiting to get it. I guess it is worth arriving early after all. But we had a great meal and I certainly look foward to getting more dim sum in LA next Xmas.

LONDON: DAY 1
It was our first trip to London. Not a very well timed one- I am moving to SF in less than a week, but we had made the reservations months ago and there were no refunds, so at least we got a little vacation before the big move. I'd done a lot of research for this trip. With the exchange rate now $2 for 1 pound, we needed to plan well so that we didn't spend too much money. Basically, we'd be going for a lot of cheap eats (my copy of Time Out London : Cheap Eats came in handy), and we found out that really, good tasting cheap eats aren't hard to find in London, you just gotta do a little searching.

We arrived in London in the morning and luckily, our hotel let us check in early. So we got a little rest in before heading out to look for lunch. We stayed in Earl's Court, which is on the Western edge of the city, but it's a nice place to be because it's convenient to the tube and there is a lot of food around. Mostly chains, but that's where we could find the cheapest food. For our first meal, I took Huong's advice and headed out to Bayswater (nearing Notting Hill) where we found Royal China Dim Sum. I knew in advance that it was a little fancier than the usual dim sum places, but both Huong and Kjell said it'd be worth it.

So we were seated and I was surprised at the number of people having dim sum at 2pm. There were lots of Asians eating (always a good sign). At Royal China, they give you a menu which you order off of and then they bring the food (no carts). I picked out 6 different plates for us, and here's the best part, a got to order in English!! Sigh. London's great. They speak English.

Ok, moving on. Huong also strongly suggested that I order these pork puffs for Tom. He thought they were ok, but definitely on the sweet side. Then, I ordered what would be my favorite dish of the meal- peking duck rolls. Some genius definitely came up with this dish. What could be better than duck, wrapped in a wonton wrapper and fried. It was juicy and crunch and delicious! Then I order some of the more typical dim sum stuff- shrimp dumplings, different buns and fried dough wrapped in rice noodles.Everything was really well prepared, but I wouldn't say it was more extraordinary than what I can get in LA. The final bill was 20 pounds, not bad if you think of it in pounds, but at $40, it was the most expensive dim sum I've ever had. And that's the thing with London. All the prices are reasonable if you think of them in pounds, but at some point, you'll realize that you're paying double that in dollars. It's best to just ignore this and deal when you get home.

After lunch, we decided to walk around a bit, and headed over to the Portobello Road market. It's an outdoor market, with all sorts of random stuff like antiques, food, clothes and nick nacks (you might remember it if you've ever seen Notting Hill, the movie). We walked through, but didn't really buy anything. Here are some pics of food vendors: Afterwards, we returned to our hotel to continue napping. Around 7, we woke up and decided it was time to find some dinner. So we headed over to Earl's court, and found Nando's, a local Portuguese chain of restaurants (you'll find them all over London). They're famous for their spicy chicken, that you can order at different levels of heat.

I got a combo order of medium spicy chicken wings, corn and coleslaw. It was actually quite good. I liked the fact that they grilled the corn and the coleslaw helped cool the burn from the chicken wings.
Meanwhile, Tom ordered a chicken sandwich with a side of chips. He got the spicy version, and when he hit the bottom of it where all the spicy sauce had pooled, he paid for it in the end. But he did enjoy it. His mouth was just on fire for a while.
Altogether, our dinner wasn't too expensive. It was around 12 pounds (but once again, that's $24 for dinner). But we enjoyed our first day in London and looked foward to a busy weekend.

DIM SUM AT HEI LA MOON

Is it bad when it's only 9:30 and I already feel like having ice cream? Maybe it's because the sun's shining outside, or it's knowing that I've got a pint of Haagen dazs coffee ice cream sitting in my fridge. I'll try to hold off, at least until 10.

At any rate, I have been back for nearly 2 weeks now, and we've had a few meals out. One of the first was dim sum at Hei La Moon. Normally we go to China Pearl for dim sum, and the only time I've tried going to Hei La Moon, it was so full that we retreated to the Pearl. But I knew that there must be a reason why people would wait in line to eat at Hei La Moon (oh, and they are owned by the same people who own the Pearl), so we headed back over there on a Sunday morning. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Hei La Moon, it's actually on the other side of Chinatown (the one closer to South street station). Here's a shot of the exterior.

You can recognize the place pretty quickly because there are people standing outside waiting for their numbers to be called. When we arrived, there was a small crowd, but it wasn't too bad. As I waited to be given a number, I noticed that all the numbers before us were for small group (2-4 people) and since we had a larger group, I figured we'd be getting a table faster. And I was right. After waiting outside for less than 10 minutes, out number was called and we headed inside.

We were directed to the downstairs dining room, and I immediately noticed that Hei La Moon is a lot newer, cleaner and more organized than the Pearl. The other thing I noticed is that there were a lot more large parties of non-Asians eating at Hei La Moon that at the Pearl. Tom and I were there early, so we ordered first. We got an order of egg rolls and an order of fried shrimp rolls, which were both pretty good. When the group arrived, we ordered more. Like the fried shrimp and the fried calamari. At the Pearl, they would have these out on hot stations, which you'd visit and pick up yourself, but at Hei La Moon, they're pushed around on the carts. Again, these were pretty good, though a little colder than I would've liked. And here's a final shot of some other items.
Overall, I thought the food at Hei La Moon was really good- better than what you'd get at Chau Chow or Empress Garden. And much cleaner and a nicer atmosphere. I'd put it on par quality wise with the Pearl, but the Pearl does have greater selection of food. There really weren't many desserts at the Hei La Moon, and I ended up going to a local bakery for a sesame ball afterwards. It'd be a great place to take out of town guests, or for people who have never been to dim sum before, so I certainly suggest that you try it out if you haven't been before.

TAIWANESE DIM SUM IN BROOKLINE

A few weeks Tom, Suemin and I were at Shabu Village eating dinner. During dinner, Tom figured out that he had worked with one of the owners while in college (over a decade ago) and they got to talking. She told us that they had started serving a traditional Taiwanese breakfast during the weekends, and we promised to return to try it out.

Now most of you call Taiwanese breakfast Taiwanese dim sum. Why? I don't know, but I'll go along with it. You know that my favorite spots are the ones in Belmont and Watertown, but they're always packed, and I have to drive farther to get to them. So I was pretty happy to hear that there was a closer one nearby. We invited Suemin, Huong and Harumi to join us and when we arrived at 11:30, the restaurant had just opened and was totally empty.

We were seated quickly, and Tom had a strawberry shake while we awaited the arrival of the rest of our party. Then I took over the ordering. Most of us weren't all that the hungry after the pizza party the previous evening, so I didn't order too much.

We started off with a plate of marinated cucumbers (which turned out to be far too sweet, I could make better ones at home)

And marinated seaweed. This one was good, with flavors of raw garlic and sesame oil.

And then the waiting started. I'm not sure why, since the restaurant was filled with employees and there weren't that many customers, but we would get one dish, and wait 10-15 minutes before the next dish arrived. This was especially strange because almost nothing there was made in house. (I'll explain later).

Continuing on, here's my order of chive pockets. They were pretty good, but they were much smaller than the chive pockets that I'm accustomed to, and you could tell they were not made fresh in house. They had been purchased frozen or premade.

After another wait, our "scallion pancake" arrived. These aren't the normal scallion pancakes that you get. I've had it before, but it's more like a scallion bread. And again, it was premade. You could buy an entire loaf at a grocery store. Sometimes my mom will get it at home. Plus the portion was tiny. After another wait, our orders of soup dumplings arrived. Now I was happy that these did look good and everyone seemed to enjoy them (Since I don't eat beef or pork, I didn't partake)

After we'd finished these, the waitress actually came out to apologize that they're portions were so small and asked if we wanted to order other stuff. Since we were still waiting for our soy milks and beef pockets, we turned her down. And like I said, we weren't that hungry anyway.

We did finally get our soy milks and for whatever unexplained reason, they waited until almost the end of the meal to get them to us. Normally, it's one of the first things served, so you can dip stuff into it. (but they didn't even have the traditional fried dough that you do dip)

The last thing to arrive (after another wait) was the beef in a sesame pocket. People enjoyed this one, too. But again, I have no idea why it took so long since the beef is served cold, so all you have to do it toast the sesame pocket.

So you can all tell that I wasn't a huge fan of Taiwanese dim sum at Shabu Village. First, it took way to long- over an hour and a half. I am a fan of their shabu, but they don't have a full kitchen and aren't equipped to serve freshly made foods. They're really much better at reheating. If I wanted to prepare Taiwanese dim sum at home, I could've come up with exactly what they'd served us. Even though Tom said he liked the convenience of having it so close to us, I'd still rather make the drive out to Belmont to get freshly made fried dough and scallion pancakes. I won't be back for the dim sum at Shabu Village, but I'll certainly be back for their shabu.

DIM SUM AT THE PEARL

My friend Noel was in town last weekend and she had one request, that we have dim sum. Noel lives up in Maine where she's attending grad school, and apparently, there's a lack of decent Asian cuisine, especially dim sum. So we trekked down to the only place to get decent dim sum in Boston- China Pearl in Chinatown.

Back before I had the store, going to dim sum was more of a monthly thing. It was easy to go on the spur of the moment and with a large group of people (plus it's better with a group since you get to order more stuff). But I hadn't been to dim sum in months, so I welcomed the opportunity to go. Now, I will admit that there are other places to get dim sum in Chinatown. I'm just saying that China Pearl is really the only one worth going to. You can ask me about my experience at Chau Chow and Empress Garden some other time.

For you dim sum novices, this is how it works. You push through the large number of people who will inevitably be waiting for tables at the top of the stairs and walk up to the host stand where you're given a number. And then you wait until your number is called. (for us, this took about 20 minutes during which we observed all the people entering and leaving the Pearl. Our final conclusion was that everyone has dim sum at the Pearl- students, families, friends- EVERYONE. I even ran into a customer). When your number is finally called, you push your way back to the host stand and are given a ticket. Which is basically what they use to keep track of everything you'll end up ordering that day. Then you eventually get seated. Either on the main floor or the 3rd floor. And you may be forced to share a table, but luckily we got our own table. This is how it works at almost any dim sum place you go to. Be it in LA, NY or Boston. It's not that much different than when I went as a kid, except it's a lot more accessible now. And I gotta say that the service has improved since the earlier days. When i went to dim sum as a kid, my parents would wake us up super early on the weekend and drive an hour just to get good dim sum. And that was back in the day when the only people you'd see having dim sum were Asian.

So at the Pearl, they have the traditional dim sum going around on various carts, but they also have a stationary hot station. (the Pearl is the only place where I've ever seen this.) Each cart has different food items on it. And certain carts have set items, like the steamed bun cart. or the dessert cart. At the hot station, you can pick some different dishes. And since we weren't getting any good carts, I got up and ordered us some fried tofu with shrimp and chinese broccoli. Don't forget your ticket, you gotta get it stamped.
So if you're a vegetarian, you can just forget about going to dim sum. Unless all you're going to be eating is that steamed broccoli above. But if you love pork of shrimp, you'll be all set. Now since I don't eat pork, the majority of the dishes we got contained shrimp. (except for the shu mai which Noel consumed on her own, and which i did not photograph). Which was a good thing cause that's what Noel wanted. She let me do all the ordering, and I'll admit that ordering can be a bit difficult sometimes. Not all the waitresses speak English (though this has improved) and even if they do, they won't be willing to stand there and explain what's in every dish. If you're a dim sum novice, your best bet is to point and be open to trying new things. Or go with an experienced person.

Here are the shrimp dumplings that Noel wanted:
And here's a different version of the shrimp dumpling with some bamboo shoots and some green veggie. It turned out that Noel liked this the most.
Oh, let me mention that pacing yourself is a very important thing to do at dim sum. It's so easy to get carried away and order a table full of food that may not get eaten. so i highly suggest ordering a few things at a time and then ordering more if necessary, or taking a big group of people.

Here are some shrimp wontons:
And shrimp spring rolls with celery in fried tofu skins:
By this point we were so full we couldn't eat anything else. And to be honest, I'm not a giantic fan of the desserts served at dim sum. I'd much rather have an almond cookie for the corner bakery.

The last great thing about dim sum is that it's really affordable. All this food, and inevitably, no matter how many people you go with, you always end up spending around $12 per person. So the next time you're hosting friends from out of town, take them to dim sum. It's the perfect place to try something new and fill up on great food.

Perhaps this is Shangri-la. Taiwanese dim sum in Watertown.

i haven't had a sunday off since before i opened this store. which means no sunday brunches and no taiwanese dim sum. so yesterday, in honor of fall and apple picking season, i took the day off. and of course, i took advantage of this rare opportunity to finally go to the other taiwanese dim sum place in belmont.

now everyone knows about the taiwanese dim sum place in watertown. (no one really knows what it's called, it's just the taiwanese dim sum place) it's located on the corner of california and los angeles, so it's easy for me to remember. haha. it's always hard to get a table, so if you miss the first seating, you're screwed and end up waiting 45 minutes for a table. i'd heard about the taiwanese dim sum place, it's actually called shangri-la, in belmont from trusted sources and heard that it was even better than the watertown one. so off we went. me and arti.

we arrived about 11:15, and promptly found out that the place didn't open until 11:30. so we decided to wait in the car since it was a chilly morning. unfortunately, a line started to form. so i made arti get out of the car and we waited with everyone else outside. i was not going to miss the first seating. at 11:30, as everyone waited outside impatiently, the doors were opened and a big rush ensued to grab tables. arti and i got a 2 top in the back. and we were happy to have lined up, cause those tables filled up quickly. oh also, your whole party needs to be there before you get to sit. (when we left, there was a large group of ppl waiting at the front of the restaurant)

since this was arti's first trip to taiwanese dim sum, i did most of the ordering. but she did a great job in ordering this tofu roll up thing which was very yummy. here it is:

and then i ordered a bunch of stuff for us to share. here's my bowl of sweetened soy bean milk and fried dough. in taiwan, you get this stuff from vendors on the street. and it's fun watching them make it. i have great pics from my trip last year.

then there's the chive pocket

and the scallion pancake

do you notice a pattern of fried foods? i also ordered arti an order of little dragon dumplings aka soup dumplings. i didn't know that it'd be her first time eating pork. but i think she liked them ok. those are one of the foods i miss most after giving up pork myself.

i also ordered arti beef in a sesame bun pocket thingy. big ed loves those. but since arti just started eating beef recently, i think it was too much for her and she didn't like it very much. however, she did enjoy everything else.

and after all this food, we had plenty to take home. and it all came out to $24 (not including the tip). so another great thing about taiwanese dim sum is that it's super cheap and of course. super tasty. at the end of the day, i don't know if i can say for certain that the belmont place is better than the watertown place. but the service was marginally better and i liked the fact that it was a little closer with more parking than the watertown one. if i ever give myself a sunday off again, i'll have to check out the taiwanese dim sum at wisteria house first. but i think i'll one day be back to shangri-la.