Image
  • Writing
    • Andy Gavin: Author
    • About my Novels & Writing
    • All Writing Posts
    • The Darkening Dream
      • Buy the Book Online
      • Sample Chapters
      • Reviews
      • Info for Reviewers
      • Press Coverage
      • Awards
      • Cast of Characters
    • Untimed
      • Buy Untimed Online
      • Book Trailer
      • Sample Chapters
      • Reviews
      • Info for Reviewers
      • Press Coverage
      • Awards
      • Cast of Characters
    • Scrivener – Writer’s Word Processor
    • iPad for Writers
    • Naughty Dark Contest
  • Books
    • Book Review Index
    • Favorite Fantasy Novels
    • Andy Gavin: Author
    • The Darkening Dream
      • Buy the Book Online
      • Sample Chapters
      • Short Story: Harvard Divinity
      • Reviews
      • Info for Reviewers
      • Press Coverage
      • Awards
      • Cast of Characters
    • Untimed
      • About the Book
      • Buy Untimed Online
      • Book Trailer
      • Sample Chapters
      • Reviews
      • Info for Reviewers
      • Press Coverage
      • Awards
      • Cast of Characters
    • Naughty Dark Contest
  • Games
    • My Video Game Career
    • Post Archive by Series
    • All Games Posts Inline
    • Making Crash Bandicoot
    • Crash 15th Anniversary Memories
    • World of Warcraft Endgames
    • Getting a Job Designing Video Games
    • Getting a Job Programming Video Games
    • Naughty Dark Contest
  • Movies
    • Movie Review Index
  • Television
    • TV Review Index
    • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • A Game of Thrones
  • Food
    • Food Review Index
    • Foodie Club
    • Hedonists
    • LA Sushi Index
    • Chinese Food Index
    • LA Peking Duck Guide
    • Eating Italy
    • Eating France
    • Eating Spain
    • Eating Croatia
    • Eating Vietnam
    • Eating Australia
    • Eating Israel
    • Ultimate Pizza
    • ThanksGavin
    • Margarita Mix
    • Foodie Photography
    • Burgundy Vintage Chart
  • Other
    • All Posts, Magazine Style
    • Archive of all Posts
    • Fiction
    • Technology
    • History
    • Anything Else
  • Gallery
  • Bio
  • About
    • About me
    • About my Writing
    • About my Video Games
    • Ask Me Anything
  • Contact

Grand times at Grand Harbor

Jun21

Restaurant: Grand Harbor

Location: 5733 Rosemead Blvd, Temple City, CA 91780. (626) 280-2998

Date: May 20, 2017

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Solid B+ dim sum and Cantonese treats

_

It has become traditional for the Dirty Dozen (our blind tasting group within a group) to do white wine lunches over dim sum — which is by far my preference given some alternatives because despite the timing problems with wine tasting and Chinese Food, I just always love good Chinese food.

Grand Harbor is a relatively new Hong Kong place in Temple City from Jackie Zhou.

The dining room is huge and opulent in that chintzy Chinese way. I would have thought from all the overzealous cove lighting that the space was built out in the 80s, but apparently it’s only a year or two old!

Real marble blends non-so-seemlessly with faux-alabaster. They have wine too like many of the new high end places. Mostly big young red wine like Bordeaux which totally fails to pair with Cantonese Chinese, but it’s the thought that counts.

XO sauce on the table to start, which is a nice touch.

2007 Delamotte Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut Le Mesnil. 91 points. Good, low nose, crisp and good structure, some yeastiness, med+ length. Good, not great.

The theme today was White Burgundy served blind in flights, but this Champagne was a started (not blind).

Cold Appetizers

Seaweed salad.

Chicken feet. How do feetless chicken cross the road?

Wood ear fungus. Pretty nice.

Peanuts.

Starch sticks. Probably taro. Needed salt as they had next to no flavor.

Marinated cucumbers. Very good, nice crunch and a bit of heat.

Macau style pork belly. Great stuff. Nice balance of fat and flavor.

Flight 1:

2014 Kirkland Signature Chablis 1er Cru. 91 points. shiny pale green hints; chalky, rocky, clean, lemony, high acid, good classic chablis character; stainless steel feel to it. Very good and opened up nicely! Killer deal if you can find it.

This was a ringer that Albert sent in with someone else. It did surprisingly well (finishing 2nd or third).

NOTE: tasting notes are mostly by Peter (one of our gang).

2006 François Raveneau Chablis 1er Cru Montée de Tonnerre. BH 93. A gentle touch of wood highlights airy yet slightly riper high-toned and admirably pure aromas of white flower, pear and quinine that gives way to supple, sweet, mouth coating and impressively concentrated flavors that exude a marvelous intensity on the long, powerful and driving finish supported by a solid acid spine. Definitely worth a look if you can find it but unlike most ’06s, be prepared to have at least some patience as this is unusually firm for the vintage.

Shu Mai. Shrimp and pork dumplings. Nice version of the classic.

Shanghai style XLB. solid little bags of goodness. These are the classic soup dumplings stuffed with pork and hot broth. The garnish reminded me of gefilte fish.

Scallop dumplings.

Har gow. Crystal shrimp dumplings. Nice.

Pork rice noodle. Known in my household as “pork slime.” I usually love this dish but this particular version was heavy and short on flavor.

Flight 2:

2014 Vincent Dauvissat (René & Vincent) Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos. Peter 90. This had bright crisp minerality with good concentration on the palate, but a very soft entry. Decent, but kind of straight forward at this point. I suspect very closed, young, and needs a year or 2 to express itself a little more.

2007 Dauvissat-Camus Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos. Peter 94. Golden color; rich, powerful nose, golden apple, bags of rocky minerals, some delightful reduction going on, super long, this has it all. My WOTN and #1 wine overall. Killer.

2006 Dauvissat-Camus Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses. 91 points. Medium yellow. As was the case a few years ago, this had a lot of sulfur to accompany ripe yellow fruit and just a bit of seashell. Lush texture but inadequate acidity and shortened by the sulfur. Hardly recognizable as Chablis at this point, and a totally disjointed wine that is going nowhere. A major disappointment as I had hoped that somehow this would be spared from the flabbiness of the vintage, but there is no escaping it, even if you tried to mitigate that characteristic with excessive manipulation.

Roast pork bun. Nice rendition of the classic baked sugary bun. Very soft breading.

Sticky rice with seafood. I had hoped for more depth of flavor as the white sauce soaked into the rice.

Fried “crab salad” roll. These have a crab and creamcheese? filling and a nice crunchy exterior. They were delicious, I ate about 8.

Tofu in tangy sauce. Nice soft fried tofu with a delicious tangy, hot, sweet sauce.

Flight 3:

2014 Louis Jadot Corton-Charlemagne Domaine des Héritiers Louis Jadot. BH 93-95. This is presently sufficiently reduced that it is impossible to fairly assess. The rich, powerful and beautifully delineated big-bodied flavors exhibit almost painful intensity as there is a plenitude of mouth coating extract that buffers the very firm acid spine that allows all of this size and weight to remain exquisitely well-balanced on the chiseled and moderately austere finish. This is not quite as complex or persistent as the Montrachet but it’s not far off and note well that this too is going to require extended cellaring.

2012 Louis Latour Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet. Peter 90. Kind of a disappointment, this was golden color (a bit too much gold for a 4.5 year old), had red apple, a bit loose knit but still quite powerful, medium acid, long, with what seemed like slightly elevated alcohol. Slightly disjointed. Still a good wine, but I expect a lot more from this.

2012 Paul Pernot et ses Fils Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet. Peter 91. This initially had a hint of caramel, apple skin, a little earthy, seemed just a little older than it was; tasted 1 hour later and it really showed nicely, with some of the funk blowing off–more red apple, floral, good concentration and with long finish.

2014 Domaine / Maison Vincent Girardin Chevalier-Montrachet. Peter 93. Precise, with a touch of pineapple, pear, green and yellow apple, a hint of reduction, rocky chalky minerality, tight with plenty of zip, super long tangy finish. Killer. Girardin is making great some wines these days.

One of the managers really pushed these roast pigeons on us. I was skeptical, as I came for dim sum, but these were excellent birds. Juicy, with a lot of flavor and a nice crispy skin.

Fried fish. He pushed this too. It looks awful but it was actually delicious.

Dumplings with dried roe. Good stuff continues. All these regular steamed dumplings were quite good.

Pastry with BBQ pork. Good too. Can’t beat buttery pastry with sweet BBQ pork in it!

Flight 4:

 Marcassin Chardonnay. Fake chard!

From my cellar: 2002 Louis Jadot Chevalier-Montrachet Les Demoiselles Domaine des Héritiers Louis Jadot. Peter 92+. gold amber color; this was somewhat earthy with a slight nuttiness, showing the most age of the group (more than the ’02 Marcassin) which gave it complexity; good lift, quite long.

2004 Jean Noel Gagnard Bâtard-Montrachet. Flawed. Our bottle was corked.

Bean curd with vegetables and pork. Yummy.

Seafood with crispy chow mein. I love this Southern Chinese dish. This was an okay version but not nearly as good as some (like Elite).

House special fried rice. With the Chinese sausage. Yum.

“Shark fin” (I hope not) dumpling or similar. Delicious. These were really good.

Floral jelly. Yeah, had to try it based on that name. Had the nice jelly texture. Tasted like… chrysanthemum tea or something!

Mango pudding. Okay, not as intense as I like.

Milk bun. Sweet and milk. Very nice though.

Macau egg custard. Solid if not exceptional.

Walnut bun. Very nice. Nutty. A touch dry.

The line up. Wines weren’t the most impressive, but were enjoyable.

My bad notes.

Yarom and the manager.

Overall, Grand Harbor had very solid dim sum, at the level just below Elite where a lot of good but not perfect places stand. I’d certainly happy chow down on it again. They did seem to use a lot of MSG because I was HAMMERED by it about 45 minutes later. Non dim sum dishes were excellent and they have a VAST menu of them. Worth coming for an evening banquet.

Service here was fabulous. We should have requested a private room as we really needed it, but we didn’t. Still, they really took care of us. They kept trying to bring us more stuff, which is how it should be in good “Chinese” service. We controlled the flights by filling out 4 different dim sum cards and handing them in one at a time. Worked well.

Wines showed decently. Most bottles were in good shape. Amusing that the Kirkland did so well blind. This group has only 1-2 other Burgundy collectors and so people have to buy and there are a lot of bottle short cuts: too young, lame producers like Latour, Chablis (which is nice but cheap). No pile of good vintage Ramonet here. Still, dim sum makes everything great.

Overall, a super fun afternoon!

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

Related posts:

  1. Sea Harbor Dim Sum
  2. Elite Champagne Brunch
  3. Lunasia Dim Sum
  4. Grand Grenache
  5. Shiki Times Three
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Cantonese cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Dim sum, dimsum, Dirty Dozen, Grand Harbor, hedonists, White Burgundy
Watch the Trailer or

Buy it Online!

Buy it Online!

Find Andy at:

Follow Me on Pinterest

Subscribe by email:

More posts on:



Complete Archives

Categories

  • Contests (7)
  • Fiction (404)
    • Books (113)
    • Movies (77)
    • Television (123)
    • Writing (115)
      • Darkening Dream (62)
      • Untimed (37)
  • Food (1,484)
  • Games (100)
  • History (13)
  • Technology (21)
  • Uncategorized (16)

Recent Posts

  • Mes Ami - C'est Mort
  • Robo Eats - Szechuan Place
  • Providence Chef's Table 2022
  • OOToro Double
  • Robo Eats - Anarbagh
  • Fred loves N/Naka
  • Major Major Major
  • Far East - Beijing Tasty House
  • Home Sweet Spicy Home
  • Quick Eats - Bafang
  • Quick Eats - Peking Restaurant
  • Quick Eats - MK BBQ
  • Wolfing it Down
  • Big Night at Capital
  • Coche In at Brothers Santa Monica
  • Dirty Dozen semi Grand
  • Date Night at Addison
  • Date Night at AR Valentien
  • Camphor Cool
  • Not all Dim Sum are Created Equal

Favorite Food Posts

  • Food Home
  • Food Index
  • Foodie Club
  • Hedonists
  • LA Sushi Index
  • Chinese Food
  • LA Peking Duck
  • Eating Italy
  • Eating France
  • Eating Spain
  • Eating Croatia
  • Eating Vietnam
  • Eating Australia
  • Eating Israel
  • Ultimate Pizza
  • Margarita Mix
  • ThanksGavin
  • Foodie Photography
  • Burgundy Vintages

Recent Comments

Tags

Andy Gavin Arts beef Book Review books Burgundy BYOG California Champagne Chinese cuisine Chinese Food Cooking Crash Bandicoot Dessert eating-italy Fantasy Fiction Food Foodie Club Game of Thrones Gelato George R. R. Martin HBO hedonists Italian cuisine Italy Japanese cuisine Los Angeles Naughty Dog pasta Pizza Restaurant Restaurant Review reviews Santa Monica Santa Monica California SGV side dishes Sushi Television ThanksGavin The Darkening Dream vegetarian Wine World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Archives

  • March 2023 (12)
  • February 2023 (11)
  • January 2023 (14)
  • December 2022 (11)
  • November 2022 (13)
  • October 2022 (14)
  • September 2022 (14)
  • August 2022 (12)
  • July 2022 (9)
  • June 2022 (6)
  • May 2022 (8)
  • April 2022 (5)
  • March 2022 (4)
  • February 2022 (2)
  • January 2022 (8)
  • December 2021 (6)
  • November 2021 (6)
  • October 2021 (8)
  • September 2021 (4)
  • August 2021 (5)
  • July 2021 (2)
  • June 2021 (3)
  • January 2021 (1)
  • December 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (1)
  • August 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (11)
  • March 2020 (15)
  • February 2020 (13)
  • January 2020 (14)
  • December 2019 (13)
  • November 2019 (12)
  • October 2019 (14)
  • September 2019 (14)
  • August 2019 (13)
  • July 2019 (13)
  • June 2019 (14)
  • May 2019 (13)
  • April 2019 (10)
  • March 2019 (10)
  • February 2019 (11)
  • January 2019 (13)
  • December 2018 (14)
  • November 2018 (11)
  • October 2018 (15)
  • September 2018 (15)
  • August 2018 (15)
  • July 2018 (11)
  • June 2018 (14)
  • May 2018 (13)
  • April 2018 (13)
  • March 2018 (17)
  • February 2018 (12)
  • January 2018 (15)
  • December 2017 (15)
  • November 2017 (13)
  • October 2017 (16)
  • September 2017 (16)
  • August 2017 (16)
  • July 2017 (11)
  • June 2017 (13)
  • May 2017 (6)
  • March 2017 (3)
  • February 2017 (4)
  • January 2017 (7)
  • December 2016 (14)
  • November 2016 (11)
  • October 2016 (11)
  • September 2016 (12)
  • August 2016 (15)
  • July 2016 (13)
  • June 2016 (13)
  • May 2016 (13)
  • April 2016 (12)
  • March 2016 (13)
  • February 2016 (12)
  • January 2016 (13)
  • December 2015 (14)
  • November 2015 (14)
  • October 2015 (13)
  • September 2015 (13)
  • August 2015 (18)
  • July 2015 (16)
  • June 2015 (13)
  • May 2015 (13)
  • April 2015 (14)
  • March 2015 (15)
  • February 2015 (13)
  • January 2015 (13)
  • December 2014 (14)
  • November 2014 (13)
  • October 2014 (13)
  • September 2014 (12)
  • August 2014 (15)
  • July 2014 (13)
  • June 2014 (13)
  • May 2014 (14)
  • April 2014 (14)
  • March 2014 (10)
  • February 2014 (11)
  • January 2014 (13)
  • December 2013 (14)
  • November 2013 (13)
  • October 2013 (14)
  • September 2013 (12)
  • August 2013 (14)
  • July 2013 (10)
  • June 2013 (14)
  • May 2013 (14)
  • April 2013 (14)
  • March 2013 (15)
  • February 2013 (14)
  • January 2013 (13)
  • December 2012 (14)
  • November 2012 (16)
  • October 2012 (13)
  • September 2012 (14)
  • August 2012 (16)
  • July 2012 (12)
  • June 2012 (16)
  • May 2012 (21)
  • April 2012 (18)
  • March 2012 (20)
  • February 2012 (23)
  • January 2012 (31)
  • December 2011 (35)
  • November 2011 (33)
  • October 2011 (32)
  • September 2011 (29)
  • August 2011 (35)
  • July 2011 (33)
  • June 2011 (25)
  • May 2011 (31)
  • April 2011 (30)
  • March 2011 (34)
  • February 2011 (31)
  • January 2011 (33)
  • December 2010 (33)
  • November 2010 (39)
  • October 2010 (26)
All Things Andy Gavin
Copyright © 2023 All Rights Reserved
Programmed by Andy Gavin