Restaurant: Blooming VIP Restaurant [ 1, 2]
Location: 8118 Garvey Ave A, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 280-2288
Date: January 8, 2023
Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese
Rating: There are better
The latest Dirty Dozen white overlaps with Sunday Chinese. Truth is, I prefer just straight Sunday Chinese, but having a wine theme is ok. It was Champagne again this time.
We went out to relative newcomer Blooming VIP — which has pretty decent dim sum – and a very over the top decor.
This time around we needed white wine to begin, as Champ was the main event.
Peanuts Yarom brought in from Sichuan Delicious. They were pretty good, nice bit of spice and Chinese flavor.
Smashed Cucumbers. Very solid classic smashed cucumbers with garlic. Not spicy but nice crunch.
Chicken Feet. Bleh. Only Yarom ate these as usual.
Geoduck Sashimi. It looked good, but these were tasted like a bait and tackle shop. Not even close to the quality of Longo. I actually had a hard time finishing what I took. It didn’t taste unfresh, and this should have a briney quality, but this was too strong.
Close up.
Fried Geoduck. The neck fried salt and pepper style. Edible, but not really good, particularly in comparison to Longo (whose version of this dish is awesome).
Walnut Shrimp. Excellent version of the gweillo classic. Large shrimp, lightly fried with the sweet mayo. Guilty pleasure.
Ginger Scallion Lobster with Noodles. The lobster was tiny, very little meat, but it was juicy. Ginger balance was way too strong here. I also don’t love this kind of sloppy noodle, but it is typical.
White Pepper Jellyfish. Someone in the kitchen accidently dropped an entire cannister of white pepper into the dish. It was disgusting and I like white pepper. Almost sneeze inducing and none of the vinegar thing that this dish should have.
More wine (getting lazy).
Roast Chicken. A very solid roast chicken. Not the best I’ve ever had, but nice and juicy. It was served with an odd “jus” gravy.
Roast Quail or Pigeon. Solid 7/10 version of this classic dish and certainly enjoyable.
Pseudo Peking Duck with buns. Thin Cantonese hoison and spring onions (no cucumbers, no pancakes). The duck itself was pretty tasty although this was like 1/2 a duck as it was on top of a huge pile of shrimp chips to make it look bigger. To find out more about Peking Duck, consult my Ultimate Peking Duck Guide.
Thin Cantonese hoison.
Yarom brought these carb free egg-white pancakes which actually served quite well as duck pancakes.
Duck Lettuce Cups. Fine.
The lettuce itself.
Tofu with Mushrooms. I added to the order because we had nothing from the wok — Yarom has a thing for straight meat dishes. This tofu had that lovely soft egg custard texture. The mushrooms were nice but covered with a slightly sweet cornstarch sauce. There were not actually very many mushrooms however, and they were bulked up with a bunch of soggy iceberg lettuce underneath.
Clay pot with satay beef and vermicelli. More vermicelli than beef. The satay sauce was decent and the beef was nice and tender.
Roast Suckling Pig. Excellent 10/10 Chinese style crispy roast pig. Best dish for sure with awesome crispy skin and nice slightly porky flavor.
Cremino al Siciliana Gelato — The base made with Galbani Whole Milk Ricotta and Sicilian Acacia Honey laced with house-made Bronte Pistacchio DOCG “Fudge” — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #ricotta #honey #pistachio #pistacchio #fudge
The scores.
Overall, it was a fun evening, but the food was really hit or miss. Blooming is good at roast birds and pig, but all the seafood was really meh, almost bad. Not “really bad”, still better than a westside Chinese, but not up there with the good Cantonese seafood places. The wok dishes were decent but not outstanding. But again, the birds and pig were excellent. So they know how to BBQ. Service was great and we had a nice private room.