Cantonese Chinese :: All Things Andy Gavin

Archive for Cantonese Chinese

Capital Lau

Aug24

Location: 755 W Garvey Ave. Monterey Park, CA 91754. (626) 282-3318

Date: December 5, 2021

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Great Banquet

This is the first official Tony Lau dinner since the pandemic and Tony took us back to Capital Seafood in the SGV. The first time we were there with him the place was mobbed and hosting a huge Chinese wedding. This time the main dining room was completely deserted — maybe 1 table.

But we had our own two table private room.

I do have to stop for a moment and “show off” the decoration.

Peanuts.

Suckling pig. Tough, chewy, and with a very piggy taste.

Lobster with ginger and scallions. The noodles underneath were delicious soaked with the sauce.

Lettuce cup with minced shrimp.

The lettuce and hoisin.

Roast goose. Really awesome with the sweet sauce.

Stir fried squid with shrimp paste (shrimp paste has a very pungent n strong flavor, either you love it or think it’s awful, just like people hate blue cheese)

Roasted Squab.

Stir fried chives and crispy taro. Delicious. The taro reminds me a bit of potato sticks.

French style beef. Super tender. Not sure why Tony always orders this.

Salty crab fried rice. Also delicious.

Almond soup. Chinese desserts are always a bit weird.

Almond Cardamom Gelato — Sicilian Noto Romano Almonds with Cardamom and Cinnamon infused milk — Incredible! — 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 #almond #cardamom #cinnamon

Party in full swing.

The wines. I was too lazy to photo them all and write them up.

This was a nice meal, except my hand hurt because I had fallen on my bike the previous day and “contused my thumb” — but that has nothing to do with the food, which was quite good. Pretty classic ordering from Tony, but it was all tasty and we had a fabulous time in our rowdy private room. Big two table gang. I’m not a huge fan of two tables but if you have to have them they are better in a big private room like this as it’s easy to move around.

Capital is a sort of “old school” (for the SGV) type of place with a bit of an 1980s or early 1990s vibe, but it still turns out very solid Cantonese banquet food.

For my catalog of Chinese restaurant reviews both here and in China, click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: BYOG, Cantonese Chinese, Gelato, Tony Lau, Wine

888 Not So Late

Feb14

Restaurant: 海珍大酒樓 888 seafood restaurant [1, 2]

Location: 8450 Valley Blvd, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 573-1888

Date: December 19, 2019

Cuisine: Cantonese Dimsum

Rating: good cart dimsum

We had such a good banquet dinner at 888 Seafood a couple of weeks ago that we decided to return and try their dimsum during the day. It should be noted that 888 has been around for a long while — decades — and is still a cart place. I.e. everything rotates around on the steam carts.

Har Gow. Shrimp dumplings. nice.

Shrimp and Scallop Dumplings.

Vegetable Dumplings.

XLB (Xao Lao Bao). Pork soup dumplings. These were tasty, but a bit sticky and pasty.

Shrimp and Vegetable Dumplings.
Shu Mai. Not a bad version of the classic.

Pork ribs. Ugly but delicious.

Beef balls. Also ugly but tasty.

Shrimp Chow Fun. Good for this dish.

Eggplant and Shrimp Paste. Black bean sauce. A little more unusual.

Greens with Sauce. Comes on the dedicated greens cart.

Crunchy top pork buns. A bit sweet and really nice texture.

Baked pork buns.

Shrimp paste with Green Pepper with Black Bean Sauce. Pretty good, actually.

Chewy Pork Dumpling. I always like this texture.
Tofu. Very light and delicate. Nice soft texture.
Bean Curd wrapped veggies.

Cantonese Luke Warm Roast Duck. Pretty juicy, but very luke-warm, almost cool.

Pork Hock with Bok Choy. Delicious! Several people popped their pig’s feet cherry on these.

Fatty Beef Ribs. Rich sauce and thick slabs of beef that didn’t seem so Chinese.

Chicken Feet in XO sauce.

Seafood on crispy Chow Mein. Yum!

Pineapple Buns with custard and real pineapple chunks — great. Had several even though I was very full.

Macao Tart — ok, a bit mild.

Dimsum at 888 was solid, but not particularly interesting or super fresh. Definitely a notch or two down from the made to order places. Shells were a bit “sticky” which indicates they have been sitting in the steamers for a bit while they wheel around. Non dimsum dishes were more interesting. This is more like the way SGV dimsum was 10-15 years ago.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Brunch, Cantonese Chinese, Dim sum, dimsum, dumplings, hedonists, lunch, Lunch Quest, SGV

888 Seafood – Banquet

Feb03

Restaurant: 海珍大酒樓 888 seafood restaurant [1, 2]

Location: 8450 Valley Blvd, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 573-1888

Date: December 8, 2019

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Amazing whole pig

Sunday night is always the night for full on SGV adventures and December was a banner month. Tonight’s dinner starts off a run of four back to back Sunday Asian dinners.

First up is at 888 Seafood which is one of those “grand dames” of the SGV, being an old Cantonese Banquet hall serving dimsum during the day and Cantonese Banquet at night. It’s got some serious 1980s Hong Kong style decor. Ron was here recently and wanted us to return because he said the pig was amazing (which it is, as you shall see).

Check out our ginormous private room and its Trompe-l’œil marble style — plus really grungy Vegas carpet. But the room was great. Tons of space and a HUGE round table!

Yarom, Jerome, and I dropped by a few days in advance and planned the menu personally with the manager, Lucy.

Boiled peanuts.

XO sauce.

A bevy of other sauces.

Cold appetizer plate.

Zoom on the plate with cold cuts, jellyfish, pickled seaweed, vegetables, preserved egg etc. The meats were good and interesting. This wasn’t my favorite jellyfish — it was fine — but it wasn’t as tangy or “snappy” as I like it.

Spicy beef tendon. This wasn’t super spicy, and it had a chewy gelatinous texture, but it was really really good. Nice flavor and really fun to chew.

Spicy hot and sour soup. Full of tripe. Super spicy. Actually, too spicy even for me. I could eat it, but it had this INTENSE green pepper heat that made your throat burn, your eyes water, and you want to cough. Seriously spicy even for a spice addict.

Curry lobster. We meant to order Causeway Style Lobster but they goofed — glad they did because this “Singapore-style” curry lobster was very interesting.

Here comes piggy!

Suckling pig. Maybe full grown pig. haha. This giant pig was amazing. Super crunchy skin, super hot and succulent meat.

He’s propped up on some kind of canister.

And was served with buns.

Plus hoisin and scallions.

Afterward, the face came back to haunt us. Jeffery munched on it.

Salt and pepper shrimp. Eat whole. Quite nice.

Bacon wrapped scallop. Interesting.

100 flower chicken. Pressed boneless chicken with layers of shrimp paste. I love this dish, although this particular version was a bit mild — it was hard to even taste the shrimp.

Roast pigeon. Nice and livery.

Meat balls with leeks. Very dense texture to the meat, chewy, almost rubbery. I liked the leeks though. A lot. Most people did not love this dish. I think they had a hard time with the black hole dense balls.

Peking duck, buns, and condiments. A solid peking duck. One of these Cantonese style peking ducks — not incredibly crispy.

Peking duck meat as lettuce cups. Served stir fried with water chestnuts.

Lettuce cups.

Lotus root, walnuts, snow peas and various other veggies. Plain, but nice crunch.

Seafood over crispy noodle — great! I love this dish and this was a nice one.

Mango pudding — a bit bland. I do love mango pudding, but this one didn’t have an intense mango flavor like it should.

Toasted Almond Truffle Gelato (upper left) — My new egg yolk based nut formulation with Toasted Sicilian Noto Romano Almond makes a sublime base stacked with layers of house-made Valrhona Almond Amaretti Ganache — 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 #Valrhona #almond #amaretti #cookie #ganache #ChocolateTruffle

Root Beer Float Gelato (lower left) — Sarsaparilla flavored gelato base with house-made vanilla cream cheese layers — 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 #RootBeer #RootBeerFlaot #Sarsaparilla #vanilla #creamcheese

True Tiramisu Gelato (upper right) — after long hiatus, one of my best flavors remerges for a holiday party — This is a genuine tiramisu in gelato form, with a Marsala Egg Yolk Zabaione, fresh Mascarpone Cheese, and real Espresso. Then it’s layered with Valrhona Cocoa and Lady Finger’s soaked in house-made Espresso Rum Syrup — 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 #Tiramisu #Espresso #coffee #chocolate #marsala #Zabaione #Eggyolk #Rum #Mascarpone

Mint Meringue Strawberry Sorbetto (lower right) — An intense dairy-free base made from Avignon Strawberries and layered with house-made Spearmint Meringue — created 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 #strawberry #sorbetto #mint #Meringue

Overall, this was a great meal. Execution was a bit mixed, with dishes varying from good to great. Pig was amazing. One of the best pigs we’ve had. Service was good. Room is amazing, being huge, with a table fit for like 20. Portion sizes were great too, as was pacing.

We decided to return for dimsum too and try it out.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: 888 Seafood, BYOG, Cantonese Chinese, Chinese Food, Gelato, hedonists, Peking Duck, SGV, suckling pig, Wine

Quick Eats – Dim Sum House

Oct02

Restaurant: Dim Sum House

Location: 1822 Westwood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. (310) 441-9651

Date: August 20, 2019

Cuisine: Chinese Dim Sum

Rating: Mediocre but theoretically fast

Dim Sum House is a newish strip mall take on dim sum.

It’s just in the mini-mall, right south of Santa Monica Blvd, on Westwood — next to the little Pharmacy and dry cleaners. I think it’s owned by the same people as Hop Woo.

The interior is very Chinese — could be in the SGV — but it’s not. Oddly, even though it was about 1pm, there wasn’t a soul in here except for the loan employee (behind the counter).

The daytime dim sum menu.

This is an interesting sort of place. By day, it’s a small (greatest hits) classic Cantonese dim sum menu. I think at night they have skewers.

Har Gow (shrimp dumplings). Probably the best item. Fairly typical, but kinda limp and chewy.

Shu Mai (pork and shrimp dumplings). These looked hideous and tasted better, but not great. A bit mealy.

XLB (soup dumplings). Pasty skins. Filling was okay.

Pan fried bun. Basically the same pork filling, but with a very heavy chewy exterior. Filling was good and I picked that out.

My service experience was very weird here — and not in a good way. I was the only person. Staff person was eating themselves when I came in. Very slow to notice me. Slow to take my order. Then I waited. And waited. After quite a while 2 of the items above came out. Girl just sat behind the counter on her phone. Eventually she brought two more items. I had to get up and ask her for necessities like chopsticks and napkins. Then I waited for some more. The 5th item never came. I went up and asked. She checked in kitchen and told me it was coming. She rang up my bill. I waited. Eventually I asked again and she checked again and then told me “they were out of it.” She had to refund me the money even. Clearly not very concerned about customer service. Staff in back were probably eating and smoking too rather than steaming the dumplings — which clearly were made long in advance, or maybe just frozen.

They didn’t taste great either. Now it’s sort of like bad pizza in that it’s not THAT bad, but for dim sum it was quite lousy. I like the idea of this kind of quick smaller format — which Tim Ho Wan is doing also — but the execution was abysmal.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Cantonese Chinese, Dim sum, dimsum, Har Gow, Westwood Ca

So Many Palaces, So Few Sundays

Dec24

Restaurant: Monterey Palace Restaurant

Location: 1001 E Garvey Ave. Monterey Park, CA 91755. Phone number (626) 571-0888

Date: November 11, 2018

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Tony always gets great stuff out of the kitchen

Tony Lau’s Cantonese dinners are some of the best Chinese dinners of the year. He always manages to get the best out of these old school Cantonese kitchens.

Monterey Palace is definitely one of these old school 80s Cantonese Palaces on Garvey.

The interior is the usual somewhat overdone, slightly Chinese wide space.

We had a nice private room.

They specialize in roasting so there were pigs and ducks in the window.

Peanuts on the table to begin with.

Suckling Pig. Of course we had to. This was pretty typical of good SGV suckling pigs. Crisp skin, nice porky meat and the light hoisin sauce.

Garlic shrimp. Crispy fried/baked. Not sure how they get them exactly like this.

With roe too and WAY better than the similar steamed “bug” dish at Newport Seafood. This had a lot of flavor. You could munch on the shells if you like too.

Scallops, pea pods, and sea cucumber. Very light sauce. A totally different sea cucumber prep than I had in China. But good. The scallops and pea pod part of the dish reminded me of velvety dishes I’d get at Chinese places in my youth (early 80s).

Beef with mushrooms. Simple, but nice tasty beef actually.

Sizzling pork. It came first in a bowl.

Then they transferred to the hot skillet to finish it off. Much like the old “sizzling war bar.”

Cantonese roast duck. This is close to Peking Duck, but not as crispy. Basically roast duck. Served with the heavier buns.

And the usual condiments. Not nearly as good as a great Peking Duck, but still excellent.

Lobster steamed with garlic. This simple prep is often one I get for crab. Just steamed, over glass noodles, and with lots and lots of garlic. Actually turned out to be excellent with lobster as it played up the moist and tender meat.

Mushrooms, veggies, and pan fried meat (can’t remember which type). This was a slightly different dish and nice.

Some ancient dessert wine for my gelato.

My son’s favorite and his birthday pick: Triple Chocolate Cloud Gelato – the base made with Valrhona 63% Satilla Chocolate and then layered with Dark Chocolate Creamcheese Ganache and house-made Valrhona brownie cubes — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #SummerTime #TripleChocolate #chocolate #valrhona #javara #brownies #icecream #dessert #FrozenDessert

There was also a tiny bit of Saffron Pistachio Gelato – Persian Saffron infused milk and Pistachios from Bronte Sicily — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #saffron #pistachio #nuts #sicily

The restaurant brought fruit.

Overall, this was a great meal. Monterey Palace is a pretty dated old school Cantonese place and I bet that if you just went and ate dinner it would be fairly middling (although enjoyable enough). However, Tony Lau always manages to get the very best out of them. This meal wasn’t my favorite Chinese style, I like a somewhat more varied, spicier, and more “Chinese” Chinese food style personally. In some ways it actually reminded me of what we had in Guilin China (which isn’t that far from Canton). You can see a lot of examples from China itself below in my Chinese dining guide.