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Archive for New Bay Seafood

Farewell New Bay

Apr10

Restaurant: New Bay Seafood [1, 2, 3]

Location: 203 West Valley Blvd, Alhambra, CA. (626) 872-6677

Date: April 8, 2014

Cuisine: Cantonese / Chiu Chow Chinese

Rating: Some of the best Cantonese I’ve had!

_

New Bay Seafood has been one of our go to spots for several years for really high quality Cantonese and really excellent service. Unfortunately it seems that they are a little too pricey for the crazy cost competitive SGV restaurant scene and are closing their doors — which is a real shame. Still, we had to go back one last time really blow it out.


The front is classic SGV.

The interior is typical of Inland Empire Chinese restaurants.


We had a private room (there are several). Gotta love that wine bucket.


The owner shows off our giant Alaskan King Crab. He was alive here, about 7 minutes later he was in our stomachs!


Various sauces. The red one is vinegar chili. The orange one sweet “duck” sauce. There is sauce, soy and wasabi, and hoisin sauce at the bottom.


1993 Kalin Cellars Chardonnay Cuvée LD. VM 92. Pale green-gold color. Knockout nose of orange blossom, minerals, apple and hazelnut. Thick, rich and uncompromisingly dry; already showing superb inner-mouth perfume of orange oil, apple, flowers and spices. Brisk but harmonious acids frame the deep flavors perfectly and contribute to the impression of strong structure. Finishes quite powerful and long. “This wine was still totally dumb six months ago,” notes winemaker Terry Leighton, who won’t release a wine until it ready for its close-up. Leighton’s LD bottling is from a north-facing slope, while the LV vines face south.

agavin: Our bottle was in great shape, with a good bit of vanilla still alive.


Steamed Alaskan King Crab. The meat was incredibly succulent and sweet, plus easy to get out.


From my cellar: 1998 Domaine des Chezeaux Griotte-Chambertin. Burghound 92. A touch of wood frames bright, earthy fruit and the initial hints of secondary development followed by supple, forward, intensely rich and mouth coating flavors that possess really beautiful balance. This finishes with both elegance and fine intensity. I very much like this.

agavin: a bit of funk at first, but blew off in 10 minutes.


Whole suckling pig. Another winner of a dish, with a soft porcine quality to the meat and a nice crunch to the skin. Just the right amount of fat.


From my cellar: 2005 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Clavoillon. Burghound 91. A discreet touch of pain grillé and reduction frames fresh and exotic aromas of peach, melon and mango that continue onto the round, rich and concentrated flavors that possess real texture due to the solid dry extract on the mouth coating and solidly long finish. This is notably better than it usually is.

agavin: This is the second bottle of 2000s Leflaive Clav I’ve opened recently (the other being a 2006) and both were advanced (on the way to premox). What is it with the premox curse?


Geoduck! Tastes like giant clam, looks like something else.


Geoduck clam sashimi. Incredibly fresh, with that bit of crunchy chew.


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Geoduck clam salt and pepper style. Like the Chinese version of those clam strips I used to love when we’d visit New England as a kid!


2008 Aubert Pinot Noir Reuling Vineyard. Burghound 76. A super ripe nose featuring notes of menthol, melted vinyl and blackberry jam leads to rich, suave and impressive constituted broad-shouldered flavors that culminate in an edgy, hot and short if mouth coating finish. This is almost painful due to the poor balance and finishing heat.

Parker 93. The 2008 Pinot Noir Reuling Vineyard is a bigger, richer, denser wine exhibiting a medium ruby color as well as notes of forest floor, fresh mushrooms, raspberries, black currants and spring flowers. With excellent depth and richness, it is best drunk over the next 5-6 years.

We also had a 2006, which I forgot to photo:

2006 Aubert Pinot Noir UV Vineyard. Burghound 82. An extremely ripe nose sports ample amounts of menthol and cough syrup character along with a mix of red and blue fruit aromas that have a mildly cooked quality to them that introduce exceptionally rich, round and concentrated big-bodied flavors that culminate in a bitter, clipped and short finish. It’s difficult to see much in the way of future development here.

Parker 92+. Extremely promising, the closed 2006 Pinot Noir UV Vineyard boasts earthy, raspberry, red and black currant notes intermixed with subtle background oak, smoke, and charcoal. The tannins seem to creep up in the finish, something I did not notice last year. The most structured of these Pinots, it requires another 1-2 years of bottle age, and should last for 4-5 years.

agavin: clearly, Burghound is not a fan of these, truth is, neither was I. Parker liked them better, but hey, he doesn’t even really like Pinot. And as a matter of fact, they didn’t taste like pinot noir at all. A bunch of folk liked them, those who like their pinot to taste like Syrah 🙂 I would have given them a higher score than 76 or 85, but not much.


Squab. Super tasty little gamey birds.


2000 Dirler-Cade Gewurztraminer Saering. VM 87-90. Slightly reduced aromas of cinnamon and char. Rather densely packed and tight, with slightly sweet fruit and notes of citrus skin and clove. Tricky to assess today.


Steamed Dungeness crab. Good stuff and perfect with a nice Gewurtz.


2003 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese. VM 91. The bouquet blossoms in a floral way that seems typical for the 2003 vintage here, as is this wine’s imposingly creamy texture. Elegance, lift, clarity, refinement and florality characterize the flavors throughout. In another reflection of the vintage, the essential fruit here is quince rather than apple, tinged with bittersweet vanilla and flowers and a subtle hint of white raisin. Ethereal fruit, flowers and wet stone really cling in the finish.


Cheese lobster. There is actually a bit of cheese mixed in with all that fry. And, yeah, it’s pretty darned fried, but it was really tasty. The lobster itself was succulent and not over done and it was easy to access big chunks of it. We had a pretty obscene amount of this, two of these plates!


2008 Rhys Pinot Noir Horseshoe Vineyard. Burghound 95. An exceptionally densely fruited nose that is intensely floral and nuanced with stone, spice and soft earth hints complements to perfection the impressively concentrated medium weight plus flavors that brim with dry extract such that the very firm tannins are rendered almost invisible at present though I suspect that they will become more visible as the baby fat recedes. This broad-scaled effort should age for up to a decade and last several more. Magnificent.

agavin: Meadows clearly does like this new world pinot. I found it better than the Auberts (which didn’t taste like pinot).


Garlic Santa Barbara Prawn. These almost lobster like shrimp were cooked so well the entire shell was edible. Mine had row too and it was scrumptious.


2012 Failla Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast. VM 89. Medium red. Slightly high-toned aromas of cranberry, cherry and licorice. Spicy and intense, with good lift and sap to the red berry flavors. Good brisk, persistent, varietally expressive pinot. Jordan produced 2,000 cases of this blend.


Crab steamed egg. Bits of the giant crab meat, guts, and eggs steamed into an omelet.


You can see the layer of crab at the bottom. This had a really nice complex “crabby” flavor.


2000 DuMOL Syrah Eddie’s Patch. vm 92. Full, bright medium ruby. Musky, varietally expressive aromas of raspberry, licorice, pepper, spices, gunflint and exotic hints of apricot and mango. Sweet, silky and concentrated, with lovely inner-mouth aromatic quality. A satisfyingly mouthfilling, suave syrah that finishes with lovely ripeness and sweet tannins. Here’s a 2000 that shows thorough flavor development and terrific depth.


Roast goose. Wow, was this a tasty bird. It was so succulent, moist, and fatty. Just melted in your mouth.


2008 Neyen Espiritu de Apalta. 92 points. A very nice Chilean wine…nicely balanced. Carmenere/Cab…deep color, chewy, strong dark fruit – cassis, currants.


Ma Po Tofu. I love Ma Po in general, but this was one of those “southern” variants on the dish where it didn’t have any of the heat or numbing factor of the real Szechuan original. Tasty actually, but not the powerhouse I crave.


2006 Château Destieux. 88 points. From an assemblage of 66% Merlot, 16% Cabernet Sauvignon and 16% Cabernet Franc, the wine offers red and black fruit, stone, earth and coffee scents. Medium/full bodied, soft in texture, the wine ends with black raspberry and licorice notes.


Sweet and sour BBQ pork chops. Like the fancier more meat version of a Panda Express sweet and sour pork ball! But actually pretty darn tasty.


2010 Luca Malbec. VM 91. Good ruby-red. Crushed dark berries and chocolatey oak on the nose, lifted by a mineral element. Sweet, velvety and inviting, with harmonious acidity and underlying minerality enlivening the dark berry, coffee bean and chocolate flavors. Very rich and sweet without being too much. Still, I’d drink this very showy wine on the young side.


Cabbage with preserved shrimp. Cabbage and other vegetables with little dried shrimp. It had a distinct “shrimpy” taste.


2008 Charles Smith Syrah Royal City. 94 points. Wow, great concentration & ripeness, but wonderful balance, too.

Sautéed greens (Ong Choy). A top flight version of the Southern Chinese style greens. Lots of garlicky goodness. An excellent colon sweeper.


2005 Clos de l’Oratoire Chateauneuf du Pape les Choregies. Parker 91-4. The top cuvee, the 2005 Chateauneuf du Pape Les Choregies, a blend of 60% Grenache, 25% Syrah, and 15% Mourvedre, with the Grenache aged in tank and the other components aged in barrel, is superb with its dense purple color and a big, sweet nose of black raspberries, black currants, and a touch of pain grille as well as licorice and flowers. It is full-bodied, powerful, and multi-dimensional, a top-notch effort that should drink well young because of the silky tannins but age for 10-15+ years.


Special fried King Crab. Big chunks of succulent crab meat with a really tasty garlic fry.


2005 Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe Chateauneuf du Pape. Parker 95. One of the most age-worthy cuvees in the appellation, Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe’s 2005 Châteauneuf du Pape was gorgeous on this occasion, showing classic iodine, seaweed and peppery herbs intermixed with layers of sweet currant, plum and blackberry fruits. Full-bodied, powerful and ripe, with a still youthful profile, this beauty won’t hit full maturity for another 3-4 years, and should hold for a decade or more after that.


Roast BBQ chicken. I’m not that much of a chicken fan, but this was a darn tasty one. The meat was moist and perfectly cooked. Too bad we were so full.


2000 Chapoutier Chateauneuf du Pape Barbe Rac. Parker 95. There are approximately 500 cases of this wine. It is a large-scaled Chateauneuf du Pape that represents the antithesis of La Bernardine. This wine has been spectacular, and I have been a frequent buyer and consumer of this wine since the first vintage Michel Chapoutier made, 1989.


Mixed fried rice.



1989 Thumbs up Our Way Riesling. 94 points. Not even listed in Cellar tracker, this was great stuff, to be confused with a 25 year old dessert riesling from Germany.


Overall, this was an amazing dinner. The food was just awesome. So many delectable Cantonese dishes. We had great wine and fabulous service. One of the amazing things about New Bay is how flexible their service is. They even partially consented to bringing out the seafood first (Chinese restaurants have their own “order” that does not comply with wine progression). Or mostly consented as the chef snuck out the suckling pig early (it’s supposed to be by Chinese thinking).

It was pricey, on the order of $200 all in, making it the most expensive (per person) Chinese meal I’ve ever eaten in the states, but we had all sorts of mega expensive ingredients (giant crab, geoduck, other crab, lobster, goose, suckling pig, etc). Such a shame New Bay is closing up shop. It will be missed.

Afterward, we walked next door to the awesome Sabu Dessert and get some light fluffy “snow.” If you haven’t tried Taiwanese style snow, you are really missing out. This one above was coconut snow, passionfruit sauce, with egg pudding, almond jelly, and blackberries. Yum!

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

Related posts:

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  5. Lucky Ducky
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, hedonists, New Bay Seafood, Wine

Ultimate New Bay Lunch

Nov17

Restaurant: New Bay Seafood [1, 2]

Location: 203 West Valley Blvd, Alhambra, CA. (626) 872-6677

Date: November 24, 2014

Cuisine: Cantonese / Chiu Chow Chinese

Rating: Really on point!

_

New Bay Seafood is a fairly elaborate (big with multiple private rooms) Hong Kong and Chiu Chow palace that took over the late Sham Tseng space in 2013. This is my second trip, for a massive Sauvages win luncheon.


The front is classic SGV.


The interior is typical of Inland Empire Chinese restaurants. We had a private room (there are several).


2011 Hatzidakis Winery Aidani Assyrtiko. 90 points. Great wine. Minerals. Big. Balanced. Complex. Overall very interesting.


On the table to start were the traditional peanuts.


From my cellar: 2011 Veyder-Malberg Grüner Veltliner Weitenberg. 91 points. Minerality and a kind of peppery herbal spice. A very good full bodied food white.


Fried squid. Chinese calamari. Light and not too greasy.


2011 Domaine Jacques Carillon Puligny-Montrachet. Burghound 89. I had a chance to retry this a year later and it hasn’t changed much from the first review as an expressive nose of floral, citrus and pear scents leads to vibrant and beautifully well-detailed flavors that display really lovely precision. The mid-palate offers solid volume and fine depth as well as impressive length on the saline-inflected finish. This moderately forward and classy effort is a lovely villages.


Fried oysters. I don’t usually love my oysters fried, but these were lovely. And a fabulous pairing with the gruner.


2001 Emidio Pepe Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. AG 92. Pepe’s awesome 2001 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is a great introduction to this producer’s wines. Richly colored, it offers an aromatic nose and layers of vibrant, sweet dark fruit that open in the glass, revealing a wine of outstanding purity that is full of life and energy. At once delicate and structured, it is one of the highlights of the afternoon. It should also be another long-lived wine from this estate and I imagine that its aging potential is decades.


Squab. Super tasty little gamey birds.


From my cellar: 1999 Mastroberardino Taurasi Radici Riserva. AG 92. The 1999 Taurasi Radici Riserva comes across as surprisingly simple. In 1999 the maceration time was only 15 days and the wine seems to lack the depth and concentration of the best years. Ash, game, spices and dark fruit come together nicely in this accessible, understated Taurasi Radici Riserva. Today, the 1999 looks to be a relatively early drinking vintage.


In case you’re into sucking bird brain.


2008 Château de la Maltroye Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru La Romanée. Burghound 93. Discreet oak notes don’t compromise the expressiveness of the white peach and subtly exotic fruit aromas that introduce concentrated, naturally sweet and textured medium plus weight flavors that possess excellent complexity and fine intensity. This is certainly very pretty and unusually fine as well as slightly more mineral-driven than the typical example of La Romanée. In a word, terrific.


Garlic Santa Barbara Prawn. These almost lobster like shrimp were cooked so well the entire shell was edible. Mine had row too and it was scrumptious.


2009 Aubert Chardonnay Larry Hyde & Sons. AG 95. The 2009 Chardonnay Hyde Vineyard comes across as rich, round and layered. Dried apricots, peaches, flowers and tangerine are some of the notes that flow from this sumptuous, well-spoken Chardonnay. The wine turns more and more delicate with time in the glass. I loved it. This is a great showing from Mark Aubert.


2005 Aubert Chardonnay Reuling Vineyard. IWC 95. Pale green-tinged color. Aromas and flavors of dried pineapple, grapefruit, nutmeg and minerals. Hugely rich and dense, with a compellingly pliant, silky texture and great fullness and volume. As rich and chewy as this is, there is no sign of phenolic character on the back end. Subtle vanilla and smoke notes from the oak add complexity.


House special lobster. This version of the lobster was amazing. The sauce had quite a bit of black pepper and scallions in it. Lots of flavor and very tender.


1998 Paul Jaboulet Aîné Hermitage La Chapelle. Parker 90. This estate’s flagship wine, Hermitage La Chapelle, merits its world-renowned reputation. The outstanding, elegant 1998 Hermitage La Chapelle’s dark plum/purple color is followed by scents of new saddle leather, black currants, blackberries, and underbrush. In the mouth, the wine reveals sweet tannin, medium to full body, excellent depth, and an intriguing smokiness.


Shaking beef. This Vietnamese inspired beef with pepper dish was great with the red wine.


1990 Domaine de Beaurenard Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Boisrenard. Parker 95. This wine saw a small amount of aging in new oak cask, resulting in a more international style when released. Still youthful, the dense ruby/purple-colored 1990 exhibits a classy nose of black fruits, spice box, vanillin, and kirsch liqueur. Full-bodied and pure, with a subtle touch of oak, this fleshy, stylized, yet authoritatively flavorful, rich Chateauneuf du Pape has reached its plateau of maturity, where it should remain for 7-8 years.


Clams in garlic. Delicious.


1998 Domaine Jean Deydier Les Clefs d’Or Chateauneuf du Pape. Parker 88. The dark ruby-colored 1998 is dense, with mineral, pepper, and garrigue, but seemed muted when I tasted it. It displayed all the characteristics of a wine that had just been bottled, so I suspect there is more to it. The wine offered a garrigue/spicy-scented nose, medium to full body, obvious notes of kirsch liqueur intermixed with crushed stones and a pleasant earthiness, admirable layers of flavor, and moderate tannin. It requires several years of cellaring before consumption.


Fried pork chop. More or less like the Taiwanese version.


2003 Domaine du Pegau Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Reservee. Parker 98. Starting with the 2003 Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Reserve, this wine showed spectacularly on release, closed down for a few years, and has now emerged, at close to full maturity, and is straight-up fabulous. Out of the entire tasting, it remained my favorite. Giving up gorgeous blackberry, currants, garrigue, pepper and beef blood, it hits the palate with a massive, full-bodied texture that carries layers of sweet fruit, awesome concentration and blockbuster length. Tasting like the essence of both this estate and the terroir, it’s an incredible wine that I’m happy to taste/drink anytime. It will continue to evolve gracefully, but I see no reason to delay gratification.


Kung pao chicken. Tasty, but  on the mild side compared to authentic KPC.


2000 Alban Vineyards Syrah Reva Alban Estate Vineyard. Parker 94. The saturated blue/purple-colored 2000 Syrah Reva Vineyard exhibits a slightly reduced nose, but with aeration of 60-90 minutes, glorious notes of blackberries, asphalt, singed leather, and wood emerge. Medium to full-bodied and moderately tannic, this young, unevolved, but promising 2000 will be at its finest between 2004-2015.


Greens and garlic. Colon sweeper!


2002 JC Cellars Syrah Haley’s Reserve Rockpile Vineyard. Parker 94. The blockbuster 2002 Syrah Rockpile Vineyard Haley’s Reserve (from a red soil vineyard planted at 2,000 feet) boasts a gorgeous perfume of boysenberries, blueberries, blackberries, lavender, toast, and licorice. Full-bodied, with a voluptuous texture in addition to dry tannins lurking behind the extravagant fruit and concentration, this terrific Syrah should hit its prime in 1-2 years, and last for a decade.


Special olive pork ribs. These small bits of pork rib were fried and seasoned to perfection. Really tasty. Not sure what was olive about them.


2002 Domaine Huet Vouvray Demi-Sec. 90 points.


Almond soufflé. Not exactly  a true souffle, under the pastry is a kind of warm almond soup with ginko nuts in it.


2002 Raymond-Lafon. Parker 90-92. I suspect most readers will find it hard to get excited about the 2002 vintage for the sweet wines of Barsac and Sauternes after what appears to be a prodigious 2001. However, 2002 is a very fine year for this region, possibly superior to any of the vintages between 2000 and 1991. The wines possess plenty of botrytis, but neither the impressive definition nor supreme elegance of the 2001s. This is a sweet, full-bodied, fat, concentrated, intense effort that was showing well in September, 2003.


Creme brule. Not your usual Chinese dessert, but good all the same.


Tapioca. Fruity.

The co-owner. They were incredibly nice, friendly, and with fabulous service.

Overall, New Bay Seafood was really good. Being Southern Chinese, it’s not the most exotic of the Chinese sub-regions (foodwise, since so much American Chinese is Cantonese derived) but their execution is really very very good. Every dish was tasty and more than half of them fabulous. If you want an approachable entree into the wonderful world of San Gabriel Valley Chinese, you can’t go wrong with New Bay. And, besides, the owner treated us like kings. They served the dishes one by one, hung out, and we’re generally fabulous.


Afterward, we walked next door to the awesome Sabu Dessert and get some light fluffy “snow.” If you haven’t tried Taiwanese style snow, you are really missing out. This one above was pineapple snow, passionfruit sauce, with almond jelly, and boba (on the bottom). Yum!

For more crazy Hedonist meals.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

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By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Cantonese cuisine, Chinese cuisine, New Bay Seafood, Sauvages

New Bay Seafood

Jan22

Restaurant: New Bay Seafood [1, 2]

Location: 203 West Valley Blvd, Alhambra, CA. (626) 872-6677

Date: January 20, 2014

Cuisine: Cantonese / Chiu Chow Chinese

Rating: Really on point!

_

New Bay Seafood is a fairly elaborate (big with multiple private rooms) Hong Kong and Chiu Chow palace that took over the late Sham Tseng space in 2013.


The interior is typical of Inland Empire Chinese restaurants. We had a private room (there are several).


On the table to start were the traditional peanuts.


And some marinated pickles.


2006 Schafer-Frohlich Schlossbockelheimer Felsenberg Riesling Spatlese. Parker 92. The Frohlichs- 2006 Schlossbockelheimer Felsenberg Riesling Spatlese came from significantly botrytized grapes and was yeasted to assure a reliable fermentation. Licorice, honey, black currant, and pineapple dominate the nose and palate, where an almost buttery texture and high residual sugar do not prevent juiciness and vivacity, thanks in part to the acidity having gone ever higher here than in the Felseneck. Irresistibly luscious, subtly honeyed and saline, smoky, and tingling mineral in its finish, this, too, should be a long (15+ year) keeper, although Frohlich is convinced that the Felsenberg will have an edge in complexity thanks to the effect of spontaneous fermentation.


This roast BBQ pork was tremendous. It’s that red skinned variety that I used to get growing up in Cantonese dimsum houses, but was tender, not too fatty, and delicious.


Next up was a roast BBQ duck served with a sweet orange colored sauce. No one does duck as well as the Chinese and this was a delectable example.


From my cellar: 1994 Bollig-Lehnert Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Riesling Auslese. 92 points. The sweetness had pleasantly faded, but it had extremely nice petrol notes.


We called this the cheese lobster, because there is actually a bit of cheese mixed in with all that fry. And, yeah, it’s pretty darned fried, but it was really tasty. The lobster itself was succulent and not over done and it was easy to access big chunks of it.


2003 Louis Latour Bâtard-Montrachet. Burghound 92. This too is quite aromatically expressive and while this is no model of finesse either, both the aromatic and flavor profiles possess stunning complexity and in contrast to most big, sappy and muscular white, this manages to retain an unusually fine sense of balance and delivers a palate staining finish. It’s dramatic but there’s substance behind the size and weight.

Our bottle was a little closed and tired, although it opened as the evening progressed.


Some of our party had dietary restrictions and they asked for this steamed tilapia with pepper. They seemed to love it, although for me, the whole thing sort of ignores the point of Chinese food.


House special lobster. This version of the lobster was even better. The sauce had quite a bit of black pepper and scallions in it. Lots of flavor and very tender.


From my cellar: 1995 Louis Jadot Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Clos St. Jacques. 94 points. Smells of creamy blue and black fruit, and earth. It’s powerful on the palate, the fruit tastes young, and deep. There are layers to the palate that reveal bramble, minerals, and a seemingly weightless power. Finishes with a tarry, meaty, wild side. Excellent wine that is beginning to show.


Chinese chicken salad. Haha. I have no idea how authentic this is, but the flavor profile was actually more Vietnamese (which really isn’t that far from Chiu Chow). There was a sweet/savory thing, a little bit of zing, and cilantro.


Salt and pepper shrimp. Nice tender version of this too with a lot of salty garlic flavor.


2006 Marcassin Pinot Noir Three Sisters Vineyard. Parker 94+. The 2006 Pinot Noirs that are just being released include the 2006 Pinot Noir Three Sisters Vineyard. While it has closed down since I tasted it last year, it does reveal a dark plum/ruby color as well as a smoky bouquet of Asian plum sauce, soy, forest floor and sweet black cherries. Like many Marcassin Pinots, it possesses a Morey St.-Denis-like character. The Three Sisters cuvee will benefit from another 1-2 years of bottle age and drink well for a decade or more.

In my opinion, this was a nice new world pinot, but as usual, too oaked and young. I’m certainly not drinking 1re cru Burgundy (which would be the analog here) from ’06, more like the late 90s.


Roast BBQ chicken. I’m not that much of a chicken fan, but this was a darn tasty one. The meat was moist and perfectly cooked.


Chiu Chow crab. Super tasty again, and sleeping on a bed of giant garlic cloves. The owner warned us that this baby might gift us with a bit of a surprise in the middle of the night — in the form of excess gas! LOL.


Sautéed greens (pea tendrils?). A top flight version of the Southern Chinese style greens. Lots of garlicky goodness.


2001 Noon Shiraz Reserve. Parker 99. The 2001 Shiraz Reserve is a riveting example of what is so exciting about old vine Shiraz. Produced from a 35-40-year old McLaren Vale vineyard, it possesses amazing aromatics, purity, texture, and richness. This 2001, which tips the scales at a lofty 15.8% alcohol, is intense and full-bodied as well as remarkably elegant for a wine of such mass and intensity. Its impenetrable inky/black/purple color is accompanied by explosive aromatics, and is bursting with deep, rich, well-balanced flavors revealing seamlessly integrated wood, alcohol, acidity, and tannin. Profoundly deep, rich, and intense, it will hit its peak in 3-4 years, and should last for 15+. This is truly compelling old vine Shiraz!


Eggplant with pork. A slightly spicy eggplant with bamboo shoots and pork. Really really tasty and I love that kind of stringy sweet pork.


Sweet and sour pork. Sort of the real version of those Panda Express fried pork balls in red sauce. Quite good as this dish goes.


Fried fish. Tender salty fish and chips without the chips — Chinese style.


Shrimp over crispy noodles. I love this kind of mild dish. The white sauce soaks into the noodles and makes for a sort of comfort food.

Overall, New Bay Seafood was really good. Being Southern Chinese, it’s not the most exotic of the Chinese sub-regions (foodwise, since so much American Chinese is Cantonese derived) but their execution is really very very good. Every dish was tasty and more than half of them fabulous. If you want an approachable entree into the wonderful world of San Gabriel Valley Chinese, you can’t go wrong with New Bay. And, besides, the owner treated us like kings. They served the dishes one by one, hung out, and we’re generally fabulous.


Afterward, we walked next door to the awesome Sabu Dessert and get some light fluffy “snow.” If you haven’t tried Taiwanese style snow, you are really missing out. This one above was coconut snow, passionfruit sauce, with egg pudding, almond jelly, and blackberries. Yum!


Someone else’s slightly different snow.

For more crazy Hedonist meals.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Rocking the SGV shirt!

Related posts:

  1. Newport Special Seafood
  2. Shanghai #1 Seafood Village
  3. Phong Dinh – Hedonists go Vietnamese
  4. Hunan Chili Madness
  5. Sometimes You Want to Get Crabs
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Alhambra California, Burgundy, Chinese cuisine, crab, hedonists, Lobster, New Bay Seafood, Riesling, san Gabriel valley, Wine
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