Restaurant: The Palace [1, 2]
Location: 11701 Wilshire Blvd, Second Floor, Los Angeles, CA. 310-979-3377.
Date: July 18, 2017
Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese
Rating: Best on the westside?
I’ve eaten dimsum lunch at the Palace dozens of times. It’s the only decent one west of Chinatown — and even Chinatown isn’t worth it, just go to the SGV for the best in the country. But somehow I’ve never had dinner here — until now!
This was a last minute casual dinner but we still had to bring some wine.
NV Jacquart Champagne Brut Mosaïque. 87 points. Fresh and crispy on the front of the palate but with good depth on the finish.
From my cellar: 2007 Domaine William Fèvre Chablis Grand Cru Bougros Cote de Bouguerots. BH 94. A somewhat riper but more reticent nose features the barest hint of wood spice that marries well with the explosive green and yellow fruit aromas and fresh, full, powerful, beautifully delineated flavors underpinned by a driving minerality and stunning length. Given the superb balance and firm acid spine, this should age effortlessly for at least 15 years, perhaps longer. In sum, this is a strikingly elegant, classy and altogether refined effort with flat out marvelous complexity with buckets of classic Chablis character. A stunner of a wine.
From my cellar: 1999 Domaine Michel Noëllat Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Beaux Monts. BH 90-91. Extremely pure, fine, spicy and elegant black fruits with medium weight, silky flavors that display an exquisite velvety texture plus real breadth on the mid-palate. Like many 1999s, this is not particularly dense but there is enough material to permit another year or two or improvement. Serious, long and lovely with good persistence and truly excellent transparency of the underlying terroir. In fact, for those who are curious about exploring the characteristics of a classic Vosne, this would be a perfect choice. And for those who don’t want to wait, there is so much exuberant spice and fruit, pinot baby fat and sève that this can be enjoyed now. And perhaps most important, it’s rare to find any Burgundy that delivers this level of quality for $50 (I’ve seen this offered for $40) and thus it offers terrific value as well. Note that I have experienced some bottle variation with this wine with two recent examples seeming to be somewhat flat and disjointed yet another was exactly as described above.
Boiled peanuts.
The brought us out our lobster to show it off.
And they still had some dimsum available to order so we got a few like:
har gow. shrimp dumplings. Find, good not great har gow.
Another dumpling.
XLB. always yummy.
Shu Mai. shrimp and pork dumplings. A favorite of mine.
Shrimp and scallop dumpling. Good too.
Lobster causeway style. With the crunchy garlic bits. We had better CW style lobster a few days earlier at Top Island but this was certainly respectable.
Peking Duck. Also quite respectable. Buns instead of pancakes, and the meat had just a touch less flavor than at the best SGV places, but nice.
Extra duck meat.
Pork with garlic. The Szechuan dish. A little sweet but I enjoy this dish.
Sweet and pungent shrimp. One of my favorites of the night. Crispy with a sweet and sour sauce.
Garlic eggplant. Not as tasty as the true Szechuan version, but still good.
Fried rice with yummy goopy sauce. Having discovered this kind of dish last week I’m just so into it now!
Mango/passionfruit pudding. Best of the typical Chinese desserts.
Fortune cookies. Don’t usually get these in the SGV, but we are in Brentwood.
Even the overwrapped chairs are authentically Chinese. For Brentwood, The Palace is surprisingly legit. It’s not “great” by SGV standards but it absolutely blows the super Americanized broccoli and bell peppers in every dish places away!