Monday, February 18, 2008

Dim Sum at Sea Harbor Seafood restaurant

It is interesting as a Chinese growing up in North America, every city that we have lived in, after searching for the best Asian grocery store, the next thing is always the search for the best dim sum. We always compare the standards to Vancouver's dim sum.

After eating at many sub-par dim sum restaurants, we finally stumbled upon Sea Harbor Seafood restaurant. It is the closest thing to what you would find in Vancouver, i.e. Fisherman's Terrace in Richmond.

What should one look for in a dim sum restaurant, you may ask?
I always look for:
  • quality ingredients
  • fresh seafood
  • "melt-in-your-mouth" dough
  • innovative and modern dishes
  • attention to details i.e. de-veined shrimp in dumplings
  • quality of their broth i.e. sharks' fin dumpling soup
  • knife skills i.e. finely sliced scallions
At Sea Harbor, they have a few dishes that they have pretty much perfected like their self-acclaimed "best in the world" mini baked BBQ pork bun, all of their shrimp dishes i.e. shrimp dumplings, shrimp rice rolls etc., steamed daikon cake, pork ribs in black bean sauce, braised chicken feet, glutenous rice with mushrooms and diced chicken, fried chicken "knees", and seafood/lobster congee. One of my favorite things to order at dim sum is the sharks' fin dumpling soup, however, sad to say, it did NOT meet my standards. Their steam BBQ pork bum is consistently bad because the meat always tastes like it has been oxidized. They have foie gras wonton on the menu which I will not ever try as I know how much foie gras costs and why mess with the classic wontons. I am not a big fan of Chinese desserts but I have tried their egg tarts a few times and it is always warm, flaky and delicate. Service is your typical Chinese restaurant, it is not consistent. You have to an extreme VVIP before they will even offer up their XO sauce...sometimes we ask for it, and the waiters "pretend" not to even hear us and just bring us the regular chili oil. What's the big deal? Oh well, we have not climbed the VIP ladder yet. Although we got seated right away once when there were like 500 people waiting for a seat (there is usually a line up out the door on the weekend).

In closing, Sea Harbor has hit my soft spot for dim sum. They are good compared to all the other dim sum restaurants in LA. They also have another branch in Richmond, by the same name. But if I were in Vancouver, I would ONLY go to Fisherman's Terrace!

1 comment:

Peggy said...

I LOVE BBQ pork bun... yummy... now that we are in the Ridge, it's an hour drive to eat them :(