Dim Sum at Shanghai No 1 Seafood Village

Dim sum

SimpleViewer requires JavaScript and the Flash Player. Get Flash.

LA Weekly recently published their 10 Best Dim Sum Restaurants in Los Angeles. Being slight dim sum fiends, we'd already tried seven of them on the list. The eight is a new weird (and of course) expensive one in Hollywood, but that still left two more in Monterey Park to try. Shanghai No 1 Seafood Village became the morning's choice, with its funky 1930s Shanghai decor-- the old school glory days!

Funky decor aside, the prices were still very reasonable for a nicer place and the menu, although much more limited than we usually prefer, was pretty tasty.

Aside from the missing tripe, breaded shrimp paste balls, and a few things, the stuff we had included some almost perfectly pan-fried lo bac guo (turnip cake) and a very unusual cheung fun (rice noodle) wrapped around yeow teow (Chinese "donut") that had shrimp deep-fried middle. NOM! Pai gut (pork sparerib), char siu bao, gai lan (Chinese broccoli), and har gow were all very good, with the har gow (and cheung fun) having excellent almost-clear skins. Shu mai and the deep fried beef/taro balls were the real standouts, though. Both were superb.

The "special" lo bac guo is done in way more commonly seen in Hong Kong, and is very rare at dim sum here. Sadly it was disappointing, much too sweet.

Wrapped up with the usual Half and Half visit for pearl milk tea, and a decidedly non-usual visit to Beard Papa's for their strawberry-filled paris brest... and later in the day was The Avengers in 3D (highly enjoyable) followed by burgers at The Counter. A very fattening (and satisifying) day.