Dim Sum & Hong Kong Seafood Specialist - Sea Harbour

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Top shelf post as usual. That chicken with black truffles dish - what? I could be wrong but don’t recall this one. They have revamped and stepped up their menu.

I’ve only done the live seafood at Sea Harbour and Newport. @Porthos, whose opinion I seriously respect seems to prefer Elite. But the steamed shrimp and rock cod at Sea Harbour is seafood heaven. The spot prawns are crazy good when steamed. @ipsedixit recs having the shrimp heads deep-fried and served separately - genius.

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Did you ask for the prawn heads to be reserved and deep-fried?

Also, on the steamed fish the “sauce” is just wok-fried soy sauce with some oil (usually sesame), and a bit of rock sugar sometimes depending on the fish.

There is a great tofu dish they make with sea cucumbers and thin tissue-like slices of abalone. It’s still bland, in part because most tofu dishes if done right are to highlight the delicate texture and taste of the beancurd. This isn’t braised tofu, or mapo tofu after all. But, yeah, definitely not something everyone will take to.

Salted egg yolk bun is like my kryptonite, assuming I was superman. My problem with the sweet potato bun is that it’s sweet potato; sometimes they will offer the same style French baked bun with taro, which is just fucking outrageous.

Great report as always.

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Hi @ipsedixit, @bulavinaka,

Thanks. :slight_smile: Aaah! I had no idea you could reserve the shrimp heads and have them fried! I must’ve missed that on our old board. I will try that next time. :slight_smile: Thanks.

The sauce on the Steamed Fish: Thanks for the info. I can’t believe it’s so simple sounding yet SO DELICIOUS! :slight_smile: None of us could stop eating it with some steamed rice. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the Sea Cucumber rec! Noted!

There’s a French Style Baked Bun with TARO?! :open_mouth: Oh yah! I think that’d be even better. I hope it’s back on the menu soon.

I’ve said this before.

But dinner is heads-and-shoulders better than dim sum. And dim sum ain’t half bad.

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The salted egg yolk bun made me turn from egg yolk hater to to egg yolk lover. First encountered this type of bun in Singapore years back, where duck egg yolk was used - WOW.

Taro bun at Sea Harbour is pretty amazing as well - also had it in Singapore. I am guessing these were first introduced in Hong Kong and made their way to other places with established dim sum houses?

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@bulavinaka these days I think J Zhou is doing a better job at dinner.

But both JZhou and Elite do rock cod 2 ways.

@Chowseeker1999 next time ask for the rock cod 2 ways. Tail steamed like you did but the head 3-cups casserole style.

And if you’re really spluring, get the steamed king crab 3 ways. Legs fried. Body steamed. Carapace steamed with egg custard. I personally prefer steamed to fried so I’ll ask for the legs steamed also.

Great report as always!

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Damn. I’m sure glad I’m having Chinese food for dinner.

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FWIW, monterey palace on garvey does a chang fun with a filling that includes bitter melon and what might have been chicken, but apparently i’m still not old enough to appreciate bitter melon.

i’m surprised yet pleased that sea harbor’s menu would include such a humble dish; i mean, i got fatty ground pork for $1.19/lb this week. 20 years ago there was a little toisan mom & pop place at 3rd and valley called wing hing deli that would make it, either with salted fish/ salted egg/ chinese sausage. it took about 25 minutes but it was always worth the wait. the secret ingredient is corn starch to get the right kind of texture. back in the day, i could eat bowls and bowls of rice with an order of this.nowadays my blood sugar prevents my indulging myself in such an inexpensive yet glorious pleasure.

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Yknow what’s great with bitter melon?

Foie gras.

A piece of foie gras with a crunchy slice of raw bitter melon is uncoly delectable.

Hi @ipsedixit,

Wow that sounds strangely good. :slight_smile: Where did you eat this at?

Would you laugh at me if I said, “my hotel room in Manhattan”?

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no, but it does give rise to otherwise unimaginable scenarios involving the acquisition of raw bitter melon in manhattan.

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Hi @ipsedixit,

Awesome. :slight_smile:

Oh I forgot to ask, have you (or anyone else) tried Sea Harbour’s Advanced Order Soups? They look so interesting…

  • Double-Boiled Maca with Sea Horse and Black Chicken - I have no idea what this would taste like.

  • Double-Boiled Squab with Lucid Granodema and American Ginseng Soup

  • Double-Boiled Matsutake, Conch and Chicken Soup

and like 5 other ones. Worth ordering?

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Yes

I usually prefer the double-boiled squab with incoherent Grandma…

There’s a surcharge if you want grandma to arrive at your table incoherently. :wink:

Update:

Ordered many of the same dishes (due to a friend of a friend wanting to try all the “must have” dishes), so I’ll keep the comments to a minimum, but the one new dish I had to try:

French Style Sweet Taro Bun:

OMG! @ipsedixit was right. This is SO good! We loved the French-style Sweet Potato Bun last time, but with Taro instead? It’s even more fragrant and crave-worthy! :smile: It’s toasty hot, with a slight crunchy outer shell, and then the warm Taro filling inside. I’m so glad it’s on the menu now.

We devoured this, and ordered another order immediately.

The other Dim Sum (still just as good, except their Pork and Shrimp Dumpling with Truffle - Siu Mai, which today had a slight burnt / smoky flavor. We’re guessing one of the steamers underneath this might’ve dried up / burnt some food underneath, giving it that smell (the actual Siu Mai weren’t burnt at all, just a slight aroma)).

Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant
3939 Rosemead Blvd.
Rosemead, CA 91770
Tel: (626) 288-3939

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Were you there today? We may have bumped into each other, in a sort of culinary fourth-wall existential way.

A tad OT but… My only (so far) dim sum in SGV was Elite. It was terrific and also menu not carts. Which I far, far prefer. Cooked to order with an occasional dish brought around. Mmm :slight_smile: