Mott 32 - Palazzo

[beefnoguy]

If that was how Mott32 did it, then they probably missed a chitload of steps in between.

My understanding is that the baseline requirement being a very crispy exterior skin and the inside is at the very least, juicy and tender. If you lookup youtube videos some of them even showcase Cantonese banquet restaurant chefs in Taiwan demonstrating the techniques where the juice literally drips out of the chicken (after slicing).

The preparation however is more labor and time intensive and needs at least half a day (although the very serious diners would pre-order ahead of time so the kitchen can invest more time in getting it right, provided they have Sergio class chefs who know what they are doing and not take shortcuts). It starts with a poached chicken marinated with a mixture of sugar, salt, water, maybe garlic, ginger, five spice powder etc, then the skin is splashed with another liquid mixture of white vinegar, molasses, red vinegar, maybe shaoxing wine then the key part is hanging the chicken to air dry. Then chef takes the entire chicken over a wok of hot oil, and splashes the oil over the chicken with the wok spatula (for lack of better word) evenly to a certain degree. This step is exactly how the old school glutinous rice stuffed chicken should be…unlike the shortcut places that just deep fried salt/pepper batter.

Typically when an order is placed, the final step would be to flash / deep fry the entire chicken. If done right, really crispy aromatic exterior, juicy interior and maybe you will get some redness/pinkness around the connector joints and slightly undercooked meat adhering to the bones.

Now if Sergio were a true Dark Lord of the Sith and a geek, he might prick holes in the right places of the chicken (one key place would be the eyeballs so to release as much moisture as possible that will cause a lot of problems during the deep frying and oil splashing processes if not handled correctly), including the back area of the chicken to allow cooking to be more even…but this could be more of a personalized technique.

This is why when a lot of restaurants offer this dish on the fly, you can imagine what they have to do to try to minimize all that hard work just to get it to the table.

I barely remember the last time I had a properly done classic crispy chicken… prawn and/or lobster chips deep fried were the decorations (not Peking duck style steamed buns), maybe some salt and pepper for dipping.

[js76wisco]

I’m glad we didn’t order the fried rice. We found the same success as you with these dishes

• duck
• quail egg siu mai
• iberico pork
  My wife loved the dessert you hated. She loves yuzu and thought each of the flavors complemented each other pretty well. I think the black sesame dessert tasted great but did want a bit more roasted sesame flavor.

The food is great but it is expensive.

[moonboy403]

@js76wisco

black sesame dessert tasted great but did want a bit more roasted sesame flavor.

How was the consistency of the puree?

This is the consistency i’m looking for.

@js76wisco

food is great but it is expensive

Indeed for certain dishes. I’ll stick with the duck and dim sum if I return in the future.

[moonboy403]

@beefnoguy

If that was how Mott32 did it, then they probably missed a chitload of steps in between.

I have no idea how they did it but that’s how it tasted like. I certainly can’t say that the chicken was juicy so I figured that the restaurant didn’t execute it properly.

I was talking to a server at China Tang and we both theorized that there’s just a lack of talent in the US to execute these menus properly despite the recipes coming straight from China/HK. These restaurants also gotta adapt to local palates and often times inferior local ingredients. For example, where do you even find live shrimp here (I’m not talking about SB spot prawns)?? On the other hand, they can be had in abundance and much cheaper in Asia…

[js76wisco]

@moonboy403

How was the consistency of the puree?

A little watery. I enjoy black sesame desserts so I’d order it again but I think they can improve on both the flavor and consistency.

[moonboy403]

Our search for a great black sesame puree continues!

[beefnoguy]

Terrible to have a classic Cantonese dish, even one that is a measuring stick for a restaurant in terms of judging skill put into, to flop so badly…

As a side joke, there was a Northern California mini chain restaurant that started off as a single entity doing quite decent Singaporean for its time, then got sold to some conglomerate that spawned a few locations and turned some into fancy fusion hipster cougar demographic kind of hangout places, and the final iteration had one location selling not typical Hainan chicken, still had the name Hainan on the menu but it looked like Costco Rotisserie Chicken…the kick in the nads experience was that the dish arrived cold and the meat was dry, and it cost x3 as much as a Costco Rotisserie Chicken!

Yeah looks like nobody knows how to properly roast and stone grind black sesame to make that classic puree anymore…

[moonboy403]

@beefnoguy

measuring stick for a restaurant in terms of judging skill

Precisely why I ordered those dishes on my first night there. Have you been to the Mott 32 in HK? I hear great things about that flagship.

[JLee]

Thats too bad about the duck carcass dish, someone else went and they raved about the flavor but to charge $22 for them to basically deep fry and toss in spices is a ripoff. That’s like 5 minutes of work for $22? That’s basically lawyer/doctor pay.

As far as crispy chicken goes nobody in this country does it properly anymore, last time I had a good version was in Hong Kong at Tung Po and by god it was damn good. I’ve been trying to recreate it for a long time but I still can’t quite get it right.

[moonboy403]

@JLee

crispy chicken

I’ve heard that Fook Lam Moon does a mean version as well. @Sgee

[JLee]

I can’t say I’m super experienced eating in HK as well as I would like but I have been meaning to check them out as well as Seventh Son for their roast pork.

[moonboy403]

@JLee Is there proper black sesame puree in SGV?

[JLee]

No idea, embarassingly I dont know the SGV scene anymore since I’m in Chicago often and I spend more of my time in other parts of LA recently.

I’m so behind on the restaurants that I’m learning about them as LA Times is. I’d have to ask my mother and maybe my aunt’s.

[PorkyBelly]

@moonboy403

My waiter acknowledged that the food is bad…and did nothing…after he saw that I stiffed him on tips, he looked at the check, turned his head sideways in an irritated manner and said, “I couldn’t do anything about the food!”

he didn’t take the dish back? did you not eat it?

[moonboy403]

@PorkyBelly

he didn’t take the dish back?

He did not.

@PorkyBelly

did you not eat it?

I left the whole plate there after trying a few pieces. He apologized again when he took the full plate away after our meal…

[moonboy403]

Bottomless brunch!

Dim Sum and Drag Queens Add to the Las Vegas Brunch Scene in 2020

[moonboy403]

How One of Las Vegas’ Best Chinese Restaurants Does Peking Duck — No Passport Required

[Midlife]

The episode of Marcus Samuelsonn’s PBS Show No Passport Required that aired this week in LA features Mott 22 along with several other Vegas Chinese spots. It also traces some of the history of Chinese immigrants in the Vegas area.

[moonboy403]

Thanks for the heads up. Love it!

[moonboy403]

Feeling Cantonese food on our first anniversary.

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sesame prawn toast, autumn sauce - highlight
This classic Hong Kong dish is expertly done. Bread is crunchy without being hard or greasy in any way. The lovely “prawn” topping, on the other hand, is made from smashed up prawns that are repeated agitated till they’re gelatinous. This allows for the topping to have a nice bouncy consistency. And tying both together is a mildly sweet and sour sauce with just a hint of spiciness to give the dish more oomph. Excellent start!

pluma iberico char siu - highlight
Extra soft, tender, and carries that distinct clean iberico porky flavor but not as juicy as my previous visit. Although the sauce/glaze leans toward the sweet end of the spectrum, the savoriness and charred spots help in keeping the overall flavor profile from overly sweet. Very nice overall!

braised eggplant, minced pork, chili peppers
See how the sauce in the claypot(metal in this case) is still bubbling when presented? That’s how it should be when it comes to a claypot dish.

Eggplants are fried and stir fried to have a tender yet creamy texture and the minced pork’s chew act as a nice texture foil. However, the bold funk of the Cantonese salted fish flavor and kick are much more restraint than I’m used to. The dish is also more refined in that it’s not overly saucy or oily as the typical ones found in many restaurants. @JeetKuneBao This might be your veggie jam!

Even-steven eggplants aka attention-to-detail is very good and rightfully so when paying a premium.

smoked black cod - highlight
Lovely smokiness, crunchy crust, and a sweet glaze that envelope the soft and fatty black cod!

sweet & sour pork, dragon fruit, aged black vinegar
This is my second time trying this and I have the same thought as last time so I’m copy and pasting what I wrote I wrote last time:

Each piece of pork is juicy with a crispy crust enveloped in a tart and funky aged black vinegar based sauce. I’ll be honest though, I’m not a fan of black vinegar since it’s a bit too pungent and musty to me but the execution of this dish is certainly the best I’ve had. On the other hand, while pineapple is traditionally used in this dish, Mott 32 substitutes it with dragon fruit which acts as a palate cleanser of sort with its subtle kiwi-like texture and flavor.

Again, there’s minimal sauce pooling as it should be for a sweet an sour pork dish. Very nice.

wok fried flat rice noodles, black angus beef, bean sprouts - highlight
This is what a great beef chow fun should be like. Notice the charred edges on the hor fun? It’s not easy to find that stateside even though that’s the #1 essence of great chow fun. That’s what gives you wok hei and this dish has it in spades alongside that classic caramelized soy sauce flavor! The other things that are important to a great chow fun are even coloring on the hor fun and that the dish needs to glisten without much trace of oil on the bottom of the dish and this chow fun easily achieved both. But the greatness of the dish didn’t end here, every beef slices are tender and silky smooth. Very nicely executed!

The only flaw that this dish has, which is also the last thing to look for in a chow fun, is that their cook worked the hor fun too vigorously in the wok so there are these strands that are quite broken up.

fresh mango, coconut, glutinous rice roll
Our server graciously snuck one out for us to try after warning us that this isn’t what a Hong Konger would expect. How is it? I completely agree with her that this is underwhelming. Please save yourself a few bucks. Heck, run to your nearest Phoenix Boutique and order their mango roll instead and thank me later.

coconut ice cream, coconut cream, pomelo, cookie crumbles
This dessert isn’t gonna rock your world but it’ll get the job done in relieving your dessert itch. If you like coconut, give it a shot.

sweetened beancurd cream, mango soup, pomelo
Second time trying this and it improved quite a bit from last time. The consistency of the sweet mango soup is a little thicker so it has a more velvety mouthfeel. The mango dices, though still tart, are not in any way fibrous this time around. The highlight of the dish? It’s still the sweetened beancurd cream aka tofu flower/dou hua. It has the same silky and cloud-like texture that instantly melts on my tongue. I would imagine that this tofu flower is as good as it can be!