tiffin unboxed

Shanghai No 1 Seafood Village

So many great Chinese restaurants come and go in the San Gabriel Valley, sometimes it's hard to stand out. Or even keep track of the action. I don't often repeat places or dishes because it's fun to try something new.

Within the past 6 months, one place I've been to twice and still dream about is Shanghai No 1 Seafood Village, a branch of a chain in Shanghai. It exudes luxury in both its palace-like ambiance and food. Even the artful picture menu, showing the very creative plating, resembles a brightly colored magazine and is just about as long.

Food Writer Jonathan Gold called this the most ambitious Chinese restaurant in L.A., maybe ever.

Let me briefly touch upon some standout features of this place, noted during my 2 visits.

Dinner Highlights

First things first. At this place it's ALL about the pan-fried pork buns, the sheng jian bao. Light as a feather, half steamed half pan fried and sprinkled with black and white sesame seeds and chives, they are at once light, chewy, crunchy and juicy.


Also fluffy and loose, it remains moist, tasting of broth and accompanied perfectly by various Chinese greens and cubed smoky Chinese meats.


A more satisfying meal I cannot dream up. In the end we had only some eggplant and 1 bao left. We packed it up along with the remains of the bread crumbs from the crab dish (which I froze and repurposed in a salmon cake I made a few weeks later).

Decor & Ambiance

The opulent interior is modeled after a Shanghai palace, complete with old photographs of Shanghai and gorgeous artifacts. One look and you feel like you are in a special place and it's a big occasion.



Dim Sum

My first meal there was during brunch with a large group. We sadly learned that a different team of chefs prepare the mostly Cantonese dim sum menu. At the time, dishes from the regular menu were not available during dim sum. Last time I called they told me they serve both menus in the afternoon, and of course, only the main menu for dinner.

The dim sum serves up fairly standard dim sum fare. I found it as pricey as some of the high end dim sum places such as Seafood Harbour (my favorite) and Lunasia. However while everything was perfectly fine, it didn't wow me, especially for the price.

I couldn't wrap my head around having Cantonese basic dim sum in a Shanghai style restaurant.

har gow

spring rolls

egg tarts, chili and mustard, assorted dim sum

I hear the soup dumplings, xiao long bao, are well flavored albeit not as brothy as those in at the king of soup dumplings, Din Tai Fung.

But with the bao around, I'm not likely to find out. This is the one dish that made me want to come back for more after this first dim sum meal.

my dim sum plate

Final Tips 

Two important things to note about the menu. The restaurant's specialties are listed on 1 of the pages, which really helps. Many of the dishes are listed by price per person. For example if you see an abalone dish for under $5, it probably is 1 piece for 1 person and you are meant to order several to comprise a plate to share.

Also they only accept 1 form of credit card regardless of the size of the party, so plan on being prepared to pay cash.

The Best Onion Rings

I love onion rings. When you love certain things, usually even a bad version of it is still pretty good.

However, rings that I can live without have the following qualities:

• too heavily breaded
• soggy
• too greasy
• the onion slides out with the first bite  

Recently I had to pass on a whole plate of rings battered with Cap'n Crunch cereal, because the extreme sweetness with the cereal did not work (even though that was one of my favorite cereals in childhood, along with Lucky Charms).

For me, and many others, one set of onion rings rise above all in L.A. - the House Made Onion Rings at Akasha. Coated with rice flour and served in a cone with smoked paprika aioli and housemade ketchup, they never fail to satisfy the palate.

Recently, after a movie with a couple of friends, we stopped by at Short Order LA. I had to leave early for another engagement, but managed to try their Shallot Rings.

Shallots seem to take the taste factor up a notch even from onions. The batter appears to be corn meal in these mini rings that come as tasty and light as possible, as well as perfectly seasoned and crispy.


Throwing in a several at a time into my mouth, it reminded me of the Sopranos finale, the "communion onion ring" scene at the diner. This little bowl for $4 during happy hour felt bottomless even with 4 of us.

Photo courtesy of FastFoodCritic.com review at this link

In a pinch, my favorite less fancy onion rings are undoubtedly the rings at Popeye's Louisiana Chicken. You get 6 of them for $1.99. They are battered rather than breaded and zesty, with a great choice of dipping sauces (not that they need anything).

Although I avoid fast food and the onion rings cannot be found at all branches, I do get tempted to stop when I pass by a Popeye's location. If served right after frying, they taste homemade.

Update:

One of the reasons I love to continue blogging is the sharing of information. After tweeting this post, a friend gave me another onion ring suggestion. And it definitely deserves to be added to the list.

Eden Burger Bar's onion rings are lightly battered and perfectly seasoned. A home run!

Mexican Seafood Crawl

During the late summer my friend, Robert, hosted a Mexican Seafood Crawl in Los Angeles. This kind of thing can be tricky due to the expansive city, but he did well with not too much driving and just enough time in between to want more food at each stop.


This Mexico City style truck off Figueroa enjoys a shady location right in front of a park. There are even picnic benches in close proximity.


And looking at the menu, you can see that all their menu items go for $2 each! Some of the food crawlers vowed to come back after the crawl for another tostada 'dessert'.

For the next stop, we all decided on the best route to get to Ricky's Fish Tacos.
All but 1 or 2 in the group had already tried them and welcomed another visit. This isn't the first time I blogged about Ricky's, and probably won't be the last. You can see their original location at this post.



Ricky's is open from Thursday to Sunday, except for catering jobs and/or other events. They serve until they run out in the afternoon, and they usually do.

We placed our orders and proceeded for their agua fresca of the day. In this case a refreshing blend of spinach, cucumber, lime and sugar. It looks like a "green drink" but doesn't taste as healthy as it looks.





Looking at the batter (also secret ingredients) and hearing the sizzle of the fish and shrimp frying up and tortillas browning on the grill, it really whets up the appetite.



Once your order is called, you adorn it with the salsas and creamy sauces you desire. The taco miraculously retains its crunch to the end. Not that it takes long to completely devour them.



Our final stop at La Cevicheria on West Pico Boulevard. During the last Baja trip, I had the pleasure of trying the local Chocolate Clams (you can see it on this post).

Since then I'd heard of the Bloody Clams, named for their reddish black color.
They serve it Peruvian style (Peruano) and Mexican style (Concha Negra), with worcestershire sauce along with the staples of onion, cilantro, tomatoes and fresh mint.



On the way back to the car, this abandoned mannequin head, most likely from the antique sale from earlier in the day, bid me my farewell.