Food Showdown

The San Gabriel Valley can be quite the daunting and intimidating place to visit. Sometimes clad with only all Chinese signs and sometimes far worse, all Chinglish signs, outsiders to the area can find this microcosm of Asia a scary place to venture to alone.

I’ve always thought that if my journalism career didn’t work out that I’d create my own type of tour guide. I love history and shopping like any other person, but I go anywhere for the food. I don’t want to see any landmarks, show me the food, then more food, then more food! Trust me, ask my friends that I’ve taken on “tours” of Hong Kong or LA. They ate from morning to night and were not given any of those boring experiences. Oh no, this was the Kristie experience.

So what did I do when my non-Asian besties came for a full day of visiting me in the SGV? Food show down. We ate for hours straight. I squeezed in some Asian shopping for them in between, but other than that we ate from lunch to dinner, layered with lots of snacks and more snacks, and shopping and snack shopping. That’s how I do.

 We started the day off with some Taiwanese style Shabu Shabu aka hot pot. Everyone get their own mini pot where you can choose whatever soup base you want. I chose the Japanese Spicy Miso. You also get to choose what type of meat you want. I chose beef. Your order also comes with some sides like veggies, noodles, etc. Try it yourself at Jazz Cat.

At this point, I knew it was time for dessert. We drove all the way to Rowland Heights for some shaved snow from the famous Class 302. Their sign is only in Chinese. They have a minimum of $3 per each person if you want to sit so we got it to go and ate in the car. This was our mango and strawberry with condenses milk snow. It was like the ice I have in Hong Kong, which is hard to find in the U.S.. I’m not wowed like all the yelp reviewers though. I’ve had better. If you do not live near the San Gabriel area, I’d recommend trying Hawaiian shaved ice from Get Shaved. They have a food truck that drives all through the Los Angeles area.

Next we went to the Atlantic Times Square for some Ten Ren. Their boba is really good, but pricy. It’s about $4 for a small. There’s also some fun shops in the area. They  enjoyed the Japanese makeup shopping available there. Make sure not to get their slushies though. Only get the teas here. You have been warned.

By this time we were stuffed like no other. But that only means we had to move on to the next stop. Bakery time! I love bakeries. I’m extremely picky when it comes to pastries and bread. This is the pineapple bread from Kee Wah bakery. There’s actually no pineapple in it. It tastes like a Hawaiian sweet bread, but better. It’s just that the crust looks like a pineapple. Anyways I Kee Wah is only good for their pineapple bread at 80 cents a piece. I would not recommend any thing else from them, no matter what their yelp pages says. You want better bakeries? Just ask! I have a list of my top 10.

Then for the true Asian experience, I took my friends to the 99 Ranch Market to check out some Asian fruits. Of course, I had to show off the horrendous smelling Durian. My sister says durian smells like rotting trash that has been stashed somewhere for a week. It’s definitely an acquired taste. Great photo opp though.

They ended up buying some lychee, dragon fruit, mangosteen, and star fruit.

And then came dinner time. My biggest secret is Boathouse. As many of you may know, Boiling Crab is a cajun place that has waits of upwards of 2 hours for their food. Boathouse is a great alternative in Alhambra that has no lines and is much cheaper.

Our raw oysters.

Our mussels, corn, potatoes, shrimp, and clams.

The battlefield…

We went to four cities: Pasadena, San Marino, San Gabriel, Alhambra. We meant business. So did you agree with my food choices?

Knockoffs CAN be Awesome Too!

I'm usually not a big fan of buying knockoffs because you look silly especially when people other people can tell you are blatantly wearing a knockoff bag, etc. But when it comes to food, it's another story.

(May 2010)

Does this scene look familar? The bibs, the seafood in bags, the massive amount of napkins....

(March 2010)

Yup. It looks just like Boiling Crab-but it's not. My besties/favorite brother/sister duo and I went to a knockoff of Boiling Crab called Boathouse for my late birthday present. It's 99.5% the exact same as Boiling Crab except it's not a 2 hour wait. In fact, you just walk straight in. They have the same seasoning and seafood just with a different name. Instead of the Whole Sha Bang, it's House Special. They also had tons of flat screen TVs for people to enjoy the game going on. Oh by the way it's also 1/2 the price of Boiling Crab. What's not to love?

Our order of raw oysters that look exactly like the ones from Boiling Crab but at half the price!

Fried Calamari with Cajun Fries

Here's one of our bags of seafood loaded in the House Special.

Here's my other half examining the bag. We got shrimp, clams, and mussels!

And here was a shot of our table after the all the damage. It looked beautiful. It looked like a war zone. The 3 of us left satisfied. Click here to see my previous post on Boiling Crab to see the exact same thing we ate today. I think Boiling Crab is worth trying at least once since certain thing that Boathouse doesn't. I love their Fried Catfish! However, given the fact that Boathouse at 25 West Valley Blvd. Alhambra, 91801 is half the price and has no lines there's really no comparison.

Happy Eatings and don't forget to enjoy some knockoffs once in awhile!

Hellllllooooooooooo L.A.!

(view from Neptune's Net)

Finally after a month of traveling throughout Hong Kong, Taiwan, & Singapore I was finally home, sweet home. My schedule was intense for the past few months. It looked something like this.

• Early December-Early January=Hong Kong
• Early January-Early February= L.A.
• February-March= Back to Hong Kong, off to Taiwan, stop by Singapore, back to Taiwan & then back home.

So what was the first thing I had to eat?

First Lunch Back in the U.S.: Seafood in Mailbu!

Personally I don't really care for the beach because I don't like getting wet or dirty. Plus, my family yells at me each time I get tanner than my usual shade-but Neptune's Net is apparently the place to go. Someone in my group of friends reccomended it years ago and I just haven't ever made time to go try it. And how did they find out about this supposedly awesome place? From the horrifically craptastic movie-Fast & Furious.

Luckily the food was no where close to being as craptastic as the movie. Left was the bf's order of fried clams, shrimp, & fries and right was my fish & chips. Food was great but I don't like the beach or traffic so sitting in a car just to get food in an area where there's nothing aside from Pepperdine University & a bunch of surfers sounds pretty boring to me.

First Dinner Back In The U S of the A goes to: The Boiling Crab (Garden Grove location)

This is Boiling Crab. It's famous for Cajun Seafood. The original restaurant is actually in Texas, but the locations in California seem to have been taken over by Asians. The servers, hosts, are all Asian. It's like the new, hip place to go. The customers, though are really diverse because who doesn't love good food? If you live in CA and you've never been to BC, you've seriously been living under a box. Go, now! Oh and by the way the wait for them is typically 1 1/2 hours to 3 hours. Have fun with that. Why? Because their food is THAT good! Who doesn't want to look ridiculous in a bib? Now here's the thing, there one location in Alhambra and one opening soon on Main St. but that restaurant is really small. This was my first time going to the bigger location in Garden Grove and it was huge! Sure the line was still 1 1/2 hours not counting the 1 1/2 hour to drive there but I think from now on I would be willing to drive further to avoid waiting waiting for 3 hours at the Alhambra location. By the way, if anyone from BC reads this... I remember going to you back in the day where there were no lines and you were just a lonely seafood place with no customers. Now that you've blown up, I want a VIP card or something where I don't need to stand in a 2 hour line. Thanks.

Anyways, here is a typical before & after picture of my visits to BC. Left is what they are most famous for. You got their shrimp, clams, sausage, corn, etc. all marinated and set on your table in bags. Fancy, huh? BC also has crawfish, blue crab, regular crab, lobster, etc. Sometimes you can actually see runaway crawfish from the kitchen according to our waiter. Anyways so basically what makes BC so good is that they have a list of seasonings you can choose to have your seafood marinated in. Garlic butter, etc. The best seasoning is appropriately titled "The Whole ShaBang!" Then you choose how spicy you want your seafood. Yum!

Unfortunately, even for those that are regulars at BC, are so concentrated on the normal seafood that they forget about the other awesome parts of BC's menu like-their delicious raw oysters! They even got the sauces ready for you. Right is the gumbo. I was determined to try it after watching The Princess and the Frog (They talk about Gumbo throughout the whole movie), but it was just okay at BC. I've definitely had better. The oysters are a must though!

Here are their chicken wings, fried catfish with cajun fries, and fried calamari. I love their catfish!!! Wings aren't bad either, but the squid was just so so.

It's great to be home and getting McDonald's drive through 24/7 & In & Out Burgers again. Lots of food adventures back in the U.S. to come but don't worry if you're missing my Asia posts because Hong Kong & Beijing trip will be coming again in June. Toodles & Happy Eatings!