Cantonese Goodness

New Lucky has long been a staple of excellent Cantonese cuisine. I’ve posted about their amazing geoduck done two ways before, and here are some of my other favorite dishes from here. New Lucky’s Winter melon soup is one of the best I’ve ever had outside of Asia. It can feed at least 10 people. Call to reserve your winter melon soup because they do run out! 

 Cold appetizer of spicy and garlic cucumber.

 Our winter melon soup!

 Our winter melon soup!

 Our winter melon soup!

 Salty duck yolk fried pumpkin sticks.

beef stew.

 Green bean pumpkin dessert. 

Chiu Chow dessert with ginko and taro. 

Happy Eatings!

415 W Garvey Ave

Monterey Park, CA 91754

Pissing Shrimp & Squid Ink Noodles

Hey all! I just got back from Hong Kong and am currently back in Los Angeles for the time being. So let’s recap another one of my meals then. Shall we? 

 Let me introduce you to mantis shrimp. In Cantonese cooking, it’s nicknamed the “pissing shrimp". Literally translated into Chinese as 攋尿蝦, (lài niào xiā ) due of their tendency to shoot water when picked up.

 I personally refer to the shrimp as the shrimp on steroids. Them babies look huge! After it’s cooked, its meat tastes more like lobster than shrimp. That was a lot of fun!

Next up is my do-it-yourself squid ink noodles that I had during hot pot/shabu shabu! (Please note I’m not engaged. Those are my Aunt’s hands.) 

 We got to squirt the ink into the shabu shabu pot and make our own noodles. I love playing with my food! In retrospect, we shouldn’t have made one long set of noodles. We should have stopped and given it a break because once the noodles cooked, it was hard to separate it and divvy it up later.

 Squid ink is high in cholesterol so I wouldn’t recommend having it too frequently. I love squid ink anything. One of the best ramens I’ve ever had was a squid ink ramen from Japan. This was more of a novelty thing just so we could play with our food.

Happy New Year! May your stomaches be filled with delicious foods this upcoming year!

Happy Eatings!

Hairy Crab Crossandwich, Anyone? Hong Kong Edition

Let me introduce you to one of my new favorite places in Hong Kong: Hysan Place. Sure it has floors and floors of shopping that exceeds the Times Square nearby, but I love it for its bakery!

 Urban Bakery has tons of tasty breads, cakes, and pastries like any other Asian bakery. Sure, their cranberry cheese bread is good, but the best part of Urban is their… croissants! I’ve never been a fan of eating croissants. Why, you ask? The crust has to be perfect for me. It should be toasted and flake off as you take each bite. Damn skippy, it should!

 How can you not love a bakery with a sign like this? Bonus points! Well, Urban’s croissants are amazing. They are so good and in demand that they sell out everyday. Their usual flavors include Ham & Brie and Langoustine. If you’re a foodie though, you know that it’s currently Hairy Crab season, which is the best of the seasons we have each year! Ha!

 Well Urban Bakery has added a new, seasonal “crossandwich”! Ha! Aren’t they clever with the name? Love it! Feast your eyes on the amazing Hairy Crab with Caviar and Chives! As the sign says the crossandwich is “handpicked seasonal hairy crab crossandwich tailor made for foodies searching for the extreme”. *Raises hand*

  Review: The crossiant in itself was absolutely delightful. I could eat it all day. I have to admit that although I love Hairy Crab, it didn’t make for the best flavor croissant. I would go with the Ham and Brie if you have a choice. I’ve had that multiple times and that remains my favorite flavor. The Hairy Crab is in demand because it’s special right now. I think it’s worth trying just because it’s kind of gimmicky? Is that a word?

 Well, Urban Bakery is still a win! Here are the other croissant choices available currently.

Put them on your to-visit list whilst in Hong Kong!

Address: Jasons‧Food & Living, B2/F, Hysan Place, 500 Hennessy Road, Causeway

Happy Eatings! 

Hong Kong Continued...

I think this will be the last or next to last Hong Kong post for now. I've been back from HK for quite some time now. Actually, I'm in Boston on Auntie duty. =) So here we go!

 Che Kee in Causeway Bay has a Michelin Star. In recent years, they've been included in all the guidebooks so it's been increasingly annoying to go with some many tourists making the line extra long to get seated. What's awesome about CK is that their prices are on the low end compared to the usual prices for Michelin Star restaurants. If you want a taste of real, authentic Cantonese food-this is it. The location is also great. It's right across from Times Square, close to a Ladies' Market for shopping, and close to lots of street food. 

 Their straight forward lunch menu

 Can you spy the mini oysters in the spicy sauce? These are deep fried fish balls. The sauce was amazing. 

 Dumplings and soup filled with MSG. It's the food of champions! 

 Egg waffles! This has Hong Kong written al over it! But what makes it better than usual? You see, instead of the regular vanilla flavor this one is called the ying yang. Half chocolate and half vanilla! I loved it! I've had all the flavors there are to offer, but to have 2 flavors in one is AMAZING!!!  

 And just for kicks, here's a turtle bread my mom thought was cute. The chocolate eyes melted off in the humidity before I got home. Usually my rule of thumb is never buy anything that is too cute, but since the turtle's shell was made up of a pineapple bun I decided to humor my mom and buy it for her.

And of course, I was right. Bleh. Not impressive! It was also $6 US for that puny thing! 

Happy Eatings!

EPIC meal

Hello from Hong Kong! I'm just here for a quick minute, well actually 2 weeks but that is short for me. Time to get onto my eating ventures! Let's give a big welcome to Old Beggar's Kitchen in Causeway Bay that served up some freaking delicious food tonight. It was a a Chinese/Singaporean restaurant and it now has my heart. Yes, it was kind of awesome if you couldn't already tell! 

 Fried pork intestine! My fave! It's hard to find a restaurant that does this without having a strong old oil taste. It's really obvious when restaurants have used old oil to fry their foods. There's a stench and stench is bad especially when it comes to body parts, specifically those inside a pork. Kudos to them!

 Salt & peppered beef tongue dipped with wasabi! Whoot! Yes, please! So so so good! I am so coming here again! 

 Lemon & lime barely water. Sorry I'm not a fan of barley water, but nice to know they have a nice variation of it here. 

 This was my lemon & lime iced tea. This was delicious. Who ever thought of using both lemon and lime deserves a trophy of some sorts! 

 Oooh! Their har lam chicken! Gosh!!!!! So fresh! I've never tasted a chicken so fresh. It screamed hey I just got slaughtered two hours ago! Eat me! The owner told us that the chicken had just arrived 3 hours ago. The chicken and the rice have to be preordered. 

 Wow, this was some good harlam chicken rice. Huge bowl! This was only a half order! Really tasty! 

Spicy salt & peppered shrimp. Even the shrimp tasted extra fresh. This restaurant was so good! Can't wait to come back and try other dishes!

Total came out to over $1,000 HK. Divide by around 7.4 for the US dollars! I will definitely come back!

Happy Eatings!

Lincoln Hotel

Sometimes the best food can come from the strangest of places. Take Lincoln for example. This restaurant is located inside the very ghetto and very old Lincoln "Hotel." Who are we kidding... that place is less than a motel. In fact, the whole place even burned down a few years ago. The place is destroyed with bad reviews on yelp, but no worries that's where I come in handy. This IS absolutely a great place for Cantonese food. 


At night, there are amazing specials. They give each table refillable 老火湯 aka soup made from scratch for many hours. The soup is different every night and it's amazing! Plus, free dessert if you eat there for dinner. There's a menu for the cheap specials hanging from the wall. 

Here's their steamed pork belly with preserved mustard greens.Delicious.  梅菜扣肉

Here's Lincoln's version of duck. It's called their pipa duck. It's different from Duck House's duck in that it is much cheaper and they use the steam buns instead of the tortilla-like skin. You can also order it done two ways. I didn't take a picture of the 2nd way, but it consists of mashed up duck meat and lettuce. You wrap the meat into the lettuce as a bun and eat it. 

Here is the inspiration of orange chicken. Here are the ribs. They are sweet and sour, but not in a ridiculous Panda Express way. The meat is fried to perfection and the sesame adds a sweetness to the flavor. Their fish and lotus dishes are also very good. 

But why is Lincoln so amazing? Because others don't realize its amazingness. There's great specials at dinner but their lunch dimsum specials are spectacular as well. They offer cheap duck lo mien for $1.99. I've taken 4 people to dimsum there and bought several to-go dishes without going over $20. When I get lazy or am hosting small parties at my house, sometimes I'll just call in and get my favorite dimsum dishes to go. 

 Pork and shrimp dumplings. Har gow and shiu mai. 

 Hong Kong egg tarts. 

 Pineapple buns with cha siu BBQ pork and pineapple buns with custard filling. 

 And of course their signature roasted pig. Here's a trick: If you want to take your roasted pig to go, you should make a hole in the to-go container. Give your piglet some room to breath and then the skin will remain crispy for the rest of the day! 

 Baked BBQ pork buns! 

Don't expect a great atmosphere, but I can assure you that the Cantonese food is good!

123 S Lincoln Ave
Monterey Park, CA 91755

My top Cantonese Places, not including HK style cafes are:

Delicious Food Corner

Happy Harbor

New Lucky

Sham Tseng

Hong Kong Winter

Besides from the food, this is the best part of HK. That's a worker up on bamboo fixing a sign. 

One of my first stops in HK was Chee Kay in CB. It has a Michelin star so everyone and their mother goes there but it's one of the smallest shops ever. Also minus 2 stars because service has actually gotten worse here. You sit with random people because the place is so small, which is fine since that's HK fast food style but they know have employed a bunch of Mainland Chinese workers who are only in charge of pouring tea. When you ask to get your order taken, they just ignore you. After careful examination, you realize that the tea people and the ordering people wear different outfits, but of course you have to figure this all out yourself. The tea people are seriously rude. Hmph!

 Here's my order of expensive wonton. I saw expensive just because this place has 2 types of wontons. One is the cheaper kind where the middle is just mashed up everything and the above kind in which every dumpling has a mini shrimp inside. 

 Fried fish balls. They taste better than the name sounds. 

 And my favorite mini crab porridge. 

Of course after we left the place since we were booted out for the next people, my nose smelled chestnuts and yams in the air. Yes, my nose actually picks that smell up. 

 But instead of buying that, I opted for quail eggs. A big dose of cholesterol in every bite but so so good! I will die happy! 

Happy Eatings! 

Last Hong Kong Post

Goodbye Hong Kong. Since I've been back in LA for about 2 weeks now I decided that's its about time to put an end to my HK food journey until next time... which no worries will be in December. Place #1 is Lee Bistro in Times Square. We had the typical Cantonese dimsum. 

 Radish cake. 

 Spicy wontons. 

 Pear juice

 Bamboo shoots and some other veggie

veggie dumplings!

Place #2 was in TST, but unfortunately I don't remember the place name. It was Western food though and it was super cute!

Happy Eatings! Bye bye Hong Kong. Next posts will all be from the U S of the A!