Quick Trip to Pasadena

A quick trip to LA this weekend for a wedding reception gave me the opportunity to utter four words I never thought would leave my mouth: I miss L.A. I really do! It was hot and muggy and smoggy but driving up the 110 I got a real wave of nostalgia for our year of living in Pasadena. Despite the traffic going through downtown.

Any of you who have driven in LA know that the above is not a good example of bad traffic.

On our way home we flew into SFO and took a quick side trip through Daly City to Koi Palace for what is purportedly the city's best dim sum. I've been to Koi Palace twice now and it really is the most complex and interesting Chinese food I've had since moving to the States. And I say that as a resident-in-exile of one of the foremost Chinatowns on the continent, where some of Hong Kong's top dim sum chefs decamped after Hong Kong went back to the China. A few examples:

One of Koi Palace's signature dishes are the coffee spare ribs, which while decidedly not authentic - not that I care about what is authentic - beats any ridiculous fusion invention that you'll ever find in SF's Financial District. See the cream on top? Get the joke? I'll eat anything that tastes like coffee, especially sugary, meaty, fatty spare ribs. From the other side of the tracks:


Tim got this agedashi-tofu-like tofu dish, which we both liked a lot, plus something called "Mexican Rice" (to be seen in the back of the lead picture) and an order of kai lan. T. and I always order the kai lan and in this case the waiter was thoughtful enough to offer to bring the oyster sauce on the side out of consideration for vegetarian T. I really wish I had better access to an Asian supermarket where we are; I'd love to get back into cooking more Chinese greens.

My not-very-adventurous but central reason for going for dim sum: har gow or some variation thereof:

These dumplings had shrimp and scallop in them so they're not strictly speaking har gow but I loved them nonetheless. These are the crab dumplings which I wasn't as crazy about:


Granted, none of these dumplings reach the heights achieved by Din Tai Fung in Arcadia, or even Monterey Park's Ocean Star - the rice noodle is a bit stickier and thicker than I'd like - but they're pretty good especially when you can order them with dishes like the coffee spare ribs, or the peking duck, which I had the last time we went. In fact, as I recall, I ended up eating a half duck alone, over the course of the week. Maybe I shared the skin with Lizzy.

We ended the meal with mango jelly which, to my total delight, they serve with a dish of evaporated milk the way I used to order off the dim sum dessert trollies as a child in Toronto (with canned fruit salad and almond tofu - fabulous).


Jellies are perfect slurped down with hot oolong. Now back to grading.