"Dim Sum of the Month Club" at Sea Harbour

In March, Sea Harbour was the third place I visited as a part of my year long odyssey checking out a different Dim Sum restaurant a month all over LA County. The first two dim sum restaurants were Triumphal Palace and Capital Seafood. I have to say that of all the Dim Sum restaurants I've been to in the past, not including the two I mentioned above, this is the first time I have ever experienced Dim Sum Nirvana.

Now I can't say that I was in love with each and everyone of the 17 different items our group ordered, but except for 2 noodle dishes which I found to be too greasy, a cold cut platter which I wouldn't normally order on my own anyway and prawn skewers that I found to be bland, everything else was absolutely delicious.

Of the remaining 13 dishes, 5 really stood out for me. First, there was the baked BBQ buns. Usually, I don't go out of my way to order baked BBQ buns unless it's a group consensus. You can generally get those buns at most Chinese bakeries so I don't consider them a big deal. What I don't tend to like about BBQ buns is that the bread portion of the meat bun can be a little heavy at times and generally, you get more bread than actual filling.

However, the Sea Harbor version's meat bun had a bread that was surprisingly light and there was something almost more delicate about these BBQ buns than I've seen elsewhere. Also, when you take a bite, you immediately get a bite of the delicious meat filling unlike other BBQ buns I've had in the past where I had to take a couple bites of bread before even getting close to the center of the bun where all the action really is.

The second dish was something I've never had before and it was eggplant stuffed with shrimp paste. This was actually my favorite dish of the morning. Since I love eggplant, this dish already sold itself before I even tasted it, but when I took my first bite, it was heavenly. The creamy texture of the cooked eggplant and the shrimp paste which had a slight pungency to it was just a great combo. I could have easily polished off a couple of plates on my own without any thought to sharing them with anyone else at the table.

Along with the BBQ meat buns and eggplant dish above, I also really enjoyed the sticky rice wrapped with lotus leaf. Between the sweetness of the rice and the slight saltiness of the pork in the rice, I got the the perfect world of sweet and savory in every bite.

The last two items on my highlighted list are two desserts. The first is the Chilled Coconut and Taro Pudding. What I liked about this item was that it was really cool and refreshing and that it was delicately sweet. I really think it's a great summer dessert for those days when it gets so hot that this little dessert may actually be a sweet way to cool you down (at least for a little while).

The last dessert was the Glutinous Rice Ball with Bitter Melon. As soon as I saw that dessert, I just knew I had to try it. Having had bitter melon before and knowing that it indeed can get bitter, I was interested to see how it would turn out as a dessert. I'm assuming that the bitter melon was incorporated in the rice ball itself since the filling of this rice ball was a sweet sesame paste. What was interesting was that I could taste the bitter melon but I didn't taste any of its bitterness. Instead, there was kind of nutty flavor to the rice ball that was interesting, but very appealing. All I know is that when I return to Sea Harbour, I'm definitely going to order this bitter melon dessert again.

Overall, I absolutely loved Seafood Harbour and it definitely is tops on my list. I can see why it's a Dim Sum restaurant popular with so many other people as well. I'm just glad to see that in this case, I actually visited a restaurant that lived up to the hype.

To see pics, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157600174272649/

Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant
3939 Rosemead Blvd
Rosemead, CA 91770
(626) 288-3939