Restaurant Review: Sea Empress

This week on pandagrub, we are going to be doing a restaurant review of Sea Empress. Sea Empress is a Chinese restaurant. The address is 1636 W. Redondo Beach Blvd., Gardena, CA. We went here for dim sum around lunchtime on a weekend.  "Dim sum" means "touch of the heart" in Cantonese.  The history of dim sum has its roots in China where travelers on the ancient silk road or rural farmers used to visit teahouses to rest and started combining this drinking with small dishes of food.  Today dim sum has evolved into a weekend family or gathering of friends dining experience.  Usually, restaurants will serve dim sum via small carts like this:

The ladies with the carts will come by your table and you can order whatever you wish.  The best part about dim sum is that you can taste a variety of dishes.  Everyone at your table can order his or her favorite dish, and maybe acquire a new love for a dish!

 In the picture above is haam seoi gauk, 鹹水角. The haam seoi gauk is a deep fried oval-shaped dumpling made with rice-flour and filled with pork and chopped vegetables.  It was pretty tasty, but I didn't eat more than one because it was deep fried and slightly greasy.

 Shown in the picture above is an egg custard called dan tat. (蛋挞.) Dan tat has a slightly tangy center and a flaky pie crust. It is probably my favorite Dim Sum food, and it has been since I was a baby.  I love the combination of the flaky pastry and the smooth custard.

 These are salty deep fried anchovies garnished with green onions and peppers.  You can eat these fish whole -- heads, bones, etc. The anchovies were very savory and crunchy.  These are my grandfather's favorite because he loves fish!

 Here are baked BBQ pork pastries (chau siu bao) or 叉烧包. These buns are very soft and fluffy with a touch of honey on the outside and the inside is filled with perfectly tender BBQ pork.  My uncle loves these.  You can also find these in a steamed form.

 This is calamari or deep-fried, salty, perfectly cooked squid (魷魚鬚). The squid in the calamari was cooked perfectly and not too chewy, but the batter was too salty for my liking.  Thumbs up for the jalapenos, though!

 This is shrimp har gow (蝦餃). Har gow in Cantonese means shrimp ball or dumpling. The outside of a har gow is very sticky and soft and the inside is tender steamed shrimp.

This was the last dish my family got at Sea Empress to finish off dim sum. It is a little known dish called "Yin and Yang fried rice." The red sauce is a very hearty tomato sauce with chicken and onions. The white side is a cream sauce with shrimp. Underneath these sauces is rice with scrambled eggs and bits of meat. It even looks like a yin and yang symbol!

This is a copy of our bill.  The little stamped circles represent each of the different types of dim sum dishes that we ate.  I hope you enjoyed this edition of pandagrub! Be sure to try Sea Empress with your friends!

p.s. some sad dim sum news:  Empress Pavilion, a dim sum restaurant in downtown LA's Chinatown, has closed after almost 25 years in business.  My parents used to take my brother and me there for dim sum when we were babies because it was so loud inside that our crying wouldn't bother the other patrons and my parents could get a decent meal.  Read more about Empress Pavilion's closing here.

p.p.s. where's the panda?  I forgot to bring one to the restaurant!  Here's picture of some baby pandas:

Chapaguri

This week on pandagrub, we are going to be making Chapaguri, which is a mixture of Neoguri and Chapagetti instant noodles.  They are very popular noodles in Korea.  Right now there is a big trend over there to blend these noodles together because of a famous Korean drama which featured a dad making Chapaguri for his little son.  

The name, Chapaguri, comes from combining Chapagetti and Neoguri.

 The pandas in the picture above are chopstick holders and are sitting on the Chapagetti and Neoguri noodles. The packets on tops are the dehydrated vegetable packages that come with the noodles.

 Flatty Jr. (the panda) and I placed both noodles with the vege packets in a pot with 4 cups of boiling water. Once the noodles cooked for about 3-4 minutes, we drained out most of the water leaving about 1/4-1/2 cup of water with the noodles.  After that, we sprinkled in the Chapagetti powder sauce in the pot. Next we added a small portion of the spicy Neoguri powder. (the more Neoguri sauce you add, the spicier the dish.)

 Flatty Jr. and I really enjoyed the Chapaguri. It tasted just like noodles with black bean sauce (jjajangmyun) but it had a spicy kick at the end. I highly recommend this recipe for when you want something a little different for a great snack. For the full recipe click here.