Lunch @ Lee Kam Kee Vietnamese Restaurant

This is one of cleanest Vietnamese restaurants in the area. Their menu is shorter than the usual vietnamese restaurants. While short, the menu does contain quite a few crab dishes, which is kind of rare among vietnamese restaurants in my opinion.

Hue's Style Cooked Beef & Port Leg Spice Soup with Vermicelli
$6.75
Rating: @@@@
This seemed like their house special. It was the number one item on the menu. I had never seen such a dish in a vietnamese restaurant, that's why I ordered it. It was great, the pork leg was very tender, the vermicelli was soft too. The soup was a little hot, but I liked it. The whole dish was like exciting food adventure.

Barbecued Sliced Beef with Vermicelli
$6.50
Rating: @@@
I had always liked the vietnamese BBQ beef, it had a strong BBQ flavor. When eaten with fish sauce and vermicelli, it combined the flavor from the ground and the ocean. Since fish sauce is light tasting, it didn't over-power the beef and BBQ taste, it added the seafood flavor to it, bring the dish to the next level. Having said that, this restaurant was just on par with other vietnamese restaurant in terms of this dish.

Lee Kam Kee Vietnamese Restaurant
2505 W. Valley Blvd.
Alhambra, CA 91803
626-282-7720
Wednesday - Monday 11am - 9:45pm
Closed on Tuesday

Dim Sum @ Happy Harbor Restaurant (凱悅大酒樓)

Feel like to have dim sum this morning, so we went to this restaurant next to 99Ranch on Nogales St. We have never been here before. The restaurant's decoration was better most other dim sum restaurants. The foods were pretty good, but .... (please see below). My impression on this restaurant is that it tried to market itself to be at the high end of chinese restaurants, where foods and services are great, but they failed. The food couldn't match with its dish name. The services still has a lot room for improvement. For example, five minutes after we set down, there were a waiter stop by our table and said sorry. While I was still thinking what he was sorry for, he lifted the table, moved it three inches outside, and left. I mean, what the heck. He could have said what he wanted to do before he did it, but he didn't.

Chicken Feet with Abalone Sauce (阿一鮑魚汁鳳爪)
$2.38
Rating: @@@
Frankly, I like this dish. It's better than most other dim sum places' chicken feet. The only reason I didn't give it four @ was I couldn't taste the abalone sauce at all. If they would have this as simple chicken feet, I would give it one more @.

Conches with Sea Cucumbers Dumplings (響螺海參餃)
$3.68
Rating: @@
If this were named Shrimp Dumplings, I would give it three @. I couldn't find any sea cucumbers in it. The conches was tasteless.

Shark's Fin Scallop Dumpling (魚翅鳳眼餃)
$4.48
Rating: @@
Again, if this were named Shrimp Dumplings, I would give it three @. I found only one tiny piece of shark's fin on top of my dumpling. Not that I like shark's fin, but if you are going to name the dish Shark's fin Scallop Dumpling, you better show a reasonable amount of shark's fin like the picture in their menu. By the way, the scallop existed on top of dumpling, however, it wasn't good. The shrimp underneath was much better.

Shanghai Soup Dumpling (aka Nanxiang Soup Dumpling)(南翔小籠包)
$4.48
Rating: @@@@
Unlike the same dish I had at Supreme Dragon yesterday. These dumplings were full of soup in it. I really like it. I ate before I took the picture, that's why there were two empty containers. The price was pretty good as well.

Steamed Crab Meat and Pork dumplings (蟹粉小籠包)
$12
Rating: @@
Very disappointed! These dumplings tasted exactly same as the Shanghai Soup Dumpling above. I couldn't taste any crab meat in it. This was just an over-priced soup dumpling. Horrible.

Crispy Durian Cake (飄香榴蓮酥)
$3.68
Rating: @@@
I am a big fan of dessert. So this cake just tasted ok for me. No durian smell, nor favor. This could be good or bad depends on what you like. To me, this is a ok, non-surprising, no-disappointment dessert.

Happy Harbor Restaurant (凱悅大酒樓)
1015 S. Nogales St. #126
Rowland Heights, CA 91748
626-965-2020
Mon - Fri: 10:30-3pm, 5pm-10pm
Sat, Sun, & Holidays: 9:30am-3pm, 5pm-10pm

Lunch @ Supreme Dragon

This is a very popular restaurant in Rowland Heights, it is packed every time I drive by. So we got here early this morning, around 11am, right after they opened, to avoid the crowd. When we got in, the waitresses were about to start their own lunch in the restaurant. I asked a waitress to introduce the most popular dishes in their restaurant. The following were what she recommended:

Beef Noodle Soup (紅燒牛肉麵)
$6.95
Rating: @@
The waitress said this was one of their famous dishes. I have to say that the Taiwanese beef noodle soup tastes much better. The Taiwan version has a stronger favor and much less oily. It's not saying their dish is bad, but I prefer the Taiwan version than theirs anytime. If you don't mind a layer of oil floating on top of your noodle soup, you would probably like this one.

Fried Rice Cake with Shredded Pork and Salted Vegetable (雪菜炒年糕)
$6.95
Rating: @@@
I am not a big fan of rice cakes, but they did a pretty good job on this dish. The rice cake didn't stick on my teeth, which was a plus. It was light favor dish. The amount was gorgeous. Overall, a reasonable dish.

Nanxiang Soup Dumpling (aka "Shao Long Bao")(南翔小籠包)
$5.95
Rating: @@
As the name hinted, I expected soup inside the dumpling. But sorry, not at all! I suspected the dumpling was the left over ones from last night, since we got there earlier in the morning, that was what they had for us. I was very disappointed with dish, I thought about giving one @ on its rating. A side note that the "Nanxiang" in this dish's name is from a very famous and popular restaurant in Shanghai called "Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant". Not surprisingly, its most famous dish is soup dumpling.

Supreme Dragon (一條龍)
18406 Colima Rd, # E & F
Rowland Heights, CA 91748
626-810-0396
11am - ???

Lunch Buffet @ Hsi Lai Temple

We arrived at 12:30pm for the vegetarian buffet lunch at their Dining Hall. $7.00 per person. It used to be $5.00 per person couple years ago. The food selection were pretty much the same as couple years ago. I pretty much tried all food they had.

My first dish. The cellophane noodles with vegetable on the upper left corner were the best one. The rest was okay. The soup wasn't tasty at all.

My second dish. I like tofu (not saying their tofu was good), so I got some more. The stir-fried rice noodles on the upper left corner wasn't good at all.

My third dish. More tofu. To my surprise, their bumpkin tempura taste pretty good. Crunchy outside and soft inside.

No rating for this one since it wasn't mean to taste good. I would just say you can get better food for $7.00 in the area. If it was still $5.00, it would have been a reasonable deal. Just a note that, shorts, mini-skirts and tank tops are considered not appropriate at the temple.

Hsi Lai Temple
3456 S. Glenmark Dr.
Hacienda Heights, CA 91745
626-961-9697
http://www.hsilai.org/
Mon - Sun: 9:00am - 5:00pm

Dining Hall:
Mon - Fri: 11:30 - 1:30pm
Sat - Sun: 11:30 - 2:30pm

Lunch @ Banana bay

We arrived at 3pm. The restaurant was almost empty.

Baby Clam
$6.95
Rating: @@@
This was probably the best dish at Banana Bay. Unfortunately, the bread was too soft this time. If the bread was more crunching, it would have been a great appetizer. The frozen clams were chewy and tasted good with the buttery garlic sauce.

Tom yum Glass Noodle
$6.95
Rating: @@
Everything was blend and boring, except the soup and the noodles. The noodles were cooked right, the texture were good. The soup was not as sour and spicy as expected, but it still tasted pretty good. There were some pig liver in the dish if you are interested, it was way overcooked though.

Crab Fried Rice
$8.50
Rating: @@
The fried rice actually tasted pretty good. The reason for its low rating is I didn't know I was having "crab" fried rice until  I saw this:

It was one of the only two crab meat I found in the entire dish. This dish is certainly a disappointment.

Banana Bay 蕉葉
18230 Colima Road
Rowland Heights, CA 91748
626-839-5511
Sun - Thurs 11am - 1am
Fri - Sat 11am - 2am

Garden Cafe 嘉頓港式西餐 Breakfast on a Sunday morning

We had a morning menu. The service was what you would expect from a regular chinese restaurant, meaning so so. A glass of water is really a dirty glass of tap water. I can do better than that at home.

Tom Yum Cellophane Noodles Soup (泰國冬蔭功) + Hot Coffee or Milk Tea
$6.25

Rating: @@@

The shrimp tasted okay. It didn't have the frozen flavor that I expected from this kind of small shrimps. The mushroom was relative fresh. The soup was little less sour than the real Tom Yum Soup. I did like the cellophane noodles (粉絲), it was cooked just right. Overall, it was a reasonable dish for the price.

Duck Egg and Pork Porridge (皮蛋瘦肉粥) + Soy Sauce Fried Noodles (豉油皇炒麵) + Hot Coffee or Milk Tea

$6.25

Rating: @@

The porridge is almost tasteless, which is different than that light taste that I expected from porridge. They simply didn't do a good job on this porridge. The fried noodles is not that good neither, too soft to me.

Garden Cafe 嘉頓港式西餐
18406 E. Colima Rd, #H
Rowland Heights, CA 91748
626-913-1188
Sunday-Thursday 8am-1am
Friday-Saturday 8am-4am