2 posts tagged “fish”

My cousin recently had another baby girl, and according to Chinese tradition there was a party not long after she was born.  The party was at Ocean Star, the venerable giant of the Monterey Park banquet restaurants. 

I had kind of forgotten about my invitation and was reminded by my cousin that I hadn't RSVPed. She cautioned me, "There might be shark's fin."  Oops...oh shit...that means she read my previous tirade about shark's fin.  So, of course, I gave her Part II of my tirade about shark's fin.  It was brilliant, if I do say so myself.  After all, it's not anybody who could compare eating shark's fin with Mao's one-child policy. 

In any case, there was shark's fin at the party. It looks very innocent -- at first glance it looks kind of like hot and sour soup. But it doesn't taste anything like hot and sour.  It's delightfully deadly.

There were a lot of cool things offered that evening.  Here's one: 

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It's a Chinese fried chicken. I really like fried chicken, and it seems to me that the Chinese version is one of the world's most perfect foods.  This picture shows the chicken after it had gotten picked over, but the head is still there with its strategically placed cherry.  All the food circulates on a giant lazy Susan. When it got to my cousin's boyfriend he selected a piece -- I had to tell him "You know that's the ass, right?"  He didn't.

When this plate arrived, one of my cousins said, "Oh look, it's black fungus."  No it's not. 

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It's definitely not black fungus. It's sea cucumber. The other wiggly thing is abalone (plus bok choy, but that's boring).  At my table we ate all the abalone, but the dish was still full of sea cucumbers.  My parents were at another table with my dad's siblings. They ate up their whole dish of the stuff.

A lot of the food is symbolic at these types of banquets.  This fish is one example:

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The little white ball in the front of the plate is an eyeball.  For some reason there were two eyeballs on other side. There's nothing like a bonus eyeball!

I have been looking for good Thai food for a long time. I have always liked Ruen Pair, but don't want to fall into my trap

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of becoming a creature of habit. 

I've heard a lot about Jitlanda from David and Karen at work, but never knew where it was when I wanted to go there. It turns out to be around the corner from Sanamluang (aka Samalamadingdong) in Thaitown.  I've now been to Jitlanda twice, attracted by its collection of South Thai specialities. 

The first time I tried a steamed fish with mushrooms and green onions. I should have realized that it would be a whole fish -- I was in for a rude awakening when it showed up. It was delicious, with silky smooth flesh. I sort of shocked my dining companions by eating the fish cheeks. Then I decided that I had to eat the eyes to make the most of it.

Later on I've tried other things. There's a "special" of lamb, egg noodles, and spicy lime sauce. It wasn't to my liking, mostly because the dish was filled with chopped cilantro (the death weed).  The yellow curry is good, as is the papaya salad, although the portion was really small.

A few days later we tried Thai Boom on Venice Blvd in the Palms/Mar Vista area. I knew I was in for trouble when I saw that they used Mocha Mix in their Thai iced coffee. I had Hainam Chicken, something I really enjoy at Malaysian restaurants. This version, however, was really strange, more like a fried chicken cutlet. The rice, which should be infused with chicken stock, was old and not very tasty. The soup should be a flavorful chicken stock. Instead it was a seaweed based soup. 

I'm going to give Jitlanda another go. Thai Boom on the other hand was a bust.

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Fish eye