Tuesday, October 16

Emperor Taste Seafood Restaurant

I pretty much grew up with dim sum. Even before preschool my heart favored certain dim sum dishes and I consumed unhealthy amounts of tea.

For the sake of this review, I will try my best to phonetically translate the dishes--I know only how to speak it in Cantonese.



When Emperor Taste Seafood Restaurant had its grand opening, it disappointed and subsequently warded off many people. Fast forward to now: The dim sum is great. The service? So attentive that my plates were changed several times in one hour. In addition, its prices are competitively low: barely under two dollars per dim sum dish.

One factor I use to judge the skill of a dim sum maker is the wrapper of the har gow. The har gow presented to me had all great qualities. It was not made the day before--you can tell this by the smell of the shrimp and the way the wrapper breaks when you bite into the dumpling. The wrapper was translucent and thin--in addition, when I bit into it, the wrapper did not fall apart in my mouth in chunks. The shrimp was definitely fresh and had no strange smell.

Another factor I use to judge a restaurant serving dim sum is the quality of their gee hung (basically congealed pork blood cut into squares). This is used to judge the overall quality of the restaurant as it is one of the hardest dishes to make well. Again, like the shrimp in the har gow, smell is key. This gee hung tasted well and its consistency was rightly firm. The only smell coming from it was the smell of cooked gee hung and nothing else. Had it smelled like anything else--be it putrid, or flowery, or especially if there is an overwhelming, powerful smell--I would have raised my eyebrow.

The rest of the dim sum was just as good as the har gow and gee hung. Nothing was lacking--a good example was the cheung fun. The noodle itself was smooth and its filling was fresh.

Despite all these attractive qualities of this restaurant, there is a low number of customers. I attribute the bad grand opening as the culprit. Because of the amount of customers there is no waiting in line--but! the dishes are not steaming hot.

I recommend this place for high quality dim sum. Not only do you bypass long lines found at other dim sum restaurants, but you also get the superb dim sum at a great price.


Emperor Taste Seafood Restaurant
1039 E. Valley Blvd., #B201
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 280-6668
Mon - Sun 9:00AM to 3:00PM, 5:00PM to 10:00PM

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