Food bites: Almansor Court Sunday brunch and Lee Kam Kee

This past weekend I experienced two contradictions: a new oldie and an not-often visited standby. How so, you ask? Let's start with the new oldie first.

A new discovery: Almansor Court Sunday Brunch

The new oldie in question is the Sunday Brunch at the Almansor Court banquet center by the golf course. It's new to me, but as some fellow Alhambrans can tell you, it's been around for years and years. My family and I went there this past Sunday to celebrate my mom's birthday. Going there was like a step back in time, with mimosas and colored napkins and patrons dressed up in their Sunday best. This is what you see upon entering the foyer:


The buffet is spread out into a few different rooms, which is visually interesting but confusing for my parents, who couldn't find everything they wanted because of it. Choices range from traditional breakfast (custom omelettes, hash browns, bacon) to Mexican offerings (do-it-yourself tacos, enchiladas, and menudo) to seafood (oysters and king crab).



Extensive variation is obviously their strength here. Where else can you put a chicken crepe next to your unagi sushi that's already sitting next to a barbecue chicken wing? Evidence is here on my plate:


I do wish that the seating area wasn't quite so far from the food, and that the seafood was fresher. For the price, it's not that bad. I would say that the breakfast exceeded my expectations but that the rest of the food was just satisfactory.


Hong Kong-style Vietnamese: Lee Kam Kee

In this case, the not-often-visited standby is Lee Kam Kee, a Vietnamese restaurant located on the far west end of Valley Blvd. It's not your typical Vietnamese restaurant, with a nice interior and beautiful plateware. My mom informed me that the owner is from Hong Kong, and so the food is catered to a Hong Kong palate. A quick look around the restaurant confirmed this: almost all the patrons spoke Cantonese, and nearly all of the waiters too.


We go there for the canh chua, a sour soup filled with catfish or shrimp, pineapple, tomato, bean sprouts, and some spongy-looking green stalk. It's slightly sweeter here than at other, more heavily Vietnamese places, but is still good. This time we also had a shrimp and pork papaya salad with nuoc mam and some lemongrass pork chops.


My mom thought that the nuoc mam needed to be a bit more sour as did the soup. I find that's a theme here, to tone down the loud notes of Vietnamese cooking to appeal to the Chinese clientele. Most people who eat at Vietnamese restaurants (myself included) don't really care if the plates match or if the ambiance is any good, which are two key things here. It's not a bad thing to know its clientele, and that's probably why I don't fault it as much as I would another restaurant serving Vietnamese food.


Almansor Court Sunday Brunch
700 S. Almansor St.
Alhambra, CA 91801
(626) 570-4600
10am-2pm every Sunday
website

Lee Kam Kee
2505 W. Valley Blvd.
Alhambra, CA 91803
(626)282-7720
11am-9:45pm, closed Tuesdays

Rainbow Noodle

I never thought I would like a noodle place with a cheesy name like Rainbow Noodle, especially when my favorite, Mien Nghia, is just down the street. However, this recently opened restaurant in the crowded market center on Valley is definitely worth a visit. A huge picture menu in the window is what first drew my mom's attention, and it depicts many delectable noodle dishes waiting for your enjoyment.

This place has many, many food options, ranging from noodles with soup, chow mein and chow fun, to rice dishes, porridge, and vegetarian options. There are over 120 options! Luckily, there's also a picture menu to help you with your choice.


The interior is small and clean, and is much more visually appealing than the usual noodle place. It wasn't very busy on a Sunday for lunch, which I attribute to its newness. The dish that caught my mom's eye was their seafood deep fried egg-noodle. It features a mound of crispy noodles that is covered with seafood, bok choy, and sauce. The temperature of the sauce softens the noodles. I like to eat a mix of soft noodles and crunchy, deep fried noodles with the seafood. Deep fried here does NOT mean greasy. It's a great texture in my mouth. I mean, who doesn't love yummy sauce goodness with crispy carbohydrate noodles?

I decided to order the needle rice noodle. I don't know why it's called the needle rice noodle, because it's misleading. This thicker noodle came swimming in a very flavorful broth, accompanied by fish cake, shrimp, chicken, and a duck wing! The chewiness of the noodle was great with the saltiness of the broth. It was very much like the Vietnamese dish banh canh, which I love, but without the thick soup. This bowl of noodles alone persuaded me to come back to try more on my next trip home.

One the next visit, I was accompanied by my mom and my boyfriend. The place was packed, with almost every table occupied. My mom decided to order the Special rice noodle, which came with the default flavorful broth and was chock full of delicious things, like shrimp, chicken, fish balls, and duck.


My boyfriend decided to order his favorite noodle dish, which is a soup noodle with duck. Here it's called "Soy sauce Duck egg-noodle" and he asked for the big egg noodle, which had the right amount of bite to it. The duck leg makes the broth deliciously salty and fatty, which he loves, but is also notoriously hard to eat. My only complaint was that there wasn't any bok choy in the soup for a change of texture.


Although I was tempted to order the needle rice noodle soup again, I decided against it for the sake of this blog. It's not exciting if I order it twice. I ended up ordering the "Fish ball soup with seaweed" before I realized it didn't come with noodles. The waiter was obliging, however, and told me he would ask them to include noodles. Now, would I rather have egg noodles or wide rice noodles? This was such a nice gesture and wholly unexpected. When my bowl came out, it was steaming and full of noodles. The broth had a hint of seaweed flavor which I liked, and they had included two types of fish cake. See those brown, oval bits? That was deep-fried garlic, one of the best things about this dish. However, I think I still prefer the needle rice noodle soup.


With my second visit out of the way, I can now officially endorse Rainbow Noodle as a place to get some noodles that hit the spot, whether you want soup noodles or fried noodles. The service is fast, the restaurant is clean, and the location is close. A win-win situation for all...especially this blog, as noodles are its namesake.

Rainbow Noodle
1281 E. Valley Blvd.
Alhambra, CA 91801
(626) 282-8878

Open 7 days: 8:30am-8:00pm

Seven Courses of Beef

My all-time favorite Vietnamese food would have to be the specialty served at Anh Hong Restaurant: 7 courses of beef. As soon as you walk in the door the delicious smell of the food overwhelms you. I would not wear my best clothes, because they end up smelling like the restaurant. Also remember to wash your hands before going, because you'll be using them a lot.

What is 7 courses of beef? Well, not only is it literally its namesake, it also entails a special interactive way of eating. Each course is accompanied by rice paper and a bevy of vegetation like green leaf lettuce, cucumbers, bean sprouts, and marinated carrots and daikon. The idea is to wrap the various courses of beef in the rice paper filled with your choice of vegetables. Two sauces for dipping come as well, and I like to mix the two for the flavor.

The courses are:

• Special Beef salad (strips of beef with a lot of carrots, celery, onions marinating in a vinegary dressing)
• Beef Fondue ( cooking strips of beef in a boiling broth)
• Beef meatballs
• Beef meatloaf
• Beef wrapped in Hawaiian Lot Leaves
• Grilled beef with lemongrass and onions
• Special beef rice soup (my favorite, a great tasting beef broth with rice, ground beef, and tiny pasta)
  

One orders by telling the waiter how many "orders" of the 7 courses of beef you want. One order is enough to feed two. Usually my family gets 3 "orders" for 5 people, but we also order an extra course: grilled shrimp and squid, which can be found in the menu under the heading "House Specialties." In this interactive meal, you grill it yourself, of course.

It's a fun group experience and worth the wait on busy nights. I always eat here at least once during my visits home, although it's not something I would eat daily because it's so rich.

Seven Courses of Beef
8748 Valley Blvd. #A
Rosemead, CA 91770
(626)572-9805

The busiest noodle place on Valley

Luckily, I unknowingly did research for my first post yesterday: I ate at one of my favorite restaurants on Valley Blvd, called Mien Nghia Noodle Express. The place is always packed on the weekends because the noodles there are awesome. I personally like what's called "Cha Siu dry noodles" in Cantonese, because it's a one of a kind dish that I can't (and haven't) found at any other restaurant. It's not on the menu, but you can ask for "BBQ Pork Egg Noodles" with the soup on the side.

The cuisine is labeled " hu tieu" in Vietnamese because it's not your typical pho or bun. There's seafood noodles, beef stew, and the "dry" noodles I like to eat, that come with soup on the side. The noodles aren't plain, however, because they pour flavored oil in along with your Cha siu or seafood. Most items can be eaten with rice noodles or egg noodles.

The service is informal, the host speaks several languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, and English), and usually the same woman will take orders at every table. If you eat there often enough, she'll remember what you like. Try the iced coffee with condensed milk (Ca Phe Sua Da) or the lemonade with soda (Soda Chanh) if you want, and iced tea comes without question.

It's a great place to eat noodles, and one of the places I miss when I'm away at college. It's open from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week except on holidays when they close at 6 p.m.

Mien Nghia Noodle Express
406-408 Valley Blvd.
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 570-1668