So the day didn't start out as a self-destructive eating demolition derby. The morning was spent celebrating my parent's 46th(?) wedding anniversary. That is a long time. We went to a new Chinese place for dim sum in Alhambra. Triumphal Garden (I think it is Garden--I was so struck by the Triumphal part of the name I failed to pay attention to the rest of the name; it could have been Triumphal Dumptruck for all I cared--though that's kind of a good name for a band...). I'm assuming they are referencing some European-ness, like the Arch de Triomphe or something. Anyway, the place is lovely. It seems to be the Mandalay Bay of dim sum joints. Lovely dark woods heavy table linens, a foyer that is partly psuedo-Dod Mitchell (not really, but it looks Western world via Taiwan) slash early '80's discoteque. Unlike most dim sum halls, the din in the space is pleasantly loud and not very chaotic. At this point none of the teapots, cups, and plates are chipped, they serve congee in beatiful pale green bowls, and their chopsticks are a beautiful deep brown, which of course makes it harder to tell if they are dirty, but, at this point their cleanliness was impressive. The boss guy brought us our soup bowls and he paused, noticed that a couple of the bowls were not quite clean (it looked as if some tea may have splashed into the bowls) and brought us new ones.
No carts are the dim sum trend in high end dim sum. You order of a form that is sort of a modified racing form. There is a description of the item and a blank box below it where you right in how many plates of that item you desire (win, place, or show). Unfortunately, they ran out of an English version of the menu, so my mom had to try to sort it out. Meanwhile, my brother and I tried to evaluate the situation by seeing what other diners were ordering and by the looks of the dishes, things were promising. The food didn't have any fussy fancy presentation tricks. There were no taro bumble bees or duck shaped dumplings. There were lovely glowing golden shrimp filled egg rolls and pale quivering shrimp fill fun rolls and interesting variations of sticky fried rice (deconstructed with the filling piled as a half inch layer covered by another half inch layer of the rice which was browned and crisped on top in the form of a tight and tidy rectangle). The food seemed to be simple, but cooked perfectly. The shrimp used is among the freshest and well cooked I've had anywhere. They have a snap and sweetness that is rare in most dim sum joints. And they were generous portions of shrimp. The shrimp egg rolls were as light and crisp as they looked and the filling had just a hint of garlic--almost as if the person's hands who filled them had just touched some garlic. The shu mai dumplings were nice and sweet and porky with huge bits of shitake mushroom, which was great for me because it was easy for me to pick them out. The har cheng fun (the shrimp rice-noodle rolls) were lovely, the pale white noodle soft and silky, just second to Ocean Star's in quality. But the quality of the shrimp elevated the dish. The char sui bao (bbq pork buns) were good. The filling was unremarkable, but the bao was light with a nice chew. The 1000 year old egg congee was delicious--perfectly flavored and perfectly textured. It was soupy with good body, but not an overcooked gloppy mess. A new variation of the nai vong bao (custard bun) was remarkable. It was not steamed, but fried. The exterior was golden and had thin crispy diamond shaped pieces of dough layed on its surface, mimicking an artichoke choke. This exterior treatment was not a superfluous flourish but provided a great contrast in texture to the filling of the bao, which was a perfectly light and soft egg custard and the bao itself took on an intensified chew.
The menu was not unlike the nicer dim sum places made in the late 80's in Los Angeles, but the execution and freshness makes it stand apart. Think Ocean Star, but better, fresher, cleaner, quieter. It could be my favorite dim sum in Los Angeles.
So that went well. I didn't think I was going to write a restaurant review.
Continuing on the title of this entry--my day continued and because of various conversations and what not, I began to feel really depressed and crappy. So after I finished working in the studio I began a destructive eating run. I went to the market for my usual post-working-in-the-100-degree-heat Gatorade and bought a box of Krispy Kream glazed bad boys. I only had two. But then I decided I wanted a Tommy's burger. I sat in the drive thru, thinking, "Roland, you still have a chance to back out--don't be so mean to yourself!" But I talked my way down from a double-cheeseburger combo to a cheeseburger and small Sierra Mist. What made this a brutal food outing, though, was how I ate the burger. I was driving with a burger sliming chili oil down my hand and I scarfed it, aware that there was probably chili stuck in my hair, my forehead, and my beard. I didn't care. My vision was obscured by the outsplayed paper the burger was wrapped in. I picked onion bits from my lap--and ate them. It was an angry angry burger experience. But I was not done. As I was driving home I noticed the new Italian place that opened up in South Pasadena where the KFC used to be. I thought I would stop by and see their menu--just to scout it out for future reference. I had a slice of pizza. And it was good. It was almost great. It reminded me of the super thin slices of pizza I used to get at Arinells in Berkeley. It made me so happy that there was a place like that in town. Then I went home and had two nectarines. This eating thing doesn't sound so bad except in contrast to what I ate on Friday. I had two nectarines, a peach and two pluots, a bowl of chicken noodle soup, a piece of chicken breast, and fruit salad. So I went from granola eating hippie boy to Hannibal Lechter. Oh well.
