Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant (Dim Sum) - Rosemead

My childhood friend had the day off for the lunar new year and asked if I wanted to go out for dim sum. Since it was a special occasion, more or less since any new lunar new year is supposed to be special, I suggested Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant in Rosemead.



Out with the old, large, cheap dim sum houses. Dim sum has gotten so ridiculously cheap that there's not much lower they can go. So they've been going upscale with better quality ingredients and innovative dishes. Making way were restaurants such as Sea Harbour, Elite Restaurant in Monterey Park, Lunasia Chinese Cuisine (Dim Sum) - Alhambra (which used to be Triumphal Palace Chinese Cuisine), and Mission 261 in San Gabriel (which is supposed to reopen after renovations).

The lines for Sea Harbour have always been super long on the weekends so I've never bothered to go. But recalling that one of my college friends said his ex-girlfriend's family swears this is the best dim sum in town made me suggest it to my friend. His ex's dad apparently slips a nice bribe to the hostess to get seated right away. My childhood friend and I were less stealthy and waited about half an hour, I think?

No push carts here. Order off a menu. Small plates were $2.28, medium $3.50, and large $4.25. Special plates were $5.80 to $6.66. Tea was $1 per person.

Talk about fancy! The "executive lunch for four" was a 7-course meal for $238 and included lobster, a shark's fin casserole, and braised sea cucumber with shrimp roe.

We decided since it was the new year and all, that we'd splurge on some fancier dishes and balance it with typical dim sum dishes.

The steamed rice noodle with shredded chicken and bitter melon for $3.50 was a revelation. I normally can't eat bittermelon at all, but in this dish, it was only slightly bitter. Fresh cheong fun noodle and sweetened soy sauce and it was a great start to our meal.

Chicken feet with black bean sauce for $2.28. Good, but nothing special.

Poached fresh lettuce for $6.66. Insane to pay that much for lettuce! I could have gotten six heads of lettuce for that price. But umm, it was really good lettuce? :P Actually, the price wasn't listed and we didn't cross reference with the specials price or else I doubt we would have ordered it. We just wanted something to balance out the meat and carbs.

Steamed pork dumplings, Zhongshan-style for $3.50. I was just curious to find out what Zhongshan-style food meant. (It's in Canton/Guangdong in case you didn't know either.)

Juicy filling. Nice chewy dumpling skin.

Shrimp and sticky rice in lotus leaf for $6.66, another chef's special. We were a little disappointed that the whole dish wasn't steamed in lotus leaf, but do you see the detail?

The carrots were cut to look like butterflies!

Har gow (Chinese shrimp dumplings) for $3.50.

Shark's fin and scallop dumpling for $4.25. Look! Slivers of shark's fin and roe. Very good quality and very good taste. I would have paid the $6.66 for this instead of lettuce and sticky rice.

Char siu bao (Chinese barbecued pork buns) for $3.50. Good. Soft and sticky bun the way I like them.

Total bill was $38.81. A bit high for dim sum, but mainly because of that $6.66 lettuce and sticky rice. The dishes were all of a markedly higher quality. My college friend said once, while we waited 90 minutes for a table at Elite, that he can tell when dim sum is really good or really bad. All the stuff in between was more or less the same to him. In the case of Sea Harbour, it was really good. Unfortunately, the long lines keep me from coming back and I more often default to Lunasia, where I rarely wait for long and the basic dishes are just as good.

Other dim sum restaurant posts:
Bon Marche Bistro/B Village Cuisine (Dim Sum) - Monterey Park
Capital Dim Sum & BBQ - Monterey Park
CBS Seafood Restaurant (Dim Sum) - Los Angeles (Chinatown)
Dim Sum Express - Monterey Park
Elite Restaurant (Dim Sum) - Monterey Park
Full House Seafood Restaurant (Dim Sum) - Arcadia
Lunasia Chinese Cuisine (Dim Sum) - Alhambra

NBC Seafood Restaurant (Dim Sum) - Monterey Park

Ocean Star Seafood Restaurant (Dim Sum) - Monterey Park

Seaworld Seafood Restaurant BBQ & Dim Sum To Go - Rosemead

Yum Cha Cafe - San Gabriel

Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant

3939 Rosemead Blvd
Rosemead, CA 91770
626-288-3939
Monday to Friday 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

*****
1 year ago today, Thit Heo Kho Dau Hu (Vietnamese Braised Pork with Tofu).
2 years ago today, one of my favorite broken rice restaurants, Da Nang Com Tam Tran Quy Cap - Westminster (Little Saigon) and one of my most popular recipes, cha gio (Vietnamese egg rolls).