Celebrating the holidays @ HML
December 25, 2010 at 11:23 AM | Posted in Chinese | Leave a commentTags: black sesame, congee, dim sum, durian, durian puff pastry, egg tarts, har gow, HML, rice, siu mai
One of the things that Grease Monkey’s family likes to do is to go to HML Seafood Restaurant for dim sum and family dinners either when they feel like it or for holidays or celebrations. I’ve been invited there so many times than I can remember. We’ve been there so much that the owner/manager Tommy Zhao knows us by the first name basis, especially with Auntie M.
HML Entrance (photo courtesy of Chowtimes)
HML is a big and well kept restaurant. It was very busy when we arrived around 11am. Thank goodness we made a reservation.
Inside HML Restaurant (photo courtesy of Chowtimes)
On this visit, it was during the holidays and we all wanted to get together. It was when LightsOut was introduced to us. He’s quite an awesome guy. He’s willing to try anything once! Being politically correct here, LightsOut is a westerner with an adventurous appetite. He’s even tried the Phoenix claws (aka. chicken feet) and durian!
As our party of 6 sat down, we started to order items from the sheet. Please be warned, even though we are a party of 6, we ordered a total of 22 items on the menu! (plus more because some of them were multiples) That’s a lot of food! Maybe that’s why Tommy loves us. HAHA
After giving our order in for the savory items, and chatting for a bit. Our food arrived.
I call these the usual suspects because these are the items we usually order at dimsum. From left clockwise, the items are Steamed Shao Mai Dumplings, Superior Steamed Shrimp Dumplings (Har Gow), Rice Rolls with Dried Shrimp & Green Onion (with hoisin and peanut dipping sauce), and Congee with Shredded Pork & Thousand Year Eggs. The har gow and shao mai were plump and had a nice spring when you took a bite into it. As for the rice rolls, it was quite nice. The congee was delicious.
The other items we ordered as well are (from left clockwise) the Fried Rice with Dried Scallops & Egg White, Taro Cake with Dried Shrimp & Preserved Sausage, Steamed Pork Dumplings, and Steamed Chicken Feet in Black Bean Sauce. The fried rice came in a plentiful portion and was a nice “filler” dish. The taro cake was delicious as it had a nice crisp from the pan fry. The pork dumpling, I can’t quite remember except that it had a lot of filling. Ahh…and let’s not forget the chicken feet. The chicken feet is an acquired taste, as it’s just skin and cartilage. LightsOut tried it and thought it was okay.
The next items that came were the Steamed Rice Rolls with Shrimps & Chives and Steamed Rice Rolls with Beef & Vegetables (watercress). These taste really delicious with the sweet soy sauce poured over top.
Another family favorite is the Glutinous Rice in Lotus Leaf (Lo Mai Gai). The rice was fragrant from the lotus leaf and had an abundance of filling. One thing I would like to let people who are not familiar with this item is not to eat it like a dolma. I have heard some of my friends’ friends have made this mistake and thought that it didn’t taste that great. 
Once you open the Lo Mai Gai (as in the picture on the right), you will see an abundance of tasty fillings such as Chinese sausage, minced chicken and a salty egg yolk enveloped in a fragrant sauce on the glutinous rice.
For the last of the savory items, we ordered the Superior Shark’s Fin Dumpling in Soup and Steamed Rice with Preserved Fish & Sliced Pork.
Now on to dessert! YAY!!!
For dessert, we ordered (from left clockwise) Egg Crepe with Honey, Shredded Coconut, Deep Fried Yam Rice Flour Balls Topped with Shredded Peanuts, Baked Tapioca Pudding stuffed with Taro Paste, and Chilled Mango Puree with Pomelo Pulps. The crepe was nice and light and not too sweet. The yam balls had a nice light yam taste to it. Not to mention we had a great time making jokes about the balls. HAHA
As for the tapioca pudding and the chilled mango puree, both tasted good on its own. CorCor, Dick’s cousin suggested that we mix the two together (he’s a foodie known to mix different food together). OMG, this is the best combination ever!!! Slightly salty, sweet, crispy and hot from the baked tapioca pudding and the sweet coolness from the chilled mango puree, it was delicious. I totally recommend you order these two items and put them together!
The next items that we ordered for dessert were the House Special Baked Egg & Milk Tarts (Dan Tat) and Rice Flour Balls with Black Sesame Filling. The egg and milk tarts were served hot. The crust was nice and flaky and the egg and milk filling was really creamy and smooth. As for the rice flour balls, they had a nice soft chewiness with a slight sweetness. The black sesame filling was fragrant and slightly hot as when you bite into it, and it oozes out like molten black sesame lava. YUM!
The last items we ordered for dessert were the Chilled Mango Pudding and Baked Durian Puff Pastry.
The chilled coconut pudding and was light and had a nice coconut flavor.
The baked durian pastry had a nice flaky crust and the filling was smooth and creamy. This is when LightsOut and I had started our love affair with durian. Durian is known for its distinctive smell, and it’s creamy flesh. People are known to either love it or hate it. In this case, LightsOut and I loved it that we ate everything durian such as fresh durian, durian candies, and durian shakes. Mmm…
HML is a nice place for dim sum and for dinner. The staff are quite diligent and friendly and Tommy is hilarious!
By the end of this meal, we were stuffed to the point that we needed to be rolled out. HAHA
Happy Holidays Everyone!
HML Seafood Restaurant
#200-5890 No. 3 Rd
Richmond, BC
Food: 
Service:
Value: Decent. Has good selection of dim sum.
Ambience: Busy bustling restaurant during dim sum hours. Has a nice ambiance during dinner.
Let’s do the locomotion to Poco Ocean
December 10, 2009 at 2:44 AM | Posted in Chinese | 3 CommentsTags: beans, chicken, Chinese, Coquitlam, dinner, fish, pork
That’s exactly what Sherman, Kim, Jenny (My Secret Eden), Ricky and I did on a chilly autumn evening. I’ve never heard of this place before but from what I heard, it serves pretty good Chinese food on the other side of town. So…is it as good as the Chinese food I eat at home?
Normally when I choose a cuisine, Chinese would be at the bottom of my list. Why is that, you might ask? The reason is that I grew up on really good Chinese food cooked at home by my mom. The only time anyone would find me at a Chinese restaurant would either be because (1) I’m having dim sum (2) it’s a high end Chinese restaurant, (3) formal engagements, or (4) it has a type of specialty dish that I am very interested in trying.
Poco Ocean is a family run Chinese restaurant located near Coquitlam Centre. I have heard that the chef was a chef at the governor house for two of the Governors of Hong Kong or was the personal chef to the Governor of Macau. I’m not really sure if any of the rumors are true but the chef was sure a humble person and did come out to take some pictures.
Chef of Poco Ocean
Once you step into the restaurant, you get a clear view of the Chinese menu on the wall, however, English menus are available. Below said signage is an advertisement for chicken wings (more on that later). The walls of the restaurant are hung with caricature drawings of the chef and his signature dishes.
Crazy caricature drawings of the chef
So now… on to the food!!! Since the majority of us can’t read the Chinese characters, Jenny was given the responsibility to order the dishes for us.
We were first served the complimentary pork bone soup with soybean. The soup was good as the umami-ness (or sweetness) was present. To get that kind of “sweetness”, the pork bone soup has to be simmered in low heat.
The first dish that came out was the honey garlic chicken wings. These wings were juicy and the unbattered skin was crispy. It had the perfect balance of sweetness and saltiness with hints of garlic.
The second dish is braised pork hock with siu choy and shitake mushrooms. The braised pork hock was very good. The pork was fall-off-the-bone delicious and the sauce had a slight hint of sweetness to it. You know what the best part is? The skin! Everyone at the table agreed and took a portion each.
This dish was everyone’s favorite of the evening, 3 cup chicken. This dish was sweet, salty and fragrant from the sesame oil and Thai Basil. The chicken was juicy and cooked to perfection.
The next dish that arrived was fried tofu with scallop, which arrived on a hot plate. (Whoo~ Look at the steam!) This dish was really good but the major disappointment was the scallops. As I picked up a scallop with my chopsticks, Sherman, exclaimed that the scallops were “Seng! (in Cantonese, it means not so fresh seafood or fishy smell). When he said it, I dropped the scallop onto myself and didn’t bother to eat it. HAHA thanks dude! :p Anyway, the tofu was delicious. The tofu maintained slightly crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Even though this was a dish with sauce, the tofu didn’t end up being soggy.
Since we ordered so much protein, it was time for us to have some veggies. We decided to get long green beans with mushroom. The green beans were tasty but it wasn’t anything special. The beans were oil blanched and cooked to the point that it starting blistering. The beans weren’t mushy and still retained a bit of texture to it.
The last dish we ordered was fish with tofu hot pot. I can’t recall kind of fish it is, but it had an interesting texture. In the sauce, it had cilantro and dried orange peel. It was an odd combination. As for the fish, the first thing that came to mind was jiggly-wiggly. If you were to pick up the fish with the chopstick it wiggle it around, the fish retained it’s shape. The fish was soft and meaty and had an adequate amount of batter surrounding it. The taste of this dish was ok, as it was nothing special and a bit weird since most of us occasionally taste the dried orange peel taste, which isn’t quite an appealing taste.
Overall, the food at Poco Ocean is quite good. I would say the food are almost on par with what my mom makes at home but WAY less oily. The food blogger dinner was a success and I certainly enjoyed the dinner with the other food bloggers.
*Photo credit to Kim Ho from imonlyhereforthefood.com!
Poco Ocean
2755 Lougheed Hwy
Port Coquitlam, BC
Food:
Service:
Value: Expensive Chinese food considering it’s not all seafood. But it’s still good.
Ambience: Family style Chinese restaurant with tables placed close that you might need to squeeze your butt through.
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