Must-Have Good Fortune Dim Sum For Chinese New Year

Review submitted by: Jane Ong

Having a Dim Sum Brunch on the first Sunday in a Chinese New Year is my annual ritual.  Like last year, I went to my favorite Chinese Dim Sum restaurant for brunch.  The reason I went there is because I was brought up to always eat foods that were the Chinese New Year metaphor for good fortune.  It was actually an excuse for my parents to indulge the kids and themselves to eat the not so healthy food that their freakish healthy lifestyle totally banned for the rest of the year.  One of those banned foods that get their sanction temporarily lifted during Chinese Year are sweets. For their concern for diabetes (which none of us have), and tooth decay (which we all have more than one despite the ban on sweets), my parents didn't allow me to have candies or sweets,  except for Chinese New Year.  Christmas was no exception.

After being sweet deprived for most of the year, my dad suddenly would commend me to eat a lot of the sweet (Cantonse Style) Chinese New Year Rice Cake (as shown in the above photo) during Chinese New Year.  I was ordered to eat so much of this rice cake that I totally dreaded for it by the middle of the 15-days Chinese New Year celebration...and I would so look forward to the end of the Chinese New Year so the rice cake would just get lost.  The reason that my dad wanted me to eat a lot of this gluey rice cake that is made with rice flour and raw crane sugar, is because the Chinese pronunciation for "cake" is the same as "vertical growth", meaning eating this cake during Chinese New Year will help the kids grow taller, the parents' net worth grow more, every employed adult will get great promotion, and every student will score really high in exams.  For anyone who wants high-performance in anything they do, this rice cake is the must-eat sweet during the Chinese New Year.  

I remember my grandma always spent days to make lots and lots of this Chinese Rice Cake to give to her many siblings, relatives, cousins, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She turned her flat into a Chinese New Year Rice cake factory for a week every year to mass produce this cake. This tells how important it was for me and my siblings to eat a lot of them, for "vertical growth" in our height and "high performance" in school...

I never made this rice cake myself because this isn't my most favorite food.  But I still eat a little of it now that I no longer live with my parents and my dad can't nag me into doing anything anymore. Strangely, I am starting to like it now.  It's quite good after being pan-fried when the outside is crispy and the inside is gluey.  I don't like it steamed, I only like it pan-fried, The pan-fried version is available at all Chinese Dim Sum restaurants here in Los Angeles, and the one offered by PV Palace in Torrance is almost as good as my grandmother's. 

Restaurant: Restaurant: PV Palace 

Address: 2166 Pacific Coast Hwy, Lomita, CA 90717 

Phone:(310) 326-3228 

Hours: Friday 10:00 am – 9:30 pm

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Trader Joe's Unsweetened Instant Oatmeal

Review submitted by: Jane Ong

I'm trying to be more conscious of what I eat for breakfast, not because I have a weight problem. It's because my breakfasts that I had all my life were mostly not so healthy.  I actually skipped breakfast quite a lot due to time shortage in the morning.  When I did have time to have breakfast, I often chose breakfast items that were mostly carbs, fats, sugars with not much fiber. Fruits and vegetables of course were very rarely included in my breakfast  So when I saw the Unsweetened Instant Oatmeal during my grocery shopping, I decided to stock it up so I could flavor my own oatmeals with real fruits.  I'm very happy that I bought it because this is the best unsweetened instant oatmeal (130 cal per packet) I've ever tasted.  While I haven't tried it with fruits yet, I'd added 2 tablespoons of low fat milk (16 Cal)  and 2 tablespoon of condensed sweetened milk (130 cal) after it was cooked with water in the microwave per the package instruction, and the oatmeal came out to be so creaming, delicious and filling. Yet, I only consumed 306 calories in total. I really love the extra flavor and crunch added by the ground flax seeds, chia seeds and  quinoa. This is another oatmeal winner of Trader Joe's.

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Granola Crusted French Toasts

Review submitted by: Jane Ong

I personally think that it's not a good idea to try to make French Toasts healthy.  I had recently had a plate of Granola Crusted French Toasts at this new restaurant that I love. I don't know what kind of bread was used as the toast, it was just too dry and too tough for me.  It tasted like one of those "healthy multi-grain gluten-free bread", which was days-old.

I just  don't like tough, grainy, chewy and dry French Toasts. The powdered sugar and the scant strawberries topping and syrup didn't help to make the French Toasts any moister.  I later ordered two extra cups of syrup (which was just too light for my taste) and poured it all over, but still the French Toasts were too hard and dry for me. I like the OMG French Toasts from The Turning Point in New Jersey so much more.

The cappuccino there was very good though. This new restaurant has a lot of dishes that I love but not these French Toasts.

Restaurant: Brio Coastal Bars & Kitchen 

Address: 21532 Hawthorne Blvd, Torrance, CA 90503

Phone: (310) 214-1628

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Trader Joe's Wild Caught Alaska Cod

Review submitted by: Jane Ong

Ewk! This is my opinion after trying out this fillet in my beloved Korean Soon Tofu soup starter kit.  While this frozen fish fillet is labeled as a product of the USA, (this was the reason why I bought it,)  this supposedly wild-caught Alaska frozen cod tasted no better than similar fish product of China that I tried back in 2015.  I love Trader Joe's but this frozen cod had the same bad texture and was just as tasteless. I mean tasteless in terms of how cod is supposed to taste.  May be all frozen cods have the same characteristics due to some kind of special treatment at the packaging plant?  There is no flavor of fish or food, just a hint of weird freezing smell; which I personally found revolting.

I don't think I will ever buy pre-packaged frozen cods again because they taste just as awful as they look.

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Thomas Everything Bagels Review

Review submitted by: Jane Ong

I'm not a fan of bagels.  For the last 10 years of my life, I've been giving myself several chances to learn to like bagels so I can fit in with my friends and everybody whom I know. I had given up on trying until last night when I was trying to shop for my usual favorite "Portuguese Rolls" from ShopRite in Manchester Township New Jersey, and the rolls were all sold out. I was desperate to buy something in preparation for breakfasts this week.  So I ended up having a crappy breakfast this morning, despite the delicious Philadelphia Honey Pecan cream cheese that I very generously spread on top of the toasted bagel half.  Priced at $4.69 for a bag of six bagels, they are a lot more expensive than my usual favorite bag of 6 Portuguese Rolls freshly baked daily at the grocery store's bakery at $2.49 per bag.  

I just tossed away the 5 and a half bagels in the trash because I don't think I want to keep eating them in the morning for the rest of the week. I don't like the bagel's bitter "after-taste" that is so typical with breads that have long shelf-life, piled in the grocery store's bread aisle.  Then there is the 'preserved' smell of such breads that always bothers me, even through the plastic bags.  I thought bagels could be different after being toasted and loaded with cream cheese.  But the bitter after-taste of the bagel was so prominent that I initially thought it was the fault of my cream cheese due to artificial sweetener.  But the cream cheese was actually very good and the bitterness was solely from the bagel.

I won't buy this line of bagels anymore.  I haven't lost my hope for bagels yet.  May be one day when I feel brave enough to try another brand of bagels, I'll finally find the one. Until then, I'm going to stick with the freshly baked Portuguese Rolls.

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