HK style seafood place in SGV

[tissue]

Any recs? No Sea Harbour and no Newport. I want live giant prawns and geoduck.
Must take reservations because we have children.

Thanks in advance!!

[tissue]

I went to Elite. We had lobster and steamed fish, it was really good but they were out of giant prawns. CRY

[J.L.]

... handing tissue a tissue...

[TonyC]

happy tissue or sad tissue?

I like happy tissues myself.

[ipsedixit]

Your best bet outside of Sea Harbour and Newport is either Elite or Happy Harbour.

[Schweinhaxen]

This thread makes me believe as always that SF Cantonese food is better than what we have here in LA. Koi Palace would be my vote if this was posted on the SF board.

[Chandavkl]

Except for Koi Palace, not true. SF has nothing to rival Sea Harbour, Elite, Lunasia, King Hua or perhaps Newport Seafood. The Kitchen, which is part of the pack of next best Bay Area Cantonese restaurants after Koi Palace, failed miserably when they tried to open up down here.

[K K]

I think there's a bit of a misconception about what is Hong Kong style seafood, especially when everyone equates that with a dim sum seafood restaurant with copious amounts of live geoduck, live spot prawns, crabs, lobsters, and other fish which is unfortunately the norm for most of metropolitan California. There's more to all this despite steamed fish and typhoon shelter, ginger scallion, or salt and pepper crab or lobster, or black bean sauce clams.

Koi Palace supposedly had a wide selection of exotic fish never seen before elsewhere, but during a recent dim sum visit, half of the tanks were empty, and while they did have geoduck, they also had turbot, some red fish, crab and lobster and that was about it. Of course one can factor in dried seafood like fish maw, shark fin, abalone, but that's another playing field.

Real seafood in Hong Kong is not about going to an expensive seafood restaurant and splurging...it's about eating the best in season from South China Seas, Pearl River delta sealife, surrounding areas, and a combination of wild cheap local boney fisherman food fish, in combination with prized deep sea goods, and finding places that know how to execute them on a high level combined with versatility and skill.

[J.L.]

Well put!!!

[ipsedixit]

Real seafood in Hong Kong is not about going to an expensive seafood restaurant and splurging...it's about eating the best in season from South China Seas, Pearl River delta sealife, surrounding areas, and a combination of wild cheap local boney fisherman food fish, in combination with prized deep sea goods, and finding places that know how to execute them on a high level combined with versatility and skill.
____________________________________

Which is why Vancouver rocks!

[J.L.]

Concur again.

[K K]

Didn't you review some really awesome looking fish market a while back? Literally seafood porn galore. I would have expected those dim sum seafood restaurants mentioned in this thread to have stocked those kinds goodies and be very versatile in their preparations.

Also:

http://www.elitechineserestaurant.com...

Bottom of the page

另歡迎食家推介做法

meaning that they welcome recommendations from "expert eaters" on how they want seafood to be prepared. The fact that they offer "Sichuan style water boil with numbing chili sauce) and "Taiwan style 3 cup" styles of cooking in seafood either means they're stretching too much to accomodate the non Cantonese customer base, or perhaps the chefs are trained to be versatile that way but at the risk of not specializing in a particular prep over others. Which also makes me wonder if the other dim sum seafood restaurants in the SGV are like that.

In NorCal, the few dim sum seafood restaurants that are offering this "versatility" by expanding the Cantonese menu into regional Chinese (to cater to those who like variety) are run by Mainland Chinese, maybe from Southern China (regional Cantonese).

[Porthos]

The tanks at Sea Harbour are often dismally empty also. Half empty tanks at Koi is still more variety than full tanks at Sea Harbour.

+1 Koi Palace >> Elite and Sea Harbour.

[Mos]

NYC Seafood (atlantic and garvey) is good for giant prawns. Don't think I have had geoduck there though.

[raytamsgv]

I'd try Seafood Village, but I don't know off the top of my head if they have live giant prawns or geoduck. You should call them to confirm. It's also dungeness crab season, so you would probably be able to get their house special crab there for a good price.

[ipsedixit]

No prawns or geoduck.

[mc michael]

Ummmm. Crab.

[will47]

King Hua?

[tissue]

I eat at Sea Harbor and Newport all the time and want a change, I don't mind chiu chow as long as it's good and fulfills menu requirements.

[raytamsgv]

Is there any reason why you don't want Sea Harbour or Newport? Do you want strictly HK-style, or would you accept something like a Chiu Chow-style seafood place? Are live giant prawns and geoduck the only menu requirements?

[mc michael]

Yes, how about Seafood Village?

[TonyC]

Newport.

[J.L.]

:-)

[J.L.]

We're just awful.

[J.L.]

Sea Harbour.