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It's a 5 pound lobster. What should I do? 25-30 minutes maybe?

Steaming lobster today. First time. Can I get some input on how long you steam it ?

Mon Kee's is still closed. I haven't seen any builders or construction workers around. I still don't know what's up. I'm still trying to find out. to be continued ... ← I've been checking off & on for a few months about Mon Kee. Finally, I was able to peek through one of the windows. The dining area in totally gutted right now. I was talking with a co-worker and he mentioned that it can take several months to get the correct permits to do some renovations on the place. ← FINALLY! After a year and a half, the former Mon Kee location has opened. Mon Kee is no more. The restaurant's name is Mayflower Seafood Restaurant. The restaurant next door moved into the newly-renovated location. New location, same old menu, same old service ... ← Should we add mayflower seafood restaurant to the list? what category is it?

It's still there. They have a few around the country. There is in Mission Viejo that I frequent and is not at all in a divey location. That is my favorite, the al pastor burritos, prepared wet. http://www.tacomesa.net/ For real, divey, mexican food, the city of Santa Ana is still the epicenter of Mexican food for all Southern California.

Bad vs. bad. A lot of store bought cakes come with that disgusting frosting that tastes like eating a stick of margarine, but you can atleast scrape that off. With pies, I hate that syrupy crap that fruit pies are filled with. It's like eating jam! Also disgusting. But you can't scrape that off, because it's the whole pie! So it's cake for me. Good vs. good. Between a good frosting and good filling (which really means just fruit), a chocolate molten cake always beats a strawberry pie. And to those pie defenders, cake can also be savory! Bahn Chung cake Potato cakes Crab cakes The only defense for pie is that a fruit cake is the most disgusting thing on earth an cheesecake is really a pie. Winner: Cake

If anyone is interested, here is the hard to find article about the San Gabriel Valley restaurant scene from 1999 by the Atlantic Monthly. Going All out for Chinese

This thread should make an ultimate list of the LA restaurants forementioned and list them beneath the regional cuisine so we can distinguish between them. Add a region as well if I'm missing something or have something wrong. Cut and Paste. Modify all you want. ds=dim sum American Chinese Anhui Cuisine Beijing Cuisine Chiu Chow Cuisine 888 Seafood (ds) Fujian Cuisine Guangdong Cuisine (Cantonese?) Embassy, NBC Seafood Restaurant (ds), Mission 261 (ds/S.Gabriel) Hong Kong Cuisine Sea Harbour Seafood (ds) Phoenix (Irvine) Hong Kong Cafe Garden Cafe (Rowland Heights) Hunan Cuisine Islamic Chinese Cuisine Tung Lai Shun Jiangsu Cuisine Shandong Cuisine Mei Long Village Shanghei Cuisine Green Village, King's Palace Supreme Dragon, for potstickers and soup dumplings (Rowland Heights) Sichuan Cuisine Chung King (Monterey Park) Taiwanese Cuisine Din Tai Fung(dumpling house/Arcadia) Xiao Mei for shaved ice (chain with locations everywhere in San Gabriel) Vegetarian Chinese Happy Family Zhejiang Cuisine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cuisine ←

This thread should make an ultimate list of the LA restaurants forementioned and list them beneath the regional cuisine so we can distinguish between them. Add a region as well if I'm missing something or have something wrong. Cut and Paste. Modify all you want. ds=dim sum American Chinese Anhui Cuisine Beijing Cuisine Chiu Chow Cuisine 888 Seafood (ds) Fujian Cuisine Guangdong Cuisine (Cantonese?) Embassy, NBC Seafood Restaurant (ds) Hong Kong Cuisine Sea Harbour Seafood (ds) Hunan Cuisine Islamic Chinese Cuisine Tung Lai Shun Jiangsu Cuisine Shandong Cuisine Mei Long Village Shanghei Cuisine Green Village, King's Palace Sichuan Cuisine Taiwanese Cuisine Din Tai Fung Zhejiang Cuisine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cuisine

The line got re-directed to a different page and only a generic JPG file showed up. I would be interested to confirm if that is the restaurant I used to frequent. ← Try this link: http://oc.vinacity.com/restaurants/user_re...at_id=25&id=407

Is this the one that has no window outside and has a 2 big front doors with semi-circles on the top (golden dots on red color door)? And a fish tank (aquarium tank) right at the front door? If so, I agree that it has very good Chinese food (with some Vietnamese touch). I used to go there for lunches when I worked in that area. In Irvine, there is a "Sam Woo Seafood Restaurant" (949) 262-0688. They serve dim sum per order. Not a big variety but their dim sum and lunch/dinner entrees are quite decent. Service is very good. ← I think it is, but I'm not sure. Anyway, here is the restaurant sign: http://www.angelfire.com/stars5/cami_pics9/o2o7o4/68.jpg

Of course, I am the biggest fan of Din Tai Fung. A trip to this place is mandatory. It's the only American location of this famous institution. You just can't go wrong with this restaurant. Order anything with shrimp and pork. And you will love the "appetizer". But the wait is long if you don't come early. If anyone ever goes down to OC, try Seafood Cove. Surprising to me is that it isn't really on the OC internet foodie radar despite the plain sight location across from a grocery store. I went with 3 other foodies (1 Chinese, 2 Vietnamese). We were all in agreement. We loved it. So either we are all wrong or this is one of OC's well kept secrets. Seafood Cove 8547 Westminster Ave, Garden Grove 92644 714-895-7964. Gustavo Arellano of OC Weekly calls China Garden OC's best experience for dim sum. It's the only dim sum place in east Irvine that I know of. I'm sure I've had better in Little Saigon, but I just can't remember where. Here are some tips. The wait is long if you don't come when it opens which is 10:30?/11:30? Try to get a table on the left hand side of the restaurant by the aisles of course. That's where all the cart traffic is. Ask for water. It is not a given. Ask for you glass to be refilled. Again, not a given. Good service overall is not a given, so you must be proactive. Oh, and there is this older cart woman who speaks English but you'll swear she is speaking to you in Chinese. Just nod. China Garden 14825 Jeffrey Rd., Irvine

Those who love durian, the "god of fruits" seem to REALLY love durian. I don't get it. I can't get pass the smell. But from some people, a good fresh durian is not suppose to smell like a rotting corpse. Really citrusy fruits are seductive to me. For taste, the orange and pomegranate always live up to expectation. The watermelon is magnificent, but like strawberries I always get a sense that it should be more flavorful and sweeter. By looks alone, dragonfruit and mangosteens are seductive.

Great food can't be purely objective and instinctual. A lot of our taste is aquired. Obviously culture plays a huge role in dictating what we like. If a french chef introduced sashimi to a world where Japan did not exist, it probably wouldn't go so well. Does anyone really get sashimi on their first try? Not to mention alcohol. 1) shrimp. It's better than lobster. 2) crab. Again, better than lobster. 3) oranges. 4) bananas. I feel sorry for the banana. It's so ignored. 5) ice.

If it makes you shiver while eating it, thats great chocolate. ← Ahem. I also like a smooth melt, interesting background notes, and a long finish. ← The Ocumare was the most complex with notes of spice, fruit, flora and wood and the aroma is strong. You can smell it a foot away. I don't like strong spice and floral tones in my chocolate. It was too feminine for me. It was eating chocolate by Chanel. The Scharffen Berger (blue label) was too fruity with this sour aftertaste. That was just bad and tasted as if it was polluted with some artificial chemicals. It was my least favorite. The guaranda was less complex than ocumare and almost like milk chocolate for a dark chocolate, but also very earthy and raw like a roasted coffee bean. The spicy wood notes hit you immediately. It seemed the the most "rough" in taste, but not in texture. I like it rough and manly. The Valrhona was my favorite. I didn't get to taste Guanaja, and this was the Noir Amer. It has this wonderful natural, organic fruity sweet taste. Of the 4, it tasted the most like what I imagine chocolate should taste like. I think it may be the least complex, but it wasn't bland. Very sharp clean chocolate taste, not as milky as the Guaranda. With the guaranda, there was this distinct bitterness. But with Noir Amer, there was a distinct acidity which I didn't mind, and the bitterness wasn't overwhelming and seemed to balance well with the sweetness. 1)Valrhona Noir Amer 2)Chocovic Guaranda 3)Chocovic Ocumare 4)Scharffen Berger After overloading on chocolate, eating Doritos never tasted so good!

Someone gave me a box of chocolate candies that was like biting into a bar of butter, it was so disgusting. Sadly, Ive had this experience many times. I'm wondering if people just keep giving me expired chocolate because I can't imagine why any manufacturer would make chocolate taste that way. Anyway, tomorrow I go to my sister's home which has a stash of Valrhona guanaja. I'm bringing Chocovic Ocumare and Guaranda to compare. What should I be looking for? Is there some type of standard or characteristics that constitute a great chocolate?

I'm serving it with vanilla ice cream. We tried to imagine it with vanilla ice cream, if that's any substitute, during the test bake. So you all agree that I change the chocolate and not mess with the amount of sugar.

My sister is obsessed with this chocolate souffle cake at a restaurant chain called Yard House. I tried to duplicate it using the molten Chocolate cake recipe by Vongerichten. * 1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter * 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, preferably Valrhona * 2 eggs * 2 egg yolks * 1/4 cup sugar * Pinch of salt * 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour I used 70% bittersweet Valrhona. And it came out successful, but my sister still prefers the Yard House cake. She said she tasted the "bitter" in my cake but not much of the "sweet." I'm not much of a cook and I want to fix it for a dinner party on Saturday without attempting it beforehand. So how should I sweeten it up? Do you recommend I increase the sugar or should I downgrade to 65% Valrhona Semisweet, or any other recommendations? I'm only giving myself one more attempt.

A nice cold glass of Pepsi.

Mochi ice cream by Mikawaya (the inventor) is carried by Trader Joes. I dare anyone who has tried them not to get addicted to that stuff.

← Oh God. This is why so many LA restaurants don't last. But hopefully this is concentrated only around Hollywood, right?

Hey.. looks pretty good to me, so what happens to plastic wraps when you stick them in a hot oven? ← I've just made the creme caramel and the plastic melted! I have no idea if the plastic melted into the custard or if it just retracted to the sides of the ramekins/baking dish. It looks okay. I don't think I see any plastic in the custards, but I won't know until I taste it tomorrow. Do you think it's safe?

Very exciting news.

Do they sell it at any of the chain gourmet markets like Gelsons, whole foods, or Bristol farms?

What do you guys think of Darya? I don't know who their pastry chef is, but I had this life-altering chocolate mousse cake there.

Try A.O.C wine bar.