mission 261

[mongo_jones]

your thoughts?

here's a link to jonathon gold's review:

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/07/counter-gold.php

[Joe Blowe]

I'll post what I've posted elsewhere:

According to my Chinese mother-in-law (located at ground zero, Monterey Park), the original chef that was hired at Mission 261 split after only a month after the grand opening.

She ate there with friends during the grand opening, and said it was awesome. That right there is high praise indeed. However, she never made it back for a second visit.

Her friends soon reported that a new chef was in town. All of them reported that the food at that point was "just average." They're now back to their regular haunts.

You can use that info however you want. I haven't been myself, although I wish I did go during that first month.

[jschyun]

I recently had a great meal there, but there were a couple of missteps. The milk custard tart with ginger juice was an undercooked, bland joke. An expensive joke. By contrast, the regular egg custard tarts were among the best I've had in the state. The soy sauce chicken was mostly bones. I liked the egg custard in a har gau type translucent wheat starch wrapping, shaped into a bunny rabbit. That was the highlight for me even if it tasted only okay. We had some great egg custard buns there. The shrimp and black cod dumplings were very tasty. We had a bunch of other good things, but it's late.

Very nice surroundings. Some lady was playing what appeared to be a Chinese version of a banjo or guitar. Also, the first time I ate dim sum while watching tournament golf.

I thought Mission 261 had decent tea. That may sound funny, but I'm always disapointed when an otherwise good dim sum joint has stale, tasteless tea.

In general, I would go there again. But this place is pricey. I thought it was great at first, but after thinking about it for a week, those missteps stood out.

Joe Blowe, where are your MIL's friends' favorite haunts?

[mongo_jones]

thanks for the warnings. if i still lived in l.a i'd give it a couple of whirls but since i now live in boulder and will only be in l.a for a couple of days i can't afford to have a disappointing dimsum experience (dimsum in denver, not to put too fine a point on it, sucks, and we are in withdrawal)--888 seafood in rosemead it is!

[jschyun]

--see post on 888 seafood

Edited January 26, 2004 by jschyun (log)

[FoodZealot]

I think I'd like to check out Mission 261.

[jschyun]

I'm sure others will disagree with me, but just based on my experience, I would put Mission 261 on my top 5 CA dim sum short list. Yeah, I thought they had some crap dishes. But they had some spectacular ones too, at least I thought so. I'm just hoping they iron out their kitchen probs with time.

And I love Sea Harbour, the sister restaurant, the one tissue and her friend Rupert took us to for one of the dim sum lunches. That was so fun.

[Joe Blowe]

Joe Blowe, where are your MIL's friends' favorite haunts?

Oh, I knew someone was gonna ask me this someday! Unfortunately, the places they eat at are nothing special -- 888, NBC, CBS, AAA, and so on, and so on. Whoever's got a special going on. I'm not going to even mention the $1 joints they get take-out from. Ai-yah.

One of the problems (I'm theorizing) with being a traditional Cantonese is the reluctance to go out and eat Chinese from another region. The last time I wanted Islamic, I begged everyone to go to China Islamic. But in the end, I was out-voted and we ended up at Tung Lai Shun, which just isn't as good. To them, though, TLS is a safe place because it's "in that big mall, right next to Sam Woo." You know what I mean?

P.S. I'm still working on them to give Sea Harbour a try. I think they think it's too new or somethin'...

Edited January 27, 2004 by Joe Blowe (log)

[jschyun]

Next time you want to try something different, you can post here that you are interested in going there, there will likely be someone who is also interested in going.

--Hell, I'd like to try Chinese Islamic. There's one near where I live, but I'd like to try another place.

Edited January 27, 2004 by jschyun (log)

[jschyun]

This place is still having problems, particularly with the baked stuff and steamed bao. At about $55 (depending on how much you eat of course, this is about 6 dishes and a large dish for us) for 2 pple, I am getting tired of the inconsistent quality of the food here.

Still inconsistent, still expensive. I tell my friends to go to the sister restaurant Sea harbour in Rosemead. The only thing I would go here for is the black cod/shrimp dumplings. Those are consistently delicious to me.

Anybody else have probs here?

[FoodZealot]

Directly after a visit to 888 Seafood, we popped over to Mission 261 for a few more bites and several pots of jasmine tea.

The exterior:

Inside, there are many different sized and different styled rooms, instead of the single monstrous banquet hall like many dim sum restaurants. I think the building used to house several different shops or restaurants, so there are different architectural details in each area. The room we sat in had very high ceilings and a large projection screen of the Golf Channel.

At Mission 261, the ordering is done off of a menu, rather than the cart parade. We ordered taro puffs, shaped like birds (peanuts for the beak and black sesame for the eyes). I love these things anyway, and the presentation was cool.

Black Cod Dumplings - containing some imitation crabmeat, which is a bit disappointing. Wrapper was tender, thinly rolled and fresh.

Custard buns - The bun was a bit tough and heavy. Surprisingly, the filling was not quite as eggy as would be expected. More like pastry cream.

Fried "mochi" balls with red bean filling. jschyun and Mark figured out that there's a problem on the menu - the English says "Lotus seed filling" but they don't serve those at all. Apparently it says Red Bean filling in Chinese, so Chinese speakers/readers are getting the right thing.

Coconut pudding- smooth and mild. The pudding at 888 Seafood has more intense coconut taste but it's not as smooth, and I like 888's version better (sorry, no photo of it in the other thread).

It was a good day. I ended up having 2 breakfasts, a late lunch at Chung King (thanks for the tip, tissue), I went to 2 supermarkets and an Asian restaurant supply in San Gabriel, plus another run in the evening to 99 Ranch to make Mexican food for some friends.