China Pearl Seafood Restaurant

Friends and I were craving good Cantonese style seafood and decided to satisfy that craving here.

We ordered 5 dishes...

Let's start off with the only non-seafood dish. I hope I'm remembering this vegetable right...I believe it's snow peas leaves? It was good simple stir fry. I think it's hard to mess this up.

Clams with Black Bean Sauce

In my opinion, this one was the worst of the batch. It was salty and when it came out, it looked a little weird too me. Something was off with consistency of the sauce. It looked like an "old dish" if that makes any sense.

I only ate a few of these clams.

Fried Flounder

I don't know why I don't order more fish when I go out. I like it but I'm not ready to cook it at home (I'm not over the slimy part yet). This dish was great. It was nicely fried so it had a nice crunch. The only bad thing was that it had some sort of soy sauce underneath it which made the areas that were on top of the sauce a bit salty. Next time, I will definitely tell them to put the sauce on the side.

Stir Fry Lobster - ~$29

This was great as well. It wasn't too bland or salty. The only bad thing was that there weren't a lot of pieces that had a lot of meat. It was good but I'm not sure if it's worth $29.

Salt and Pepper Fried Squid

The dish that others have raved about. It sure didn't disappoint. The batter was light, the seasoning was just right and it didn't taste oily at all. One of the best fried squid dish I've had in awhile.

Overall, good seafood place and I would go back. The bill came out to be ~$102 before tip. Not a cheap meal but I guess you would expect that considering the majority of the dishes were seafood.

China Pearl Seafood Restaurant
8222 45th Ave
Elmhurst, NY 11373

Stir Fry Lemongrass Shrimp with Onions

Another shrimp dish just for you J!

Stir fry shrimp with lemongrass and onions. This is one of my favorite family dishes (bro cooks it the best) so I had to try to master it myself. My first attempt? Good but not great. I didn't get the flavor right and I overcooked the shrimp.

Will try this again soon though!

Shrimp Scampi

I made this last spring so I don't remember the exact taste...I do remember it being good but not great. Still came out good for my first time making it though!

Chowder Days

I was on Yahoo! last week and came across a "Fall Festivals That Are Worth It" list. The only event that was interesting and fairly close to me was the "Chowder Days" in Connecticut. Seeing the word Chowder got me craving it so guess what? I went!

Took a pic of the tents from a distance. There's a tent where you buy tickets upfront and then you use the tickets when you order the food at the other tents.

We got ourselves a New England Clam Chowder, Lobster Bisque, Cinnamon Sugar Fried Dough and a root beer.

I was disappointed with the root beer. I figured it would be something special but it was just A&W.

I wasn't impressed with the lobster bisque...actually, I didn't like it. It wasn't thick and creamy enough for me. I'm not a lobster bisque person so maybe that's how it's suppose to taste. Either way, it was eh.

Now, I'm definitely not an expert Chowder eater but I have had my share. This one wasn't bad but definitely below average in my opinion. I was disappointed from the first bite. The flavor just wasn't there. You would think that a Chowder festival would have decent chowder...the one that I got at the Maine Lobster Festival was definitely 100 times better.

I think these would have been great if they weren't so big. The outside of this treat was yummy but the inside was just too bland.

Overall, would I recommend this festival? If you have nothing better to do, I say go for it. The festival is  inside a Seaport Museum so if you are into boats and seeing some nice scenery, I say try it out. Don't expect too much from the food though. Oh, and you have to pay $24 ($21 with a AAA membership) per person just to get inside. The food is separate.

Chowder Days (October 6-8, 2012)
Mystic Seaport
75 Greenmanville Avenue
Mystic, CT 06355

http://www.mysticseaport.org

The Lobster Place (Chelsea Market)

Keeping the ball rolling...

Working nearby, I've been meaning to get off my lazy butt and walk to this place. Well, I finally did.

Got their lobster box. It came with a lobster roll, a drink (root beer), chips and a cookie.

Yuck. Not very appealing right? You guessed right. I was disappointed. I really really lobster rolls that are drenched in mayo. ...I don't even think I finished the whole thing...yes, I threw away lobster.

At least this looks appetizing right? I was trying to be good that day so I gave this to my co-worker.

Yeah...`$22 down the drain. Luke's Lobster FTW!


The Lobster Place (Chelsea Market)
75 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10011

http://www.lobsterplace.com/

Crab Shanty

Another post for a visit that was made late last year...

 
Like the Christmas decorations?

Not sure if I ordered this or if it came for free. I think it came for free...unlimited bread I believe. It was good. Would have been better if it had some cheese on it though.

Clam Chowder

I don't even remember ordering this. I just remembered my friend ordering it. So as you may expect, I can't really comment on the taste.

Baked Clams

 I liked this. I think I just love baked/stuffed seafood. 

Yeah, that's a lot of food...I think it was called Feast for two or something. It had ribs, onion rings, lobster, crabs, shrimp, snow legs and corn. I didn't particularly like it. I remember the ribs being eh. I think the whole thing was kinda eh. Friend said he has had better before (in the same restaurant). I guess maybe they had an off day.

Original Crab Shanty
361 City Island Ave
Bronx, NY 10464
718-885-1810
www.originalcrabshanty.com

Minado Japanese Seafood Buffet Restaurant

I went to three buffets the past three weeks...this place was the beginning and end of my buffet spree. The first time I went was for lunch. The second time was for dinner.

Here are the lunch pictures...

First time coming here.

I was pretty impressed with the inside. Usually buffets are kinda dirty because of all the people traffic (at least most of the ones I've been to). This place, though, was pretty clean. The furniture isn't old or tacky either. I like it.

I don't know much about sushi so I'm just going to post all my sushi pictures and tell you what I liked ;)

I think I liked this. I might be confusing it with something else though.

I didn't eat the thing of the left and I ate one piece of the thing on the right. It was eh. Not used to it yet.

I really like these. It had a nice kick to it. I think it was either spicy tuna or salmon (?)

This was one of my plates. I enjoyed the mussels and baked clams.

Decided to get a plate of non-sushi items. The only thing good out of this plate was the baked clams. I didn't force myself to eat much off this plate.

I think this was the last sushi plate...

Dessert time!

Green tea ice cream. Never had it before. I liked it. Besides the flavor, the ice cream itself was pretty good.

They had a whole row of cakes and stuff so I grabbed a few items.

The carrot cake was good from what I remember.

Another round of ice cream before we left ;)

Aiite, so that was lunch. I think lunch is $21.50? After drinks, tax and tip, I believe it was $29 per person.

So here are the pics from dinner.

My friend's dishes.

This was one of my dishes. I liked most of the items off this plate.

Had some crab legs too.

Miso soup...it was warm..I like my soup hot so I didn't eat much of this.

Crepes for dessert! I had banana, chocolate and whip cream in mine. The side of ice cream was a nice touch.

So overall, I do like this place. Dinner is a bit more expensive. It's $31.50 before tax, tip and drinks. Although it's more $, I recommend going here to dinner. The selection is better. I enjoyed the food a lot more this time than my lunch meal.


Minado Japanese Seafood Buffet Restaurant
219 Glen Cove Rd
Carle Place, NY 11514
(516) 294-9541
www.minado.com