Sun Ming - Columbia, SC

Sun Ming is the only restaurant I would recommend in the area for more authentic Chinese food. The location is pretty convenient and accessible; it is off the I-26 in Irmo on St. Andrews Rd. right past the railroad tracks. All the other Chinese restaurants in this area aren't necessarily the worst Chinese food I've ever eaten (Miyo's, a very popular Chinese restaurant in the Columbia area, has decently fresh ingredients), but the flavor everywhere around here is always kind of light and/or bland, and generally just a little bit off compared to the chinese food I grew up with at home and at restaurants in the Los Angeles area. Sun Ming doesn't serve the best Chinese food I've ever eaten, but it is by far the best in this area.

A random note for anyone that might be interested: I have heard that Sun Ming also serves dim sum, but I have not confirmed on what days they do this, nor the quality and breadth of the dim sum they offer.

At Sun Ming, the menu have two sections, one with the standard Chinese dishes (served in individual portions) and one labeled as traditional Chinese cuisine (which I would suggest ordering off, it is in the center of the menu they provide at the restaurant). The dishes in this section are prepared family-style, meaning that they are served with the intention of everyone sharing in the dish, instead of one individual dish for each person. This is the typical way to serve Chinese food, as it gives everyone a bigger variety of food to choose and eat from.

Soup is always a good way to start off the meal: Jen loves hot and sour soup, which Sun Ming prepares decently here: as the name implies, it is a slightly spicy and sour soup, prepared with soy sauce and vinegar, along with bamboo, mushrooms, and pork.

One of my favorite dishes to order when I eat Chinese food, if the offer it - Peking style spare ribs (in pin yin, Gin doo pai goo). It is basically pieces of pork, lightly breaded and fried, with a savory sweet sauce. When I ate it here, it wasn't quite as good as I would have liked - the breading was a little bit too thick and fried a bit too much - but the flavor was pretty decent.

Another one of my favorite dishes to order, walnut shrimp: shrimp, lightly dusted with flour/corn starch and fried, with a light mayonnaise sauce, served with walnuts. When I've ordered it elsewhere around here, it came out completely wrong, and turned out like a sweet and sour shrimp dish, which it should NOT taste like. At least here, at Sun Ming, the taste is basically correct, with the light mayo sauce.

As my parents always told me, a balanced meal is important when you are ordering food at Chinese restaurants - meat, seafood, and vegetables always makes for a good meal generally. We ordered a simple vegetable dish for the meal: a quick stir-fry of baby bok choy.

For me, the coup de grace of the meal was this dish: flounder, steamed whole, prepared with soy sauce, ginger, and scallions. For me, there is no better way to enjoy a fish, and I am glad that there is a place in Columbia that prepares fish in this style, which is the traditional way to eat fish in chinese cuisine. You just pick up pieces directly off the bone and enjoy! It is a simple dish, but Sun Ming prepares it well.

Sunday Dim Sum at 888 Seafood Restaurant

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Sunday dim sum at 888 Seafood is the best in U.S. - to lead you to that conclusion, we'll engage in a logical syllogism: since I think that it is the best dim sum in Los Angeles, and L.A. is the center of the asian cuisine world in the U.S., that makes it the best in the U.S. See, that makes sense, right? Ok, now I haven't had dim sum at every place in the U.S., but with some good old logical reasoning, I feel comfortable in making that statement. =) Just kidding. I do think it is the best in L.A. for its selection and flavor though.

Although a lot more places (especially in the SGV) are offering dim sum every day, 888 still offers it only on the weekends. And on the traditional day to eat dim sum, on Sunday morning (it's just what we do, don't ask me why), when lots of Asians go to eat dim sum, this place gets really really busy. If you've never went to dim sum at a really popular place, it is an experience worth trying - there are large groups of people (often whole groups of asian families and their friends, lots of groups of eight or more), chatting and jostling each other in the lobby and outside in the parking lot. To add to the general melange of sound, the maitre'd is yelling out #'s over a speaker in cantonese and english. If you want to avoid the crowd, come before ten a.m. You could go later to avoid the crowd (after 1:00 pm), but no more fresh food is made soon thereafter, and your selection of dishes will be quite limited.

A little information for the dim sum novice: it is a type of chinese (more specifically, cantonese) food where you sit down and order food from woman that walk around the restaurant pushing carts of food. Although you can order from the menu, traditionally everyone orders from the woman walking around. As they come by, they tell you what type of food they have (or if you don't speak chinese/cantonese, they can show you the food), and you order what you want. The food usually comes in small portions, and ranges from steamed dumplings and buns to foods that are cooked in front of you (e.g. luo bo gao, the american translation would be turnip cake).

The first cart that came around had a selection of dumplings and steamed buns. We preemptively ordered one of each without knowing really what they were - they just looked good. And that is what you have to do sometimes, especially if you have been waiting for awhile already, because you never know when another cart with the stuff that you want will roll around.

Jen's favorite - chicken feet. Ok, now before people flee from their computer screens in collective horror, it isn't that bad; the chicken feet are steamed, and although there isn't much meat on the chicken feet, there is a lot of skin and cartilage, if you like crunchy and chewy textures.

One of the next dishes that we ordered was one of my favorites: luo bo gao, or turnip cake. It is basically turnip, ground up into a paste with spices added, and then the paste is made into little cakes, which are fried on a grill. I love the crunchiness of the outer layer contrasted with the chewy texture of the interior of the luo bo gao. They are very tasty.
This is also one of my favorites, and is a traditional thing to order at dim sum - they are shrimp dumplings: siu mai (cantonese) xia jaio (chinese). I always order at least two or three orders of these for the table.

These are steamed pork dumplings, also known as cha siu bao. The pork (cha siu) is actually a bit sweet.

This is another type of dumpling, xia chang (in chinese) (although that isn't the most accurate description of this, it is the closest word in english I can come to describe it). The outside is more of a thicker rice-noodle type of wrapping, and it comes filled with either shrimp, beef, or vegetarian, and they pour a special type of sweetened soy sauce on top of it. The shrimp ones are extremely popular (they run out as soon as the cart comes out, usually), and they used to be a favorite of my family. We used to order 4 or 5 of these, and would often clean out a cart if they came by.

Another set of chicken feet, because Jen likes these more - they are more flavorful, because in addition to being steamed, they are sauteed in soy sauce and red chili.

Another one of the more popular dim sum dishes people like to order: ha gao. It is a steamed pork dumpling with carrots. This is another one of those dishes that you have to have multiple orders of.

Although we don't do desserts very well (at least in my opinion - I'm taiwanese btw, so I feel I am fairly qualified to make that statement), I always love this dessert and order it whenever it comes by. It is a mango pudding, and they pour a condensed milk sauce over it with fruits in it (usually melon and a cherry). It is simple, but I love eating it, and I think it always is a good way to end a dim sum meal.

Mandarin Noodle Deli - One of my all-time hometown favorites

Ok, so before I start into the details of this post, let me just up front about my bias for this place - I grew up eating here with my family, so I have a sentimental attachment to this place, of course. And my parents ate here back when they moved to Los Angeles in the 70s. But I really do believe that this restaurant is one of the best places, if not the best place, in Los Angeles for beef noodle soup (hong sao niu rou mian) and green onion pancake (tsong yu bing). Btw, Mandarin Noodle Deli and Mandarin Noodle House - not the same place, not anymore at least (see history below if you are interested).

A brief history for those that are interested: the owners of Mandarin Noodle Deli used to be the original owners of the Mandarin Noodle House in Monterey Park...I think she was maybe a daughter or relative of the person who started up the first original tiny Mandarin Noodle House in chinatown. Mandarin Noodle Deli used to be filled with 70's decor up until just a couple of years ago - orange and white tile, octagon-green shaped lamps, the whole deal. I have memories of the woman owner, who would always yell back orders to her husband, the cook, and would a lot of times get kinda grumpy at him. It was part of the charm back then, I think. Anyway, some kind of fracas occurred a couple of years back, and for some reason, the owners at this Monterey Park branch moved out and started Mandarin Noodle Deli in Temple City. The food is now not the same - go to Arcadia, you will not be disappointed!


Here is the current location of Mandarin Noodle Deli, in Arcadia.

Green onion pancake - the best I've ever had in Los Angeles - and that is saying a lot, with all the asian places around here. They make the dough fresh, which makes the texture perfect - chewy and crunchy, and it has just the right balance of green onion. *drool*

Two classic side dishes which I always order - seaweed in vinegar (hai dai), and cucumbers with lots of yummy garlic (xiao hong gua).

I don't even know what to call this in English - Jen calls it "beefy goodness" =). The chinese name is Niu rou da bing. There is beef, green onion, and spicy sauce, wrapped in the fresh dough they make for the green onion pancake. Delicious!

And last, but definetly not least - the braised beef noodle soup (hong sao niu rou mian). For some reason, they now make it in a smaller bowl then they used to, back in the Monterey Park era =(. But, it is still just as good as before! Some people might not like the soup as much as other places, because it isn't as spicy, but for me, it is perfect! What makes this special though are the noodles - made fresh, and so they have a wonderful texture. Feed me this and some green onion pancake, and I'm in heaven!