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Bargain Dim Sum at Ocean Star

If you're looking for a bargain, go to Ocean Star Restaurant in Monterey Park on a weekday.

Then you can take advantage of lower than usual prices for dim sum--40 to 50 cents a serving less than on weekends. My group of five ordered liberally and wound up paying only $9 each, including a substantial tip.

The dim sum is first rate, not bargain food, and it's sent around the room on rolling carts (above).

The servers are friendly, like this one, who posed while a co-worker egged her on.

This cart of sweets caught my eye (above). They're not all desserts. Some contain chicken or barbecued pork in buns with sweet yellow topping. 

These tender rice wrappers are filled with shrimp. 

These chewy buns contain shrimp too, but the shrimp are dried, and the flavor is intense.  

Here is our table when we were well into lunch.  Dishes that came later included fish paste in wedges of green pepper, crisp-skinned roast duck, steamed pork dumplings with ruffly edges, sesame balls filled with sweet bean paste and egg tarts. Those are chicken feet in the center container.  

On weekdays, the crowds that notoriously swamp dim sum restaurants on weekends are absent, and it's easy to get a table. Maybe it's always easy to get a table, because Ocean Star is a huge restaurant, with room for 800 or more customers. Even the reception area is big enough to house a small restaurant.

Ocean Star Restaurant, 145 N. Atlantic Blvd., #201-203, Monterey Park, CA 91754. Tel: (626) 308-2128. 

Spicy Rice Cakes in a Garden Setting

This isn't your usual pasta. As a matter of fact, it isn't pasta at all, but rice cakes in a red sauce with seafood and vegetables.

Like a picture, it has a frame, golden slices of kabocha squash. 

The place where you can eat this is Cafe Scent, a Korean coffee shop with a long menu of snacks, main dishes and sweets.

This dish is a fusion version of tteokbokki. a rice cake stir-fry that often is very spicy. At Cafe Scent, the sauce is lighter and less spicy. Along with shrimp, squid and a single mussel, the mix includes mushrooms and red and green bell peppers. On top is melted mozzarella, like a pizza.

Cafe Scent gets its name not just from aromatic dishes like this but from its other specialty, flowers. The shop deals in wedding bouquets, gift baskets, floral decorations for events, table centerpieces and the like. 

It's cute and cozy with two rooms, one rather dark. The other (above) is lighter and more gardenlike.

Cafe Scent, 3680 Wilshire Blvd., #PO3, Los Angeles, CA 90010. (The entrance is around the corner on Serrano Ave., south of Wilshire.) Tel: (213) 383-9440.

A Stinky Dish at Tasty Garden

Eat this if you dare. It's steamed ground pork with stinky salt fish on top.

One place you can get it is Tasty Garden in Alhambra. The pork mixture is mild. The fish is anything but mild. It's extremely salty and as pungent as the smelliest cheese. If you're sitting downwind, you'll be overpowered. 

But devotees, like my friend Billy, love it. When I eat Chinese food, I leave the ordering to him.

We started with a much more palatable dish, French style filet mignon (above). French here must mean from France by way of Indochina, because the steak is spicy enough to merit a red chile on the menu, and it's cooked with basil.  

Still another dish in the same vein, Vietnamese style shrimp (above) is also cooked with fresh basil. It's slightly sweet and spiced with black pepper. 

And look at these clams (above). The golden flecks aren't bread crumbs but dried garlic. 

Still more seafood--pan-fried fish fillet in black bean sauce (above).

We switched from seafood to chicken on fried noodles with Chinese broccoli (above).

But we wanted still more vegetables, so here are stir-fried green beans (above).

Tea doesn't come with lunch. Drinks are extra, which means you can try Hong Kong style ice coffee with milk tea. A couple of these, and you'll be wired for the rest of the day.

Tasty Garden has several outlets, with two more set to open in Rowland Heights and Irvine. However, Billy says the Alhambra location has the best chef.

Tasty Garden, 288 W. Valley Blvd., Alhambra, CA 91801. Tel: (626) 300-8262.

You Don't Need Basil for This Pesto

Don't throw away those carrot tops. Put them into pesto.

I got the idea when I bought tender young carrots at the Windrose Farm stall at the Hollywood Farmers Market.

"Do you want me to cut off the tops for our compost?" asked the girl who handled my purchase. I decided to keep the feathery greens and asked what she did with them. 

Her suggestion was to turn them into pesto, which I did, using the ingredients she suggested. There it is at the top, framed by Windrose carrots. 

Serve the pesto with pasta or on crackers or baguette slices as an appetizer.

CARROT TOP PESTO

Tops from 1 bunch baby carrots
1/3 cup walnut pieces
1 large clove garlic
Salt
1/4 cup olive oil

Remove the tops from the carrots, wash them and drain well.  Pluck the leaves, leaving only the tender stems at the top. There will be about 1 cup leaves.

Place the leaves, walnuts, garlic and a dash salt in a food processor. Process until the nuts are ground.  Add the olive oil and process again until well blended.

Makes about 1/2 cup.  

Disclaimer: Carrot leaves contain allergens that may affect some people, just as some are allergic to peanuts. They are high in nutrients, however, and not toxic. 

Tasting with a Legendary Vintner

Even vintner Bernard Portet (above) seemed surprised at how well his Pinot Noir dealt with spicy flavors.

Portet was eating ceviche seriously spiked with serrano chiles. The place was Duplex on Third, where he had brought wines for a dinner tasting.

A legend in the Napa Valley, Portet co-founded and was head winemaker at Clos du Val in the Stags Leap District. After retiring in 2009, he founded Polaris Wines with a former colleague, Don Chase. Under the label Heritance, they are focusing on Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc but have added Pinot Noir. Their 2011 Pinot, from Stanly Ranch vineyard in Carneros, was released this January. It's a limited production, only 217 cases.

This is the wine Portet turned to when even the cool, crisp Sauvignon Blanc that he is holding in the photo above couldn't alleviate the fire from the ceviche.

The success of this unlikely pairing illustrates Portet's approach to winemaking."Wine is to go with the food, compliment food, go well with the food," he said. For Heritance, he is making "wines that are enjoyable, yet complex," more palatable and less austere than what he made at Clos du Val.

And they're not high alcohol bombs. "I'm not trying to make explosive wines, but wines that come gently into the mouth," he said. The Pinot Noir is 14.2 % alcohol. "Acidity shows more when there is lower alcohol," he said. 

Portet has responded to changing tastes. "The taste of people has evolved in 25 years," he said. "Consumers have gone from not being afraid of aging a wine for three to five years to, they want to drink it now." 

Born in Cognac, France, Portet is the ninth generation in a wine family. His early lessons in grape-growing and wine-making came from his father, who was vineyard and winery manager of Château Lafite. In 1968, he arrived in the Napa Valley.  "I have the privilege of having 44 years of wine-making behind me," he said.

The Heritance label sums up his background: 1 (for one family), 9 (for the number of generations) and 4 for the number of continents where he has made wine. 

Heritance is what Portet calls a "winery without walls." The partners don't have their own vineyards. They buy grapes, but not from just anywhere. "I do believe very much in the idea of terroir," Portet said.

The grapes go to a custom crushing facility where he supervises every step in the production of the wine. 

The 2011 Sauvignon Blanc, which didn't quite extinguish the flames of the ceviche, is blended with 12% Roussanne from Paso Robles. The result is a wine more tropical and California-like than the usual Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon blend, he said.

But this was a one-time experiment. The 2012 Sauvignon Blanc, which will be bottled in May, is blended with 7 to 8% Semillon.

You might ask why a winemaker would order a spicy first course at a wine dinner rather than a mild option such as oysters, a caprese salad or Maryland crab cakes, all of which are on the menu at Duplex.

The answer is, Portet has loved ceviche since first tasting it in Chile (his wife is Chilean, from Valparaiso).

And he's closely linked to South American wine country. Polaris's other label, Ñandú is a Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina. Portet goes to Mendoza two or three times a year to supervise the making of this wine.

The 2010 Malbec, which he brought to the dinner, is blended with 2% Cabernet Sauvignon. Malbec is a small black grape with not much acidity. "Cabernet is necessary for the balance of the wine," he said. "Even 2% makes a difference. With the Cabernet the tannins of Malbec reappear." 

Portet chose a more reliable dish to go with the reds that followed the Pinot--pappardelle with lamb ragout, maitake mushrooms and cherry tomato-garlic bread crumbs.

This was an easy pairing with the 2008 and 2010 Heritance Cabernet Sauvignons, which, Portet said, reflect the difference between a normal year (2008) and a cold vintage that resulted in green tannins and spiciness (2010).

Up next for Polaris is a single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon that will be bottled in June. And Portet is thinking about a white or red Rhone blend with grapes from Paso Robles. 

If he does this, it will clearly be a Paso wine. "I try to make sure you recognize the variety [of the grapes] and the terroir," he said.