Elite Restaurant: Dim Sum in Monterey Park

It took half an hour to get a table at Elite Restaurant, the new Chinese place in Monterey Park, and that was for lunch on a weekday.

Does this mean the food is great? Not necessarily. Elite replaces the short-lived but well-publicized New Concept, so Chinese food groupies are flocking there to check it out.

The word from those who really know food, though, is that the cooking is a bit rough-edged. Some dishes are good, some not what they should be. That certainly was the case with the dim sum my chef friend and I ordered for lunch.

We liked several things, criticized a couple more, and left one uneaten. The reject, sweet oatmeal bun, looked nice enough, but the sweet black sesame mixture inside had a weird cheesy flavor, as if it had gone off.

We gasped when fried shrimp balls coated with toasty sliced almonds arrived, because they were so spectacular. Large, dense and somewhat dry, they desperately needed a dipping sauce, something sweet and acidic. Then they would have been fine.

Baked scallops and turnip cake rated another gasp. These beautiful, golden, shell-shaped pastries were as flaky as could be, although a tad greasy. Inside were strands of daikon (often called turnip) and bits of scallop.

The open-faced steamed dumplings shui mai are basic to dim sum restaurants, and a good indication of the skills of the kitchen.  Elite’s shui mai are fine, if rather solidly packed.  Tiny orange roe sprinkled on top is a newish concept that makes the dumplings look pretty, but isn’t really necessary. In addition to minced pork, mine had a scallop on top and a whole shrimp inside. A nice presentation.

My chef friend, who dotes on chicken feet, says that Elite cooks them perfectly, although the sauce was not as flavorful as he would have liked. We both liked home style pancake, a sticky crepe embedded with sliced green onions, bits of Chinese sausage and dried shrimp. Lots of good, savory flavor.

Translucent white chiu chow dumplings put up a deceptively plain front. “There’s a whole little stir fry going on in there,” observed my friend, as we bit into the delicious mixture of pork, shrimp, green onions, carrot, daikon, peanuts and cilantro. 

For dessert, we chose Elite cookies, which turned out to be chewy Cantonese pork cookies—fine, if you’re not worried about cholesterol. Otherwise beware.

There are no rolling dim sum carts at Elite, although waitresses appear occasionally, carrying trays of the same things you can order by placing checks on the paper menu supplied to each table.

The noise level is high. Waiters replace plates as needed, and there is plenty of hot jasmine tea in attractive bamboo-patterned pots.

Elite Restaurant, 700 S. Atlantic Blvd., Monterey Park, CA  91754. Tel: (626) 282-9998. Open Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m.