Been awhile -- Prime Rib and Lobster House - Artesia

Back again with another food review! A couple weeks ago we ate at the Prime Rib and Lobster House on South St and near Pioneer in Artesia, CA. This hip restaurant used to be a Chinese place but now serves an American menu, although owned by a Pinoy guy. It resides in the corner of a strip mall next to an Asian market and other Asian restaurants, the same complex as Seafood Shack. The outside is unassuming, but the inside is well decorated. Parking is ample at least on this day, if it were a full house, parking would probably be a little difficult.

So untrue to form, we had neither the prime rib nor the lobster! I had the ribeye steak.

The steak was juicy and fatty, topped with fried onions. Sides I chose were mushrooms and garlic mashed potatoes. I enjoyed this overall. It doesn't rank with the steakhouses, but it is better than average. It was cooked to my preference of medium rare.

My wife went with the seafood soup: Bouillabaisse.

This was also pretty good. The sauce was a little heavy on tomato flavoring. There were abundant seafood though, 3-4 crab legs, 3-4 clams, a good portion of fish and 6-8 shrimp.

We both also had the soup. Mine was the lobster bisque and my wife's the vegetable beef. The lobster bisque was adequate, not as good as the one from Pappas Bros in Dallas. The vegetable beef was good but what is with everyone's fascination with putting celery into everything?

Overall would give the food 3.5 stars out of 5. The service was almost too attentive, given that only 3 tables were being served. The restaurant was clean and had a good look to it. Looks like a good spot to have a mini banquet. Probably would eat here again if there weren't so many places to try before I move away from Long Beach!

Dallas Trip Food

Coming to Dallas Texas, we wondered what we were gonna do. Obvious answer to the question is eat! Where did we go? Well here it all is, in one simple post...

Day one lunch, went to the Galleria food court and found 'la Madeleine' a little French cafe with cute decor. Wife and our friend had the fish and I had the chicken crepe riviera, check out their website for details. Overall, the dishes were satisfactory but not mind blowing. I am no expert in Fench cuisine however, so I'll defer the real review to those that are.

No pictures from the next place either, but we stopped for snacks at a cute little bakery in Highland Park Village called Celebrity Cafe and Bakery. The place was like the "Serendipity" of Dallas. Order your cookies, pastries and coffee/tea downstairs and go on upstairs to enjoy them. The cookies were excellent, not overly sweet.

Day one dinner, we went to a steakhouse that was on the list of best steakhouses in America in our Spirit in-flight magazine. I had the New York steak and wifey had the Ribeye, ordered both to our preference cooked medium-rare. Here are those steaks!:

The Ribeye

The New York

As you can see, the meat was cooked to perfection. As you can read on their website, they prepare their steaks with butter, salt and pepper. Simple, yet so tasty. The Ribeye was a bit over-salted, but the New York was excellent. We also had a lobster bisque that didn't turn out so good in photographs, but that tasted awesome. It had plenty of real lobster bits in it, with a slight spice to the bisque. If I were to take people to Dallas, I would definitely recommend coming here if your budget allows. It will cost you 35 dollars per steak (14-16 oz), extra for family style sides, soup and drinks. For some reason 14-16 oz here is much larger than 14-16 oz that we usually get in other restaurants in California ..... The decor inside the restaurant was simple and the lighting was left somewhat dark, typical of steakhouses. The restaurant itself is huge and there is plenty of room in-between tables and booths. Overall a good experience! 4.5/5.0 stars.

Day two was a "rest" day in terms of eating out, but I give two thumbs up to the cooking of Novita for lunch (lontong cap gomeh) and our hosts (empal + sambal terasi). Excellent dishes from the group, these Texans can cook Indo food!

Day three hung out with the Tins, lunch was had at Pappas Brothers sister establishment Pappadeaux, a seafood version of their steakhouse. We went to the one near Richardson, Texas I think. Decor was typical seafood establishment, with pictures and props resembling what might be found in the sea. Food, well the food, we will let some pictures show you:

What is this? Chicken? Pork? Nope, its Alligator! This appetizer was an absolute delight. The lightly fried and salted alligator was tender with a texture like chicken, but with a slightly seafood type taste very unlike chicken. The fries on the side were cut thin and all were crisp and fresh.

Oysters! 12 large gulf oysters for 4 dollars! The sauces it came with included simple cocktail sauce, some Asian type sweet and sour sauce and horseradish. Tasted good, just remember they are raw!

My wife's wood baked tilapia was excellent; fresh and tasty with good sized portions. The beans were crisp and fresh also. Dish topped off shrimp!

Blackened fish po'boy was a little bit of a disappointment coming off the rest of the food here, but it was well cooked, the ingredients were fresh. It came with some gumbo which was the bigger disappointment, it was more sour than spicy. Overall, Pappadeaux impressed us, and if we are ever back around Texas, it will have to be a stop on our trip. 4.5/5 stars on this one.

In the stockyards we stopped for a snack, good old Texas fries and some fried pickles; Stuff we Californians usually taste once a year at the county fair.

That night, we were invited out to the Magic Time Machine, an interesting concept in food.... or at least in serving food. This is a large establishment that had an hour wait time on a Saturday night. We spent that hour upstairs in the lounge, inside a neon lit jail cell, chatting it up. Once we were called in, we noticed the strange decor and the outfits of the servers.

The cast of Sesame Street joined us for dinner, watching from above; Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster were all there. Our waiter was dressed as Woody from Toy Story. The salad bar was placed on top of an old style car, not quite sure what media forum that car was from. Around the restaurant you could see a people eating in a large school bus, a crayola box, little mushroom houses. Servers were dressed as Snow White, Cinderella, Bat girl, the phantom from phantom of the opera, etc. What a fun place, would be even better with kids (as long as they weren't too young and were scared). The food?

My wife and I shared this plate of pork ribs and prime rib. Prime Rib was sub-par and the pork ribs tasted pretty good, on par with was you get at the big chain restaurants like Lucille's. If you want prime rib, stick to Lawry's, granted you would pay much more. Magic Time Machine will put you down 15-20 dollars per person before drinks, but the decor and atmosphere are well worth the "show" for that price. I would recommend going at least once here. Score this 4/5 stars for the ambiance and 3/5 stars for the food.

Last day in Texas, we had a quick stop at First Chinese BBQ Carrolton. They had roast pork/duck, and BBQ pork (char siu). The roast pork tasted good but not as crisp as the ones you would find in LA. The char siu was well cooked and tender. Wonton soup was a tad bit on the salty side. The Seafood crispy noodle was excellent as was the seafood hotpot. I'd give this place 4/5 stars for their food and quick service. Sorry no pictures of these foods, but typical Chinese food looks by all means.

Last but definitely not least, we stopped by a certain bakery 3 times over our quick trip to Dallas and it deserves to be mentioned. This bakery, called Mozart's bakery and cafe, is a bakery with internet cafe where you can get boba iced teas (tapioca balls), and delicate Korean pastries. All of their pastries that we tried were really good, the only disappointment coming from the mochi with red bean paste inside. 4.5/5 stars for this establishment. A definite must go for you dessert lovers!

Well, that was our foodie trip to Dallas, hope you all have enjoyed reading and looking at the pictures. Maybe this will help some of you choose where to go to eat in Dallas!

Eat at Joe's

Well, they other day we came across a coupon for one of Joe's Crab Shack's new steampots. This is the one they have commercials on. 6 different steampots representing different areas of the US. The coupon however only worked for the classic steampot. You can't beat FREE!

Joe's Crab Shack has always been a favorite of ours, like this type we usually go to the City of Industry, CA location. We are both crab lovers, in the past our favorite item was the bucket of dungeoness crab done BBQ style. But on this day, we decided to split a steampot and grab an appetizer.

Our appetizer was the great balls of fire.

Can't go wrong with crab, jalepeno, and shrimp balls deep fried to a golden brown

These were excellent. The shrimp/crab ration was adequate, and for Americans would not be too spicy. They were a tinge spicy for the Indonesian tongue. The french fries were cooked well, skin on, not too greasy.

The classic steampot was next and last for us on this day:

Classic Steampot - Alaskan Snow Crab, Dungeness Crab, smoked sausage, potatoes and corn

Nice presentation, a large maybe 12" diameter steaming pot, with the food placed on a large green fishing net. A side of butter which was not needed at all. The red potatoes were your standard steamed red potatoes. The corn was a bit disappointing, it stuck to your teeth when eaten off the cob and squirted all sorts of juices when cut through. The crab though, was excellent. It was not quite as good as our usual BBQ style crab, but the saltiness was still there and the ocean taste was not too strong. The crab meat was plentiful and cooked to perfection.

We had to choice but to:

The Good: Crab good but not quite as good as the BBQ style
The Bad: Corn
Overall: Pretty good experience 4 out of 5 stars in my book. A tip here: if you print out those steampot coupons, make sure you use dark ink, the marks they are looking for security include the veri logo on the far right, and the little dotted line below the expiration date. Make sure those appear!
Also, usually if you go at night, this location has a person making balloon animals and the waiting staff do dances. There is a special um ..... "non edible treat" for the persons celebrating special occasions.