Rosemead: 7 Course Beef!

Hello! Didn't mean to neglect oolongmilktea lately but really, I just didn't have anything! Haven't had the chance to try new things, until this past weekend, Connie graciously treated Diana, Michael, and I to a feast, specifically, the infamous Seven Course Beef!

Now... I'll be trying my hardest with the names and the description since I actually don't know much about Vietnamese food. Heck, my first time having pho was in college! In fact, my exposure to Vietnamese food is just... pho, broken rice, egg & spring rolls, and fried rice. Sad, I know.

Seven course beef, aka Bo 7 Mon, is essentially a planned meal with 7 different dishes, all involving beef! Beef is served in a variety of ways and quite hands on, since for some dishes you cook right at the table. Connie took us to Thien An in Rosmead, which is a restaurant that specializes for Bo 7 Mon, as well as being known for their BBQ catfish.

Thien An Bo 7 Mon

8837 Valley Blvd

Rosemead, CA 91770

Located in a pretty old plaza right off Valley Blvd. Doesn't look like much but the place is HUGE.

You are given lots of rice paper to make your own springrolls. All sorts of veggie provided so you can customize! Lettuce, basil, and mint are a few of the more familiar ones.

Cucumber, raw plantains, beansprouts, and pickled daikon & carrots. More things to customize your springrolls with!

5 types of sauces that you can add.

Lemongrass, fish sauce, and a super fish sauce. Sorry, I don't know the name of the super potent fish sauce haha. Just know that... it is super strong and actually smells like the fermented tofu that Chinese people eat.

First up, BBQ Catfish! Fried SMALL catfish then topped with scallions and peanuts.

Sup buddy.

Really pretty and colorful dish. The skin of the catfish is fried to perfection. Nice contrasting textures with the flesh of the fish.

My creation for the first springroll of this meal: catfish with a little of skin, cucumber, pickled veggies, mint, basil, lemongrass, and some fish sauce. Tasty :]

Onto the 7 courses! First up, Goi Bo, a beef salad. The dressing might have been something close to Italian dressing, but there's a lot of ingredients: beef (of course), shrimp, mint, celery, red onions, and fried shallots are just a few.

Love all the colors! Very flavorful dish and a nice way to start.

Next up, bo nhung, which is like a beef shabu shabu. Raw slices of beef quickly boiled at the table in broth.

Don't know what the broth is... but there's a piece of ginger in it!

Again, wrap your own springroll! Can't really see it but there's actually a rice paper on the place! Simple & delicious.

Plate AWESOMENESS.

Bo La Lot is the long meatball wrapped with betel leaf, which gives it a herbaceous and peppery aroma, grilled over a charcoal grill. At first, the betel leaf tasted like the shiso leaf Japanese use a lot but milder.

Bo Nuong Mo Chai, beef meatball, is my absolute favorite. It is juicy, fatty, and flavorful. The grilled flavor makes it even tastier. Wrap it with some veggies, drizzle with a little fish sauce, and add a dab of hot sauce. Yakitori? Psh.

Bo Cha Dum. The best way I can describe this is a Asian meatloaf made with ground beef, glass noodles, peas, and peanuts

You use the shrimp cracker to scoop up with Bo Cham Dum!

Bo Nuong Sa, which is beef marinated with lemongrass. At Thien An, you cook it on the table top using the cast iron skillet!

Cast iron skillet all oiled up ;)

AHHHH that marinade/sauce/heavenly goodness was delicious.

I was so sad when the marinade got stuck to the skillet hahah.

Sizzling away! Again, you wrap it with rice paper or just dip it in sauce.

The last course, Chao Bo, is a type of beef congee soup. Here, they add alphabet soup! Usually not a big fan of congee, but congee with beef stock? Okay!

What alphabets do you see?

What a great experience for my first Bo 7 Mon! I love how you can improvise on how to eat and what to eat. Less or more veggies? More sauce? Spicy? There's so many combinations! I can say perhaps one of the best finger food experience I've had.

Again, thanks to Connie for taking us to Thien An, which is a fairly well-known for their Seven Course Beef. Thanks for teaching us n00bs about the side of Vietnamese cuisine we have not seen yet!

San Gabriel: Stuffed Sandwich

One day during work Leonard and I had to visit a project site so decided to stop by Stuffed Sandwich in San Gabriel for a quick lunch with Diana before heading back to the office.

Stuffed Sandwich is this... random sandwich shop on Las Tunas in San Gabriel, but really popular around the area, especially for people that work close by. You totally wouldn't expect something like this in this city full of Asian food, so it's a nice break from all the Chinese food. The cool thing about this place: hundreds types of beer served! Stuffed Sandwich has a serious collection of beers from all sorts of places, and they even have Stone Brewery on tap! Just sucks that I had to go back to work or else it'd be party time mid-day at Stuffed Sandwich.

Stuffed Sandwich

1145 E Las Tunas Dr.

San Gabriel, CA 91776

stuffedsandwich.com

The front. There's a nice outdoor patio area.

Our food :]

First up, the Spicy Polish Sausage Sandwich with marinara sauce. When I was ordering, the owner said "you better make sure you can eat spicy food." I pretty much scoffed at him when he said that buuuuut holy it is spicy. One bite of the polish sausage, I was sweating bullets, and after a few more I could tell my stomach wasn't happy with me at all. I kept on refilling my soda and it doesn't help in that the marinara sauce is also spicy! It sorts of creeps up on you and lingers... and then it his and that spiciness just won't go away. Legit.

Pastrami sandwich. Thin sliced pastrami with mustard. It's not that fatty which is good, and I think I like it more than The Hat's pastrami!

Spicy curly fries. Honestly I was scared to eat this after I took a bite of my spicy polish but this was weaaaaak compared to that. Just curly fries with a little bit of seasoned salt and chili powder.

Great sandwich shop in SGV and I'll forever remember Stuffed Sandwich as one of those places that genuinely surprised me. I'm now a fan of this place and would love to bring any spicy food lover here. Don't worry, I'll bring the Pepcid.

San Gabriel: Strawberry Cones

Strawberry Cones is this brand new Japanese pizzeria that opened in the Hilton Plaza on Valley Blvd, in San Gabriel, right across from Focus Plaza. It's a fairly big chain in Japan that focuses on Asian-influenced flavors for their pizzas & pastas and their special crust, the Ninja crust. They call it Ninja crust because they add bamboo charcoal to do to give their crust a distinctive flavor and texture. Adding the charcoal also turns the pizza crust into a blackish color, hence the name, Ninja!

Strawberry Cones

227 W Valley Blvd

#118-B

San Gabriel, CA 91776

The box the pizza comes in. So cool! I like the retro look.

You're allowed to do half/half and even quarters so you have different pizzas. So we ordered a medium teriyaki mochi chicken pizza for one half and and the meat paradise for the other!

Teriyaki mochi chicken pizza with Ninja Crust: smoked chicken, mochi, mozzarella & romano cheese, seaweed, red onion, teriyaki sauce, and japanese mayo on a ninja crust. It's their most popular item on the menu. So f-ing good. The mochi is really chewy and just provides excellent texture.

Cheeeese :]

Instead of tomato sauce, there's a real light spread of the Japanese mayo, which is lighter and sweeter.

See how airy the crust is? Sooo good. Asians love that chewiness hahah.

Meat paradise: canadian bacon, pepperoni, sausages, bacon, bell peppers, red onion, romano cheese and mozzarella with tomato sauce on ninja crust.

They don't skimp on ingredients.

Man... Canadian bacon AND bacon.

Also decided to try their buffalo wings, which is just... average. Nothing special about them. Sorta tastes like the ones from Costco haha.

The rest of the Ninja crust pizzas.

Most of the pizzas are on their regular crust but you can upgrade to a Ninja Crust if you want. I think it was $.75 for a small and $1.50 for a medium.

The history of Strawberry Cones. Apparently there's one in Vancouver too!

I gotta come back and try out some of their other pizzas! Their pastas also looks pretty good. It's definitely something new and unique.