Triumphal Palace opened in the modern Alhambra Regency Plaza on June 17, 2005, and there was an instant frenzy, with lines out the door. The madness has died down some, but it’s still worth arriving early to eat some of L.A.’s best dim sum. Unlike most spots, Triumphal Palace utilizes a checklist instead of carts, leading to a more user-friendly experience.
Triumphal Palace offers modern decor to match the food, complete with lots of decorative glass vases, a lot of flowers, tan high-backed chairs, and a tubular wine wall. Almost every table was designed for big parties. This is clearly a restaurant you go to with a lot of people.
Bound menus devoted entire sections to abalone, notorious shark’s fin, and live seafood, including lobster from three locations (Maine, Australia, and one other place). A separate menu highlights Chef’s Selections. This menu was pretty tricky to navigate. A lot of the Chef’s Specials, like roast duck and soy sauce chicken, aren’t served until after 11 a.m., the official beginning of lunch. Other people in the group handed me the menus and told me to order, but I deferred to the waiter. I’m going to start by recounting big hits and work my way down the line.
Superlative off-menu BBQ pork cooked until a deep mahogany, incredibly tender and luscious. These surprisingly lean hog slices practically caramelized and shrouded sultry baked soy beans swimming in pork juice. Considering 8 is a lucky number in China, it was no surprise this pork dish cost $8.88.
Crisp-skinned BBQ roast duck ($5.98) was another specialty, served with sweet dipping sauce. The former quacker featured luscious flesh and Triumphal Palace’s standard garnish trio.
Pan-fried crab cakes ($3.28) were moist and delicate, flecked with spicy green pepper, and served atop fresh papaya cubes, an innovative and tasty preparation.
Traditional turnip cakes (3 for $3.28) were Best in Show, tender wonderfully crispy outside and just oily enough to be flavorful, but not the greasebombs that haunt dim sum carts throughout town.
Pan-fried turnip cakes tasted even better stir-fried with sprouts, peppers, and scrambled eggs in spicy XO sauce.
Incredible pan-fried Chinese broccoli features juicy florets and snap-fresh stalks.
Very good pea tip and seafood dumplings (3 for $3.98) featured skins so thin, they’re translucent. The filling featured mounds of fresh shrimp fused with pea tips and fish.
This simple pan-fried sticky rice cake with egg ($3.28) came coated with omelette and filled with flecks of silky pork chunks and mushrooms. Sometimes, simple offers the most flavor.
Seemingly every dim sum establishment serves the steamed shrimp dumplings called har gow, but the version Triumphal Palace dubbed crystal shrimp dumplings featured thinner rice skins and fresher shrimp than most.
Baked BBQ pork buns (3 for $3.15) starred light soft, golden buns with thin pastry walls filled with the same luscious BBQ pork that appeared with baked soy beans. The buns could use more pork, but I say that about most things I eat. Bottom line: they’re good.
We ordered three types of delicate steamed rice noodle rolls, one filled with shrimp, another with fish, and a third with silky beef. I enjoyed each plate drizzled with soy sauce.
A single dish touted juicy shrimp, chicken, and pork balls. They could have been better seasoned, and I could have done without the bed of chewy fish maw.
Steamed spinach chicken dumplings (4 for $3.28) were fairly dense, fused with mushroom slivers. The skins were very thin, featuring spinach flecks.
Potstickers (3 for $3.28) featured thin skins, like every other Triumphal dumpling, but were a bit too dense.
The menu listed taro dumplings as pan-fried. Unfortunately, they were deep-fried, glutinous to the point of being heavy, and filled with ground pork.
We saw fried spare ribs with garlic ($8.95) land on a nearby table and had to order them. They were good, pink, fleshy, soft and loaded with salt and garlic.
Spare ribs in black bean sauce were similarly impressive, fatty, bone-on pork nubs mixed with velvety butternut squash chunks.
Fish maw with squash ($3.15) featured silky fish stomach sheets with tender butternut squash chunks and glass noodles. This was certainly the most interesting dish I ate.
Fried pork dumplings (3 for $1.95) involved three rugby ball shaped dumplings with a crispy, oily, glutinous shell and ground pork and mushrooms inside.
Special supreme dumpling in soup ($5.75) touted one huge shark’s fin, shrimp and bamboo dumpling floating in soup with a ribbon of white bamboo pith.
A huge plate of steamed mustard greens was surprisingly incredible, so fresh, light, and delicious.
Adam discovered fried shrimp and banana rolls ($7.95), crispy, thin-sheathed specimens filled with fried banana chunks and fresh shrimp. This sweet and savory mash-up came with creamy mayonnaise dipping sauce. Crispy fried egg rolls weren’t quite as good, crispy and filled with two whole shrimp apiece, but thicker walled. Bryan felt they could have held “more stuff.”
Steamed pork and shrimp dumplings, aka siu mai, were nice and juicy, topped with shrimp roe dollops.
Baked turnip crisps were outstanding, flaky pastry shells filled with turnip mousse and mushroom slivers.
Szechwan style scallops ($12.95) were excellent, featuring fat sea scallops mixed with a spicy brown sauce, diced onions and peppers.
They brought a little pitcher of red vinegar, house made chile sauce and spicy mustard; the last two condiments were nearly enough to sear the roof off my mouth.
The dessert our waiter recommended involved three gelatinous cubes of coconut “cake” studded with sweet yellow mung beans. Very good. I inquired about “durian cake,” but our waiter said it’s “old people’s food.”
Throughout the course of multiple visits, I also scored a tasty noodle dish that our waiter recommended. sizzling beef noodles ($8.95) involved crispy egg noodles topped with a sweet pickled onions and pepper gravy and soft shredded beef. Lamb stew hot pot ($15.95) was a definite Krystal choice, since she’s such a believer in “wonder meat.” Tender lamb chunks, big mushroom caps, scallions, bamboo cuts, and bean curd tubes all bobbed in a flavorful broth. The lamb came with a dish of tan, spicy, fermented bean sauce. Steamed meat dumplings with greens featured glutinous wrappers and no meat at all. Instead, these dumplings contained shrimp, fish maw and minimal greens. They were good dumplings, just not what I expected.
Triumphal Palace is a little pricier than typical dim sum, but it’s worth the cost for higher-quality ingredients and lack of frustrating cart service that rarely does the food any favors, especially after several dining room rotations.
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