For three years running, The Astronomer and I have returned to the site of our wedding banquet to celebrate our anniversary. These happily ever after years are flying by so darn quickly, so it’s always nice to sit back, relax, feast, and reminisce.
This year, we were a bit nervous about returning to the fourth floor of the Focus Jewelry Center because our beloved restaurant had undergone a name change—New Capital Seafood now goes by Five Star Seafood Restaurant.
We were relieved to find things virtually unchanged since our last visit. The menu still offered our old standbys, the staff still had difficulty understanding us, and the decor still struck a gaudy note.
Even the ridiculously priced lobster special, 99 cents per pound with every $30 purchase, was still intact. All was right with the world.
The evening began as it has for the past three years with a big ‘ol bowl of hot and sour soup. It was a touch under-seasoned this evening, but the situation was easily rectified with a pour of soy sauce.
And then came the prized lobster, wok’d to order with plenty of ginger and scallions. We dropped our chopsticks and attacked with bare hands to extract every tasty morsel. Another tradition that’s sprung out of this one is feasting on leftover lobster straight from the fridge the following day. It’s so delicious that way.
The French-style fillet steak was as miraculously tender as always. How does the kitchen do it?
The most indulgent part of our feast was the Peking duck. A whole bird for two people means that we can both eat our fill and still have buns and skins for the next day.
While the lobster, beef, duck, and soup were all part of our original wedding menu, we’ve been experimenting with the carbohydrate portion these past couple of years. This time we selected the e-fu noodles, linguine-like strands stir-fried with shitake mushrooms and scallions, and quite liked how their simple flavors worked with the spread. We might just have to repeat this one next year.
To finish were bowls of warm, sweet red bean soup. Though not quite as exciting as the lemon, passion fruit, and blackberry cake that Sarah baked for our wedding day, it quelled my sweet tooth well enough.
We’ll see you next year, Five Star.
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Five Star Seafood Restaurant
140 West Valley Boulevard, Ste. 4D
San Gabriel, CA 91776
Phone: 626-288-1899
There’s more romance to be had in San Gabriel:
- Bánh Mì & Chè Cali – San Gabriel
- Chung King Restaurant – San Gabriel
- Cơm Tấm Thuận Kiều – San Gabriel
- Ducks Restaurant – San Gabriel
- Golden Deli – San Gabriel
- Hà Tiên Quán – San Gabriel
- Hui Tou Xiang Noodles House – San Gabriel
- Kingburg Kitchen – San Gabriel
- Lucky Noodle King – San Gabriel
- Luscious Dumplings Inc. – San Gabriel
- Nha Trang – San Gabriel
- Omar’s Xinjiang Halal Restaurant – San Gabriel
- Phở Nguyễn Hoàng – San Gabriel
- Saigon’s Bakery & Sandwiches – San Gabriel / San Jose
- Southern Mini Town – San Gabriel
- Sweethome Grill – San Gabriel
- Ton Chan Ramen – San Gabriel
- Vietnam House – San Gabriel
- Vietnam Restaurant – San Gabriel
- Wedding Banquet Redux at New Capital Seafood
- Yum Cha Cafe – San Gabriel
The last picture is adorable.
I was just there and didn’t notice.
wonder when the name changed??
We did our banquet there in 2009. Love the place. Five years later and the food is still great.
This is a top 5 fav place for me.
and the GM, Nelson, is awesome. Always very good to us…
Michael – The name changed sometime in the last year. And we LOVE LOVE LOVE Nelson! He’s still around, thank goodness.
Vince – 🙂 Thanks!
Congratulations to you both. You make one seriously handsome/lovely couple!
Happy Anniversary! I still remember the original post you did and I showed it to my husband (fiance at the time). It’s stuck with us the last few years and guess what we will be doing in a few weeks to celebrate our first wedding anniversary? 😉
Anne – Thank you!
Kirbie – YAY! I gotta say, the banquet tastes so much better without the pressure of the wedding. ENJOY!
Happy anniversary! I love that you keep going back for this awesome feast.
So cool! Great pics, too. Congrats.
Your wedding was so much fun! Best wedding food I’ve had to date – love that French-style beef. Happy (belated) Anniversary!
Happy anniversary! I love your anniversary tradition.
$0.99 lobster? I gotta check this place out!
Happy Anniversary to you and Vern! I can’t believe it’s already been 3 years!
hi there!
does five star have an english menu? I always want to adventure more but get intimidated to order that way most times when there are no pictures and only descriptions I don’t yet understand and I don’t want to torture the waitress by having her answer my ‘ooh that sounds good! whats in there?’ one million plus times.
thank you very much!
Yes, the menu has English translations and pictures too! Have fun on your culinary adventure 🙂