This is my first time here. It is really a hole in the wall restaurant with about 7 tables of which, if I recall correctly, all of them seat four people. I realized too late that I should’ve caught a picture of the inside and the sign. Oh well. This place serves homely food, meaning the food is food that you might find in a typical household, as opposed to the food found in larger restaurants, which are prepared a little more professionally. It’s just a different style of eating so I need to compare them differently as it is a different type of experience.
We came here hoping for the Xiao Lung Bao, directly translated to “little dragon bun,” but they were all out. Apparently this dish is really famous here, so I’ll need to come back and give those a try. I really love Xiao Lung Bao, especially if the wrapping is really thin, yet hard enough to hold the soupy substance inside.
The above dish is the Shanghai Pu Dong San Huang Chicken, which I believe is a “running” chicken meaning the meat is usually more lean and tough than that of the standard chicken. You know, the kind that stands there all day accumulating fat. Supposedly it’s a better type of chicken but I don’t like it as much because usually it’s really tough and chewy. This plate is served cold with a bowl of their specially prepared soy sauce. The chicken wasn’t too tough this time, which is good. It is essential to dip the chicken with the soy sauce, as it is unflavored without it. The special sauce is probably a concoction with various sauces along with some green onions, cilantro, etc. It wasn’t too salty, nor was it spicy. Overall, it was a pretty good dish.
We also ordered the Shanghai Salty Pork w/Rice; for those of you who understand Mandarin, it is “chai fan”. This dish is prepared by mixing some Salty pork with some sort of veggie that resembles bits of “bok choy” (but I know it’s not), and then placing it in a heated clay pot and letting it sit. It’s stir fried a bit with oil, and then placed in a scorching hot clay pot set aside to let outer layer of rice crispin. Overall, it is your standard “chai fan”, nothing particularly outstanding about this one, except that the amount of oil used was less than many of the other places I’ve been to.
This is the “Dai dou miu”. I’m not really sure the translation into English as it wasn’t on their typical menu, but it is just a type of veggie. We wanted ours prepared with a garlic soup as opposed to the flavorless soup. Not a bad dish. This is a really typical Chinese dish you might find prepared iin a Chinese household.
Last in our order was the Wu Ci Short Ribs. I thought there would actually be pieces of bone, but what I really found were chunks of pork wrapped around a piece of tendon. I have one word for this dish. Oily. Really, this dish was dripping in oil it was kind of gross. Don’t get me wrong, the flavor was good. Just the amount of oil was overwhelming. I believe a lot of peanut oil or just peanuts were used as that was the prevalent flavor in the dish. This is a dish worth trying once just for the flavor, but I probably wouldn’t order it again unless I don’t mind having a heart attack at the age of 50.
Overall it was not a bad experience. I didn’t get to try their Xiao Lung Bao, which was a disappointment, but their food really isn’t too bad for what it was worth (10 bucks a person including tip). It could’ve been cheaper, but we ordered a little more than we could eat, so we ended up with leftovers.
Update: I do not currently have the address of this place, but I can tell you where it is located. It is located in the Party City/Lees Sandwiches Plaza off of Calaveras and Abbot near the 880/237 junction. It is a VERY small restaurnt and maybe has a total of 10 tables or so, so keep your eyes peeled.
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