Crystal Jade Xiao Long Bao @ Holland Village
I’ve pretty much been constantly craving Xiao Long Bao (steamed pork soup dumpling) ever since I first had them in Macau last year. I know, despite being of chinese heritage I’m horribly clueless when it comes to chinese food. I’ve only started discovering things beyond chinese take outs when I moved back to Asia last year so I have a LOT of catching up to do.
Anyway, today I was perusing Holland Village with Will after watching Despicable Me (great movie by the way). I had mentioned before that I wanted Xiao Long Bao, so we decided to check out Crystal Jade which basically dominates an entire street at HV (there were seriously like three different Crystal Jades there!)
We went the one called Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao, which as the name suggest specializes in La Mian (noodles) and Xiao Long Baos. They were very busy, we had to wait 30 mins to get a table before ordering a basket of Xiao Long Bao and a bunch of other stuff… despite being already sort of full since we had been drinking for hours (I can’t say no to happy hours). Thankfully every dish was a hit!
Ohhhhhh lovely, lovely Xiao Long Bao. OMG these were sooo good~! the skin were soft and thin and the meat + soup inside were flavorful. I can eat it all day and if i wasn’t so full I would totally order more of these! XLBs are definitely one of my all time favorite food.
You have to be careful when eating them as the soup is usually boiling hot when first served. What I usually do is put one of them on my soup spoon, poke a small hole with a chopstick and let the soup seep out onto the spoon so that they aren’t too hot. then eat with vinegar and sliced ginger.
Fried beef with veggies. I don’t know the chinese name for this, but I feel they are very common. This reminds me of those americanized chinese food, which I love, so this dish suits my taste buds well.
Kailan with black mushroom. yet another very common but very tasty dish.
Radish pastry. I didn’t have much expectation for this but it turned out to be one of my favorites! The radish is actually inside, all chopped and cooked, surrounded by this layer of dough that is crispy and flakey on the outside, moist on the inside. It’s pretty filling too!
Shanghai Pork Bun. The bottom is pan fried until they are crispy and golden brown, plus more tasty pork inside.
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