Showing posts with label dumplings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dumplings. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Wagamama Seaport (Boston, MA)

Wagamama is a chain of restaurants serving Asian food - primarily Japanese - which started in UK. I wasn't familiar until I moved to Boston 3 years ago, and I actually only tried it for the first time recently. Wagamama had opened a new location in the Boston Seaport district and invited some bloggers and instagrammers to try them out.

We started with a plate of Chili squid (crispy fried squid, shichimi, chili cilantro dipping sauce, $9)
Wagamama
For calamari lovers, this squid dish is a great variation. It's crispy but tasted light and spiced just right. I couldn't start eating them.

We also had some dumplings, both steamed and fried. Our favorite was the fried duck gyoza ($8)
Wagamama

The drinks at Wagamama are better than I would've expected from a chain restaurant. While a lot of them tended on the sweet and fruity side, they're not overly sweet and fairly well balanced. What I like most is the fact that they use spirits from Asia as much as possible.

For example, the Wagamama Mai Tai is made with Tanduay rum which is from the Philippines. They also use Iwai Whisky from Japan
Wagamama

Friday, September 12, 2014

A Pavan Liqueur Fueled Lunch at Ming Tsai's Blue Dragon (Boston, MA)

This was the time I got to start my week with a toast of sparkling Pavan cocktails at Blue Dragon. Yep, a boozy lunch on a Monday. Ssh, don't tell. It's summer.
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Pavan is a vin de liqueur made in France using muscat grapes accented with orange blossom water. It's a lovely liqueur with a relatively low sugar content, but still naturally sweet from the grapes. It's great to use in cocktails, or just to drink with soda water or sparkling wine!


Blue Dragon is one of Ming Tsai's Boston restaurants and is his more casual restaurant - an Asian gastropub, if you will. The decor is mostly one of gastropub with some Asian touches here and there.
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The lunch menu is quite different from dinner. The lunch features many more sandwiches and banh mi options while dinner offers more larger entree items.

We all liked the spicy chicken dumplings ($8). The skin is thin and had a nice texture, the sauce has just enough heat.
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Pavan is part of the Suntory portfolio, who also carries Lejay, a creme de cassis, and Mozart, a chocolate liqueur. I tasted these too, so read on!
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Sunday, March 4, 2012

8 Flavors of Xiao Long Bao at Paradise Dynasty (Indonesia)

A restaurant chain in Asia is taking Xiao Long Bao (XLB) to another level with eight different flavors of XLB. At Paradise Dynasty, which has locations in Singapore and Indonesia, you can get XLB with black truffles, foie gras, cheese, ginseng, garlic, crab roe, and szechuan flavor (and of course, there's the original).

The XLBs were about the same price as Din Tai Fung, but if you order the sampler (a basket of all 8 flavors, they can get pretty expensive). If you know what you want to try or have a lot of people to share with, I'd suggest getting a basket of individual flavors.

Paradise XLB

Sunday, January 11, 2009

S-S-Spicy Dumplings!

Disclaimer #1: I can't really eat spicy foods and don't normally eat spicy (that is to say, I'm no authority on anything spicy -- if I am on anything at all).

Disclaimer #2: I tried these dumplings in chili sauce at YunChuan garden after Kat's disclaimer that she can't really eat spicy yet she loves these dumplings.

I now also loove these dumplings, despite my disclaimer #1.
Give me a bowl of these and a pitcher of ice water (or two) and I'm a happy camper.
It's really the chili sauce that makes this soooo good. The dumplings themselves could be better - with better dough and better meat.
But alas, they don't just sell you the chili sauce! You can try to bring home leftovers and throw the chili sauce with your own homemade dumplings. Mmmmm.

YunChuan garden serves a variety of other (spicy or non spicy) dishes as Pleasure Palate has tasted on her visit there, but these li'l babies are what I eat there!! Actually, they're the only reason I go there :P

YunChuan Garden
301 N Garfield Ave
Monterey Park, CA 91754
(626) 571-8387

Yun Chuan Garden on Urbanspoon
Yun Gui Garden on Urbanspoon

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Go To Noodle House for Bao

After reading exilekiss' rave review on the generically named "Noodle House" aka Mian Hsiang Yuan in Monterey Park (not to be confused with the Noodle House in Arcadia), I suggested it to a bunch of friends for dinner.

We wanted to try everything and ended up ordering a little too much, but it was cheap enough that it didn't really matter that much.
We started with some green onion pancakes (we wanted leeks but then were getting the leek dumplings so ....):As exilekiss noted, it is much less greasy than what you would normally get at other places. These are nicely crisp. Delicious. Great start to our meal.

As far as the noodles, we ordered the beef stew noodle.
The one at Arcadia's Noodle House is better for actual noodle dishes. This one is less flavorful, the noodles too soft, the meat less tender, and also has less character. It's not a bad dish - it just doesn't quite compare.

exilekiss raved about the jiao zi (dumplings) and the handmade dumpling skins, so of course we ordered some of those. We got the pork and leek one (we love leek, what can i say):
Nice juicy filling, and the freshly made dumpling skin is great. But personally I like my dumpling skin thinner, and thus I like Din Tai Fung's dumplings better. Don't get me wrong though, these are still very yummy. These are jiao zi, and very good ones at that, but I like my jiao zi pan fried and I like my steamed dumplings to be xiao long baos :P

We also got the shrimp and pumpkin dumplings, because it sounded so interesting.
Definitely unique, and the flavors work pretty well, but it's too sweet a dumpling for me, and I probably won't get them a second time. I would recommend that people try it though, just for a taste. It's pretty good just not to my taste.

The one that takes the cake for me though, is actually the Bao Zi (buns). The dough for the baos are also rolled fresh to order, and is filled with juicy juicy pork.
I expect juiciness from a dumpling/xiao long bao, but this is the first time I bit into a bao and delicious juices started spurting out! Possibly the best bao zi I've ever had - and definitely the best one I can remember having recently! The dough is thin - enough to hold it together. It was fresh and so moist and absolutely delicious!
Again, the filling is tasty and so juicy.

The main contributor to the deliciousness of this meal was the freshness of everything. The skins of dumplings and buns dries up and hardens quite quickly - by the end of the meal, and so it is imperative to eat everything IMMEDIATELY. Otherwise you won't know what you're missing.

Noodle House (Mian Hsiang Yuan)
958 E. Garvey Ave.
Monterey Park, CA 91755
Tel: (626) 280-0831

Noodle House on Urbanspoon

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