Monday, March 10, 2008

Soup Dumplings Without the Wait



Consider this a prelude to the big one -- a teaser to the mother of all posts on soup dumplings. Discovering San Gabriel Valley has become an addictive pastime lately, and Mei Long Village deserves at least a brief mention as a semi-find in San Gabriel.

The pork soup dumplings were tasty -- juicy and not too porky-tasting. The pork dumplings were better than at Triumphal Palace, our go-to dimsum place that does a bit of everything and doesn't seem to specialize in any one thing (but is decent). I didn't care for the pork and crab soup dumplings, however.

Being Shanghai food novices, we weren't sure what to order so we went with what we know, even though some may frown we had a Szechuan dish in a place specializing in Shanghai cuisine. We got the mabo tofu that ended up being pretty solid. In fact, we had been on a "Harold & Kumar"-type of a quest for mabo tofu in LA and had been repeatedly let down. One of my fellow dinner companions went as far as to declare this the best mabo tofu in LA. Still, for me, the search continues.



The other dishes were nothing special but comforting. They were shredded bean curd stir-fried with beef strips and shrimp with egg that was basically a massive omelette peppered with large shrimps. There were three Shanghai-style restaurants lined right next to each other in a small mini-mall with Beard Papa and $15 foot massage places.

The moral of the story is Mei Long Village will do if you are unwilling or unable to wait for hours on end at Din Tai Fung, which is coming soon to a blog near you.

Mei Long Village
301 W. Valley Blvd., #112
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 284-4769

5 comments:

Omurice said...

used to eat scrambled eggs and shrimp, on a weekly basis, at my local hong kong style cafe in college. can't beat it for inexpensive, comfort food.

ditto on the shanghai style pork dumplings: they were tasty.

Anonymous said...

my friends are fans of J&J next door for xlb

ironchef442 said...

i definitely want to try j&j as well. but the ultimate question is, do they think it's better than din tai fung?

Anonymous said...

yeah..they think din tai fung is overrated..which i kinda agree. i'm not sure if it's worth the 1hour+ wait...

ironchef442 said...

i'm reviewing that next. stay tuned.