Xie Xie Jia Jia!
In my quest for the best Xiao Long Bao ever, I went to Shanghai with one particular restaurant in mind - Jia Jia Tang Bao. With its Shanghainese origins, I know I was going to be in a soupy dumpling tour.
No English signs present, that in itself was an indication that we were in for an experience. Jia Jia is a famous Xiao Long Bao place, both for locals and tourists. The lack of an English sign makes it harder for non-Chinese reading tourists like us, so it was good that we came prepared and took the time to know the street name, and the store number.
When we entered the restaurant, still no sign of English words.
And all of them were busy rolling the dumplings, as strangers waited and shared tables at the other side of this 30 square meter restaurant.
When we approached the lady, I was happy that she had an English menu prepared for tourists like us. Otherwise, we would've just pointed to the ladies rolling the Xiao Long Baos.
And in all fairness, I was surprised to see this sticker on the glass.
The whole place was clean and the staff were friendly, which I both didn't accept. This was our first meal in China, and it gave really good impressions.
We sat infront of a cute little girl w/ her dad, and watched them devour their XLBs. We had to wait for about 10 minutes before our XLBs arrived.
We ordered 2 kinds, one pork and another, I totally forgot (it was a combo of pork and something else).
It was 12 pieces per serving, and it was really cheap, i think it was just about 15 rmb (less than 100 pesos) per serving.
and how was it?
AMAZING.
Having tried different xlbs from different restaurants in different countries, this by far has been the best one I have tried.
I've previously made an entry about the best XLBs ever and this has topped Taipei's Yonghe Soy Milk King.
It was so good that Trina and I finished both servings, that's about 12 pieces each (though I think I had more than her, perhaps I had 15 pieces). And I didn't get all stuffed! I actually could eat more, and I think that's an indication of a really good XLB. There are times where you get full after 4 or 5 pieces, but this one, was really different.
I tried to assess how it was different versus everything else I have tried, and I think it's in the ground pork inside the perfectly steamed wrappers that made the difference. Yonghe, Din Tai Fung and Jie Jie probably had mastered the craft of making the perfect wrapper, so it must be the meat that made all the difference.
Another difference that I noticed was the bamboo basket. If you look at the all the photos of the different XLBs in this post , they all had the same bamboo basket base. whereas the one in Jie Jie, they had straw like baskets, which I think, might have added to the freshness of the XLB. The steaming would've probably been different.
(I can't believe I have become this observant w/ XLBs.)
As you may have noticed, I wasn't able to take much pictures anymore, as I just gorged all of them one by one.
----------------------
As if one XLB meal wasn't enough in a day, we then ate lunch a few hours after in Din Tai Fung Shanghai.
And as expected, it didn't come out as good as our breakfast XLB.