Xiaolongbao

Tonight we met up with some of my local friends for dinner.  We opted to eat at a Taiwanese dumpling (xiaolongbao) place in honor of Chinese New Year.  Leading up to it, Jen and Sonya touted this place as having the best dumplings in the entire universe.  Not just Singapore, not Asia, not in the world...but instead in the entire universe.  Sheesh!  Those are some pretty big pieces of dough to fill if we are going to be the best in the entire universe.

Jen and Sonya did not disappoint.  We had pork dumplings, pork & shrimp dumplings, and pork & crabmeat dumplings...all of which were incredibly tasty.  We also shared some fried rice, however, it isn't just the greasy version we are used to in US Chinese restaurants.  Instead, this was fresh white rice with lots of egg and onion for flavor.  A very nice compliment to the dumplings.  Especially when a little of the dumpling juice escaped from it and fell onto the rice.  All of it was very tasty.  And it was the type of meal where we all shared food...I love that...it makes for conversation about the food but then leads into other discussions.  We even ended up with a bit of a challenge for Jen...can she eat 50 pork dumplings in less than 30 minutes?  We'll have to wait and see...

For me it was nice to have a little of my life here meet some of my life from the US.  It was a pretty quick meal but we talked a lot, ate a lot, and laughed a lot...all good things in my book.  My west and my east have now sort of met each other...kinda cool!

Oh! And we got two free Valentines Day cakes...they are chocolate...shaped like hearts...and they were free...