M.Y. China, xiao long bao and food reviews
The restaurant is big, clean and convenient. It’s in Westfield San Francisco, a big chunk of the fourth floor of the shopping mall is restaurants, and M.Y. China is one of them. Sitting 50 feet from the kitchen and you can smell the intoxicating fumes of dumplings. We order two Chinese classics: xiao long bao (pork & crab juicy dumplings) and niu ro mien (beef hand-pulled egg noodle soup).
The niu ro mien is good. Fourteen dollars. Melting tender beef, chewy noodle (not as chewy as I would like, but I’m not a fan of egg noodle anyway), dark, flavor-packed broth (which gets a bit too salty after a while and sends you drinking water like mad).
The xiao long bao‘s are dry. Twelve dollars for five. There’s not enough broth in them. The dumpling skin is dried up on top, the carrot slice at the bottom, which supposedly helps preventing the dumpling from sticking to the spoon, disrupts the harmony in texture. The pork filling? This is where my friend and I disagree.
The filling has ginger. My friend insists that: 1. xiao long bao should have a lot of ginger (to mask the flavor of the pork); 2. she has eaten a lot of xiao long bao over the years to know that it should have a lot of ginger; 3. she doesn’t notice the ginger in these xiao long bao, in fact, she added extra ginger to the dumplings to make them taste gingery.
I insist that: 1. these xiao long bao are too gingery (the pork and the crab are completely masked); 2. even with the pre-equipped knowledge that xiao long bao are supposed to have a lot of ginger, I don’t like these xiao long bao because they have too much ginger.
Ice cream ($4 each) – toasted rice (left) and chinese walnut (right) – both remind me of grocery rice milk and walnut milk, which are sweeter than I would have liked.
Of course, the natural question comes up: should you review food based on your knowledge of the food (how it should be) or based on your taste of the food (how it is)? Food reviews have both objective facts and subjective preferences, and as a reviewer, I don’t mix those two categories together. If I know with all certainty how it should be, I’ll include that statement in my review, otherwise, all of my reviews are about how it is (with respect to my taste buds). Is that too subjective? Sure. Are my preferences peculiar? Maybe. I don’t drink coffee and alcoholic beverages, and I don’t eat spicy foods. In general, I don’t like anything too strong. If a dish has one overwhelming flavor that masks everything else, I call it “one-dimensional”. I want to taste different flavor profiles in a dish, especially the natural flavors of the ingredients, which is why I’ve grown increasingly fond of raw seafood sushi and increasingly intolerating of cakes. So if you like strong flavors, the things that I like would be almost water to you, and the things that I say are too this or too that would taste just fine. 🙂
But surely, there must be others who share my preferences?
Logistics: M.Y. China is a new restaurant by Martin Yan and the owners of Koi Palace. It opened early this year, and it locates on the 4th floor of Westfield San Francisco Center, 845 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94103 – (415) 580-3001
This really answered my problem, thanks!
1I gotta favorite this internet site it seems invaluable handy
2Real good visual appeal on this site, I’d rate it 10 10.
3Saved as a favorite, I really like your blog!
4An attention-grabbing discussion is worth comment. I feel that you must write extra on this topic, it may not be a taboo topic but generally people are not enough to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers
5I’ve been exploring for a little bit for any high quality articles or blog posts in this kind of space . Exploring in Yahoo I ultimately stumbled upon this website. Studying this information So i am satisfied to exhibit that I’ve a very excellent uncanny feeling I discovered exactly what I needed. I most for sure will make certain to don’t fail to remember this website and provides it a glance on a constant basis.
6The following time I learn a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as a lot as this one. I mean, I do know it was my option to learn, however I actually thought youd have one thing interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you may fix should you werent too busy searching for attention.
7I truly appreciate this post. I’ve been looking all over for this! Thank goodness I found it on Bing. You have made my day! Thanks again
8I have been browsing online greater than three hours these days, but I by no means discovered any fascinating article like yours. It is lovely price sufficient for me. In my opinion, if all web owners and bloggers made excellent content material as you did, the internet will likely be much more helpful than ever before. “When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.” by Lao Tzu.
9I have read a few good stuff here. Definitely worth bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how much effort you put to create such a wonderful informative site.
10Hello There. I found your blog using msn. This is an extremely well written article. I’ll make sure to bookmark it and return to read more of your useful information. Thanks for the post. I will definitely comeback.
11An impressive share, I just given this onto a colleague who was doing a little analysis on this. And he in fact bought me breakfast because I found it for him.. smile. So let me reword that: Thnx for the treat! But yeah Thnkx for spending the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love reading more on this topic. If possible, as you become expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more details? It is highly helpful for me. Big thumb up for this blog post!
12I discovered your blog site on google and check a few of your early posts. Continue to keep up the very good operate. I just additional up your RSS feed to my MSN News Reader. Seeking forward to reading more from you later on!…
13