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| - This place really took me by surprise. I wasn't sure what to expect as they had quite an array of Chinese dishes but when I found out the owner is Taiwanese, I decided to stick with the Taiwanese offering.
The FIVE STAR rating is for their Xiao Long Bao alone...the best in Las Vegas, or should I say, the only good Xiao Long Bao is Las Vegas. I know, I know, Xiao Long Bao is NOT Taiwanese but rather Shanghainese, but the Taiwanese have really done a good job with these thanks to Din Tai Fung, a famous Xiao Long Bao restaurant out of Taiwan. All the other restaurants save for one seem to buy their soup dumpling from the frozen section of the Asian supermarkets. But here at 1900, you can tell they specialize in these little dumplings of soupy deliciousness. Compared to the only other place I believe hand make these, the dumplings are very juicy and packed full of flavor. I didn't even have to drown these with the ginger vinegar to get some taste out of them.
We also ordered the green onion pancake rolled with beef and the soup buns. The first was pan fried just right, not burnt but just crispy enough to be crunchy on the outside yet bready, and most importantly, was not oily. The soup bun was also nice and juicy as opposed to those who advertise it as soup buns and then disappoint you with hardly any soup at all. In fact, on the second bun I ate, the juice squirted out much to the chagrin of my three eating companions. Suffice it to say, they weren't too happy but we all had a good laugh when no real damage was done.
To fill up, we ordered the beef soup noodles and that was satisfying and did its job of filling us up. The noodles were particularly well cooked, slippery yet firm enough without feeling like you're eating spaghetti al dente.
Overall a very pleasant dinner and I'm already planning on bringing my mom and family this coming weekend just to eat the Xiao Long Baos. Maybe I'll venture to try the pork belly with preserved vegetables and the ham hock.
Can't wait...
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