One of my friends had been to this authentic Shanghai restaurant years ago and she remembered their Lion’s head with salted egg yolk fondly, but she forgot its name nor location. We found it again (based on vague descriptions such as: a shanghai restaurant somewhere on Valley between around Atlantic with a red signage) and brought a Xiao Long Bao craving group with us.
The Crab Meat Xiao Long Bao (Steamed Soup Dumplings) are very good! Firm but smooth and thin skin with delicious soup and fillings. It was so good that our table of 6 added 5 more orders.
The Lion’s head with Salted Egg Yolk (Lion’s head = Shanghai braised meatballs). I thought it was delicious but my friend said it was no where near as good as she remembered.
Fried Shanghai crispy Eels and Shanghai Pork Rib. The former are also very good, not oily, lightly crisp with melty eels inside. The later seem like typical sweet & sour pork, but the sauce are well balanced and very good.
Maybe because half of the table are non-Asians, the owner of the restaurant kept pushing very generic ‘safe’ American-friendly dishes to us (even said that he won’t held responsible if any of our teeth fell out…^^;;)
Very generic shrimp and very generic pan-fried noodle.
I’m not entirely sure of its English name. The Chinese name would translate literally as “Shanghai Snack” (上海小吃).
Wok and Noodle Restaurant 上海小吃 (626) 588-2284
828 W, Valley Blvd., Alhambra, CA, 91803
Tags: Chinese, Dumplings, Shanghainese, Xiaolungbao
Haha, generic shrimp generic noodles…^^;; Though simple dish takes fresh ingredients and good skill to taste good!
I don’t think I have ever had lion’s head with egg yolk inside! Sounds amazing!
I envied all the weird dishes at other tables, when we asked what they are, the owner was like “nah~~” dismissively, “the shrimp is good!”. ^^;; He probably think us non Shanghainese won’t like anything too Shanghainese or something.
Yeah it’s the first time I had a salty egg yolk stuffed Lion’s head too~