Soup Dumplings

I overheard one of the nurses at my peds clinic talking about a place on Buford that was known for soup dumplings. I couldn't help but ask where it was because I was immediately like "oh damn I like those." We talked about how she was a fan of Joe's Shanghai and I told her about a place my sister took me in SF one time. The next week she told me she went and that it was just completely wrong. Nothing like Joe's...completely lacking in soup inside.

I then heard about a place that happened to be right across the street from my apartment complex which was supposed to have xiaolongbao. I went with some friends:


We also ordered the fish in hot oil and the pork belly with leeks. Both were good.


The dumplings are somewhat un-appetizingly labeled as "Shanghai Juice Dumplings." They looked right. That kinda collapsed bottom look from something that used to be solid now being a liquid. They tasted fine, but weren't quite right either. The skin was a bit too doughy and there was a bit too much meat filling, not a lot of broth.

Guess I'll have to take matters into my own hands and make my own soup dumplings. Out of laziness I decided not to make the skins and just use pre-made wrappers. I knew this'd be risky if they were too thin, but apparently it'd been done with some success according to posts online.

First up was making the soup.


Then turning it into an aspic with some help from gelatin. You can also boil pork skin with the soup but the gelatin was cheaper.


Filling was next...pork, ginger, garlic, scallions, some other junk:


With a little help from the freezer, the aspic was already set a couple hours later:


Then i cut it up and mixed it in with the other filling stuff:



Let's fast forward the horrible inefficiency with which I assembled the dumplings, and straight to the steamer:


Okay they look sorta similar...but awfully collapsed. Hopefully I didn't lose all of my soup...



Good not great. If I ever make these again I'm gonna have to actually make the skin dough, which is a pain. Also I would keep the meat and aspic separate. Use a much smaller amount of meat and individually put a big scoop of the aspic in each one to ensure maximum soup.

Hype Eating

I've been eating some of the most hyped stuff you can find in Atlanta...the kinds of places that are bulletproof among the Yelp crowd. All the reviews are OMG 5 STARS! There's the occasional I'M SO SOPHISTICATED THAT I'M GOING TO GIVE THIS PLACE ONE STAR BECAUSE I'M ABOVE THE HYPE! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! MY OPINION COUNTS MORE BECAUSE IT'S DIFFERENT!

This is why I hate Yelp. I use it on my iPhone because it's the most elegant way to find nearby restaurants, but I don't use it on a real computer at all because that would mean I'd be looking at reviews. The average Yelp reviewer has absolutely no clue what they're talking about, will turn into crazy cat-owning hermits, and live in a fantasy world where the feedback on their reviews and their number of yelp friends convince them that they're a respected food writer. They review fast food places in a non-ironic manner because ironically reviewing fast food places is no longer amusing.

I recently used the Yelp app extensively in my quest to eat a choux cream pastry from every Korean bakery in the Atlanta area (Mission accomplished by the way). The reviews for each and every one of these places were ridiculous and just plain wrong. The app is now getting a bit annoying thanks to the check-in feature. Anytime you're in close proximity to a business you can "check in" there, and there's "regulars" and a leaderboard. There's one dude in Atlanta who's consistently at the top of the board, because he "checks in" at places like apartment complexes and his job. Lame.


That's him. Ladies of Atlanta, if you see this man be sure to ridicule him.

Everyone should try a place if they're interested regardless of the reviews or the hype/anti-hype. I did, took some pictures, and am throwing them up here for the two of you who will see this. This mainly serves as photo-hosting online so that they don't take up any of my endangered hard drive space. This blog has basically become a time-consuming Flickr gallery.

First up is Antico Pizza Napoletana. Hype factor high in the Atlanta area. The website has the occasional Italian word and they write prices in Euros as well as dollars. All this marketing stuff is cute and all, but can they back it up?


Amanda ate this whole pizza.


Audra and I ate this. Pizza came out fast and the crust was excellent.


This thing was good.


So was this.

Next up is Farm Burger. HYPE FACTOR OFF THE CHARTS. They opened up pretty recently and advertise 100% grass-fed beef and natural everything blah blah blah. They also have many varieties of beer in cans, from fancy to not so fancy. Trendy.

Grass-fed beef is good and all, but honestly if someone took roadkill and made it into a freaking amazing burger I wouldn't mind.


This burger also had beef tongue, beet relish and some sort of slaw which was really tasty. The beef was excellent. Fries were okay. The decor is farm-y...but the pictures of cows and pigs on the walls are maybe a bit cruel. I'll probably go back to try their bacon, oxtail relish, and roasted marrow, all of which are available condiments on their burgers. There are some interesting-looking non-fried sides too.

At one point while Bryan and I were sitting at the very end of a large communal table, some girl came up and said "I don't want to be rude," (too late) "but we have a group of six...can you move?"
1. They only had five people.
2. We were already there.
3. Her voice was incredibly annoying.
If it weren't for her voice I might've thought about it for a split second. Also one of the dudes in their party had his collar up. No way we're moving bitch.

And now an item of national hype/intrigue/disgust.
I'm no stranger to weird and possibly disgusting novelty chicken items. Who could forget Chicken Kiev juice box?


Actually that might not have gone down so well.



If you look at the nutrition facts of the double down, in terms of calories, eliminating the bun might have actually brought the count down somewhat.


It seems promising. Chicken, pepper jack cheese, bacon...kinda like a ghetto Cordon Bleu. Unfortunately, all this promise doesn't taste like anything except salt. This was probably the saltiest thing I've ever eaten besides the time a salt shaker spilled open into my soup and I kept eating it anyway.

Okay...that ends the post of food that I have not made myself. All that saved me about 8 megs of space on my computer. Totally worth it.