Hu Chiang Dumpling House

YUM! I personally love the crab+pork and the green vegetable one! I could eat it for days while drenched in Red Vinegar!

They also have this crunchy sweet roll with a milky dipping sauce! mmmmmmmm..... I can taste it now!

Go here for your fix of Xiao Long Bao. I'm sure people compare it to Ding Tai Fung in LA.

After my disappointing visit to Shanghai Dumpling King in SF (see review), I had to rethink where my go-to dumpling place would be. While I'd love to fly to Shanghai for some dumplings in Old Town or drive to LA for places like Ding Tai Fung, I needed something close.

Hu Chiang does classic Shanghai dumplings. They're juicy, tender, and fill you up. While the other dishes are complementary, few, if anyone comes for the other dishes.

The wait here can be a bit long sometime, but it's definitely the best dumpling place in Cupertino Village and probably the greater Bay Area.

Note: they don't take American Express.

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Additional review info (for HARD-CORE xiao long bao connoissuers only) - I truly miss and think the best Shanghai dumplings were at Nanxiang Mantou Dian in Old Town Shanghai...8 dumplings for $1 USD. I had it 2-3 times a week while I stayed in Shanghai and they are the benchmark for all my xiao long bao reviews.

** soapbox speech - I often hate it when someone mentions their favorite "thing" and the only locale where such can be obtained is incredibly remote/foreign/ expensive. It's almost as if the person doesn't want you hopping in your car, driving 10 minutes, and checking it out for yourself if it's deserving of its rep as a "favorite." Such comments can range from "the tacos on top of Mount Everest are the absolute best!" to "French Laundry is an orgasmic experience!"

After hearing such exclamations, I often then need to go to the trouble to travel/book/dole out money just to see what the hype is about. If it ends up being a total disappointment, a mental note is made and another name is added to the blacklist.

Anyway, point being, I truly thought the xiao long bao in Shanghai were the best. And while that may sound cliche, I'm not just saying that cause you can't prove me wrong easily.

It's also another reason I love Yelp! You read the great reviews and then you can almost always go there yourself.**

This used to be my local Shanghainese/XLB stop in the South Bay. Last year, I had a horrendous experience where the XLBs weren't fresh and the eggplant clay pot dish was so oily that I couldn't even eat it! The owner gave us a coupon for a FREE order of XLBs for our next visit that I didn't even use before the expiration date!

Fast forward to my most recent visit and it is even worse!

Wine Chicken Appetizer
- Chicken was putrid and smelled like it too...yuck.
- The chicken was all mushy...eww

XLBs w/ Crab Meat
- I still can't "see" or "taste" the crab meat....
- The XLBs were juicy but the meat inside was crumbly and just nasty...

Green Onion Pancake
- Tasted frozen when it came out zesty hot.
- After the pancake sat out for a few minutes, it was dry, hard, and basically inedible...yuck

Shanghai Stir Fried Noodle
- Our request for less oil was honored but the dish had this weird pepper smell that didn't seem consistent w/ other Shanghai Stir Fried Noodle dishes I've had in the past...

Service was poor as usual and the owner who took our order had no facial expression whatsoever... A waiter did confirm that 5% off is still offered for CASH purchases...

...we did notice the owner toss out the receipt after we paid CASH...

I came here for dinner with a group of friends on a Sunday night around 6:45pm, and there were only a few customers eating in the restaurant. As soon as we walked in, we saw the hostess standing near the door. She led us immediately to a secluded round table in the back of the restaurant. It really felt like we were in a little private room that only fits our table..lol. (See Picture)

After looking at the menu, we were all ready to order. Since its a Chinese restaurant, we had to flag down a server.

We ordered the following dishes, which came out in this order:
1) Sauteed Beef fillet with black pepper sauce ($9.95) - This was my favorite dish that we ordered. The beef was tender and very flavorful. There was a good amount of green bell peppers and onions. I liked how this dish had equal amounts of beef and veggies.

2) Green Onion Pancake ($2.95) - The pancake was sliced up, and it was super thin! I've had better green onion pancakes, so this one was just ok. I didn't really taste any green onion, but just flour.

3)Juicy dumpling with loofah & shrimp ($8.95) - The dumpling was definitely juicy. I didn't taste any shrimp in the dumpling though. It was basically stuffed with loofah, and it was a bit bland.

4) Mushroom & Gluten Puff in clay pot ($8.95) - This was another flavorful dish. There was plenty of button mushrooms and black mushrooms. We couldn't figure out the ingredients for the 'gluten puff', but it was tasty. Some of my friends compared it to tofu. =)

5) Shrimp with lily Bulb ($12.95) - This dish had a lot of shrimp, but it was a bit bland.

6) Shanghai Fried fat noodles ($6.95) - The noodles was cooked perfectly, so it was still a bit chewy. The noodles was very tasty! I noticed this was a common dish at other tables, too.

7) Hu-chiang juicy pork dumpling ($6.95) - I think all customers should order this dumpling dish. The pork dumpling was very juicy! As soon as I bit into it, the juice was flowing out of the dumpling.

Overall, Hu Chiang Dumpling has tasty Chinese food at a reasonable price. If you come here, i'd highly recommend the Hu-chiang juicy pork dumplings. The service isn't that great here, but you just have to flag down the servers if you need something.

Ginger on top...nibble, suck, swallow. Nibble, suck, swallow. As you close your eyes and let it come down your throat, I can see how much you enjoy it.

****SCREECH!!!! Stop that Barry White music in the background****

Oh hell no...you didn't just think about that, now did you?? That's just wrong. Would you now get your mind out of the gutter? C'mon...all I'm doing is teaching you the correct method of eating Xiao Long Bao from Hu Chiang Dumpling House.

You see, these dumplings pack a surprise in each bite. If you're not careful, you'll burn your mouth with the hot broth that is inside each of these pork, seafood, or beef morsels. Place each dumpling in a spoon, top it with ginger, and nibble on it until you break the skin and can suck the delicious broth out. After the broth is drained, you can eat the rest of the dumpling.

Best XLB I have had in the US, rivals Din Tai Fong in China. Just remember to nibble, suck, and swallow.

I think it's safe to say that if they advertise themselves as a dumpling house, that's probably what they do best.

Positives:
-Pork XLB: Enjoyed it the most. Tasty soup and pork filling.

-Beef XLB: Rather bland but I still ate a whole lot of them. Vinegar and ginger sauce helped a lot.

-Crab XLB: Filamentous crab inside. Not much of it either. At least it wasn't imitation crab meat.

Tips on enjoying your XLB instead of having it exploding in the steamer: Grab it by the top half with your chopsticks. Peel it slowly off the paper in the steamer. Use your soup spoon that is in your other hand and cradle the XLB underneath after you've peeled it off. Bite a tiny piece off the XLB and slowly sip the searing hot soup inside (YUM!). Then dip the it in the vinegar and ginger sauce and inhale the whole thing. Great success!

Negatives:
-Green onion pancakes: Doughy, floury, and seemed to be very undercooked. Never will order again.

-Ma po tofu: Spicy and very ordinary. Speckled with tiny bits of beef. Eating it with my $1 bowl of rice helped a bit.

-Short rib with brown sauce: More like a red sauce than brown sauce. There were some meaty pieces but also some bony pieces with very
little meat around them.

Although my first experience here was put off by the other dishes, I will come back here solely to enjoy the XLB's and experience the (insert famous Carol L. quote here).

Everytime I pass by Hu Chiang, I think of George Costanza. George Costanza???!!? WTF?!?!

Let me explain, in Carol L's review, she describes XLB as "wet explosions." Come on, wet explosions. Sounds sexual, doesn't it. Now, I remember in that episode of Seinfeld where George thought it would be perfect to have sex while eating a sandwich. Maybe we should eat XLB while......... nevermind. I'm sick.

Anyhoo, I finally decided to stop in here after going to the herb store around the corner (no, unfortunately, not that kind of herb. Chinese herbs). We walked in around 6pm and there were plenty of tables. However, during our dinner, it filled up pretty fast. We ordered the green onion pancake (i've had better) and some XLB. The XLB were really good and even though my chopstick skills leave something to be desired, I didn't break through the skin that holds the soup in. Definite plus, because everywhere else I go, the XLBs seem to break once I pick up the chopsticks.

The parking was okay, but that's probably an anomaly because normally, it sucks. The service was good and it seemed fairly clean to me. A definite re-visit is in order.

I absolutely love shiao long bao. It is probably one of my favorite chinese dishes to eat, so I'm consistently on the search for a good restaurant. After hearing about the raves about this place, we finally wandered in for dinner two weeks ago. Unfortunately it didn't live up to its hype. Unlike another unlucky yelper, we didn't find a cockroach swimming in the broth, but a live one that was unlucky enough to venture out from underneath the basket and between the plate. The waitress offered to replace the order... and that was it. I've never figured out why the County Health up here doesn't rate restaurants like they do in So-Cal. A little later on during our meal, a neighboring table also had a similar insect problem. Sadly, it was a restaurant all gussied up in nice chair covers hiding a bad infestation problem in its probably less than sanitary kitchen.

The bao's are nothing like din tai fung. The skin's are as chewy and if you leave the bao's there to cool off a bit, the skin gets soggy and the soup leaks out. Overall, a fairly saddening experience for a place setting such high expectations. Also, since we ordered a ton of food, we had leftovers which they took to the back to pack up. They disappeared with our leftovers and never reappeared with them after we had paid and signed the check. Later after we asked, I overheard a server mentioning to another server that he had stuck out leftovers into someone else's leftovers while on my way to the bathroom. Lovely....

Recommend: veggie dishes, steamed fish
Stay away from: the six legged insect dishes... oops i guess you really can't control that!

This was my last meal in NorCa and I wanted it to be memorable. I succeeded! I've been craving xiao long baos for over a month and I heard this place would satisfy.

With my order of pork xlb (8 pieces $7) and crab xlb (8 pieces $8), I was able to grind on these delicate soup filled dumplings. Plus, I didn't burn my mouth!! When the server brought the bamboo steamers to the table, I waited about 2 minutes and then proceed to carefully pick one up to my plate and take a small bite from the top. At that point, the soup is not blazing hot and I downed the tasty broth. They also include a sauce (soy sauce & ginger based) which went perfectly with each bite. I was impressed with the crab filling because the meat resonated well with the broth.

The service was decent and it was crowded with many patrons ordering the same thing. They must know what they are doing!

So long NorCa! It was mighty nice eating with you! Let's do it again!

When in doubt, if the name of the store actually specifies what the most popular dish is, it's pretty much a no brainer on what to order.

Well, if the the siu lung bao (little dragon buns) at this place is any indicator of the quality of the rest of the food, I wouldn't say I'd care to try any of it. Meh... average at best. I've had much better elsewhere (yes, in the Bay Area), and can even cook some at home from the batch I purchase at Lai Young (http://www.yelp.com/biz/lwQW86T5_gsWzb55rUXroQ).

First of all, they are waaay too big. I almost thought they got zapped by the machine at Mondo Burger (from the movie Good Burger). Secondly, they are not as juicy as I'd like. I am used to biting into a siu lung bao, and having the sauce spray all over the place. These are a complete dud. If all over your shirt it don't splash, it ain't worth your hard earned cash.

I actually have tried a variety of their other standard Chinese dishes, and my initial assumptions were true. They are okay, but won't blow your mind away. If you are into this type of cuisine, Little Potato in Union City (http://www.yelp.com/biz/G4-tJa4031TH3-TT1SVM0g) is your best choice.

Furthermore, what's with those atrocious beekeeper looking seat covers? The bathroom is also ridiculously damp and musty, with soaking wet floors. While standing at the urinal, I almost got a hernia trying to hold myself up from doing the splits. I slipped and slided in there, and on numerous occasions almost fell on my bum like Michelle Kwan at the Olympics.

The only saving grace for HC is that for whatever reason, smokin' hot HK and Taiwanese chicks tend to dine here, so I'll give one extra star for that alone. If only they weren't always with their bf's, I would have given two extra.