SGV: Dim Sum at Xiang Yuan Gourmet

 

A couple of months ago I saw some pictures of some cute buns on Instagram. I’m not normally an IG obsessed foodie but I did notice these buns were available in the San Gabriel Valley. Eventually it filtered into my brain there was a new dim sum restaurant and that’s when I got a group together to check out Xiang Yuan Gourmet in Temple City.

I was able to find parking relatively quickly in the public lot behind the restaurant and there was apparently no wait for a table. All good signs. Although this generally runs counter to what I know about popular Chinese restaurants in the SGV. What do you mean there’s parking and we don’t have to wait for a table? Is it any good?

We immediately put in an order for the cute buns; the hedgehogs filled with taro, the carrot-shaped buns and the mushroom (shitake) shaped buns. XYG were out of the last two and didn’t really tell us until we started wondering why our food stopped coming to the table.

The hedgehogs, by the way, were excellent. They are filled with bright taro paste and weren’t too sweet. I didn’t even feel guilty for eating its little face off first. Heh.

 

 

We did order both the usual; siu mai (pork and shrimp) and har gow (crystal shrimp) dumplings. Sadly my siu mai photo wasn’t great so you’re getting just the har gow. Both were very solid and I’m glad XYG didn’t make them jumbo sized.

 

The egg rolls were fine. I liked that they weren’t too greasy.

 

The stuffed bean curd was also good and people enjoyed the soup.

 

I was a little put off by the fact the chicken feet was cut up into pieces. Gimme the whole foot, damnit! They still tasted good though.

 

 

One of my favorites was the tripe. So tender.

 

These were odd chiu chow dumplings. I was expecting a more distinctive dumpling but I could barely tell if they were the actual dumplings we ordered. Where’s the crunch?

 

I found it enormously funny there was a couple of Chinese broccoli as garnish to the shrimp cheung fun (rice rolls). The rice roll wrapper was the best part- very tender. The shrimp were a tiny bit small though for the loosely folded rolls.

 

However, what’s even better than shrimp cheung fun? Get it fried. Shrimp is first stuffed into the Chinese yao tiu (doughnut sticks) and then the great wrapper is tossed around the whole thing. Serve with sweet soy and you’re done.

 

 

I honestly thought I ordered the pan fried turnip cakes but the fun thing about not reading Chinese and ticking off the checklist is getting a surprise like this fluffy turnip cake. We enjoyed it.

 

 

The loh mai gai (sticky rice) were pretty good though I was skeptical about the amount of savories at first since the ratio of rice to stuffing was a tiny bit in favor of rice.

 

We got the hollow-stem veggie (ong choy) because I am a little bit tired of getting Chinese broccoli at dim sum but I still need some veggies to balance all those dumplings.

 

The daan taats (egg tarts) weren’t too set yet so the yolky part was a bit wobbly. I would have also liked a heartier burnt crust like how they do at Lunasia or Shanghai No 1 Seafood.

Overall, I’m glad I tried XYG and will return.

 

Xiang Yuan Garden

9556 Las Tunas Dr., Temple City, CA 91780  —  (626) 286-6788

© The Minty  2017