Trendy Dumpling — Restaurant in Houston

I have been wanting to try this place out for so long and we just happened to be in the neighborhood one afternoon looking for a place to eat so this was it! It was just a quick bite with my husband. We definitely would have ordered differently if we came for dinner with my kids. We were not really sure what to order - all the insta photos I see have tables full of dumplings and it all looks so beautiful but when we got there, we were a little lost. I knew we had to try out the soup dumplings so we went ahead and ordered that right away. We also ordered the spicy dumplings but then had a hard time figuring out what else to order. I think I just wanted everything and I knew our stomachs weren't ready for it that day. We ended up only getting the shu mai in addition. I really want to go back and get the Beijing duck and spicy fish and biang biang noodles...

The soup dumplings were delicious. I was happy to see they were still all intact when they were served. The spicy dumplings were actually not as impressive as I had hoped. Not spicy in the least and lacking flavor. I actually had to add some soy sauce to the plate and mix them all up a little bit more. I didn't want to add siracha because I didn't want the flavor to be changed so much but I guess the soy sauce probably already did that. The shu mai were piping hot and delicious. Of course, you can't really keep them from shifting in the steamer but my photos don't of them don't look awesome because they all rolled to one side and they were pretty hot to move.

Then there is the price. I am used to Chinatown prices and this definitely is not Chinatown. Prices are on the high side for dumplings and really everything - you are really paying for the "trendiness", I guess. We will come back and try out all their dishes but we probably won't eat here often when we can get delicious dim sum for much lower...

I was SO excited to try this place because of all the raved reviews. I don’t usually post reviews, especially not bad reviews…but the food was so exceptionally bad, i feel a need to.

Pros: decent portion size for the price. That’s it.

Cons: everything tasted bland and soggy…the beef and broccoli was a hue of red I’ve never seen before, definitely did not look like the photo on the website or any other beef and broccoli in town. To make it worse, there was no flavor to the meat, broccoli, or the pool of red-colored “sauce” surrounding them. The Biang biang noodles, which I was most excited for, tasted almost exactly like the beef and broccoli, which essentially tasted like nothing. The noodles tasted almost like the beef and broccoli because there is a clear distinction between the two dishes: the noodles has a light essence of spice. The salt and pepper shrimp was perhaps the most disappointing. From the name of the dish, one would expect shrimp, pepper, and salt as the bare minimum ingredients…alas, there was zero salt. When I tell you i doused the entire dish with the 2 tiny soy sauce packets provided with the meal to make it remotely palatable, that was not an exaggeration. Granted, we did order delivery so the sogginess of the shrimp is not the restaurant’s fault. However, it takes a different set of skills to make the chunks of garlic in a stir fried dish tasted nothing else except soggy…I ordered a lot of food because I was excited to have leftovers…now the majority of it is left uneaten and I dread the thought of these containers taking up space in the fridge…future me deserves...

Pretty good spot for some Chinese food and I hope to come back and try other dishes!

Here is a list of what my friends and I got: Sichuan Style Biang Noodles: I really enjoyed these noodles! They are handpulled and I loved how bouncy and thick they were. The dish has a ton of green beans with ground pork seasoned with numb spice. The portion is pretty big and I would totally order this again! Xiao Long Bao (Soup Bao): There’s a lot of soup inside these dumplings and the dough is great. This is just me personally but the pork flavor was really strong which isn’t my thing. But my friends really enjoyed it and the sauce was good too.

Crystal Shrimp Dumpling: Pretty standard but nothing to complain about. Similar to the Xia Long Bao, I liked the sauce

ShuMai: I enjoyed these very much! The pork and shrimp were relly flavorful and I was hooked!

Hot and Spicy Dumpling: the wrapping/dough was pretty thick which made it feel like it overpowered the filling inside but not too bad overall

Pork Bao: The bao itself was warm and fluffy. I wish there was more pork filling inside but it was good overall

Beef Pancake: Aside from the Biang Noodles and the ShuMai, this was probably one of my favorites. The outside was both flakey & doughy, and the beef filling was delicious. I would totally order this again

Crispy Bottom Bao: my review for this is pretty similar to the pork bao but I did enjoy the fried bottom which added a crispy texture.

Overall, I loved the food here and it is perfect for family style. The interior was nice and the service was fast too. Can’t wait to try other dishes...