Xiong's Cafe - I welcome our dumpling overlords.

Last week we drove to Houston to piss off a waitress.

Naw.  Actually, we drove to Houston to see my broheim and his ladyfriend, M, who's attending Rice. 

Pissing off the waitress was gravy on the cake.  Or is that icing on the turkey?  I don't know, my brain's pretty much completely stopped working after four weeks of reading those essays by our Texas 16 year olds. 

Where was I?  Oh, right... DUMPLINGS!

We left Austin a little later than we meant to last Saturday to meet these dear family members, so we asked them if they'd mind meeting us in far west Houston for a few hundred dumplings.  They kindly obliged, so we met in the middle of what seemed to be a freaking mile of various Asian businesses, all in huge strip malls, at Xiong's Cafe.

The dumpling house itself was completely full, but they accommodated us next door in the tea house.

Where we did a good bit of dickering about what to order.  When we finally did get our order together and presented it to our by now already suffering waitress, she said "You can't eat that."  So we dropped thirty dumplings off the list and looked at her hopefully.  Pass.

The first two things she dropped on the table were still wrapped in plastic.

First - preserved egg and jalapeno.  Fugly dish.

I actually liked this a lot, though it was sort of challenging to eat with chopsticks.  I've had preserved egg once before and thought it was a little ammonia-ey (though maybe that was just a bad egg?), but none of that flavor came through here.  Just nice comforting eggyness and a tiny, tiny bit of spice.  Tiny.

And spicy bamboo shoots,  with a fresh bamboo snap and again, like no spice.  Still tasty.

We nibbled on these for just a couple of minutes until the next dish came out.  This wasn't on the menu, but the waitress suggested it after seeing my disappointment at the lack of soup dumplings.  It's a pan-fried beef dumpling with soup in it.  Eeeeeeee!

Turned out to be my favorite by a nose, and it came out first in the dumpling extravaganza.  Go figure.  It had that delicious greasy fried dough thing, with the crunchy outside and the slightly gooey middle where the soup resided.  The beef was a little difficult to keep in the dumpling, but was seasoned nicely with pepper and onion.  Here's a bit of an innards shot for you.

This is making me hungry.

Husbear put together a nice spicy vinegary dipping sauce for our dumplings.  The man can't be stopped if there are seasonings around.

We had a few minutes to commune with our new beefy soupy dumpling friend before the next dumplings were deposited on our table.  Next up - spicy szechuan dumplings.  These were $3.25 for an order of 12 - a good deal, even if they were teeny little guys.

These were pretty strongly reminiscent of Asia Cafe's Xhong dumplings.  Porky goodness with a slightly thicker dumpling skin, barely keeping above the level of the chili oil.  Very nice.

More pork next, with a dish that had specific favorable reviews - Boiled Pork and Cilantro dumplings.  Comes in an excessive order of 15!

I did like these, there were just so many of them.  They had a VERY strong cilantro flavor - I'm a fan, but I'm aware there are some insane people out there with a genetic predisposition to hate the delicate leafy guy, so if that's you - don't order these.  Man, this dumpling skin was good, though.

A brief break from the pork (don't worry, it will be back) for a green onion pie, which seems to be the same as a scallion pancake.

M, who was raised in Bangalore, took one look at these and said "Hey, that looks like something my grandma used to make."  Ah, the universal cultural glue that is the flatbread.

Good, if a little greasy?  These definitely benefited from a dunk in that chili oil/vinegar concoction.

And back to the pork.  That didn't take long, huh?  The waitress walked over with this plate, scornfully surveyed our overflowing table, and said "Make room for this."

I'm pretty sure these pan-fried pork dumplings were the first open-ended dumplings I've eaten in a Chinese restaurant.  Dang, were they good.  All fried and porky and conveniently tube-shaped.

And then we had to consolidate a bunch of dishes, because a huge wok steamer arrived at the table bearing an order of mixed steamed dumplings.

The huge braided ones were the vegetable dumplings, which the table didn't really care for - lots of, I think, green onion tops made for a slightly bitter and not totally agreeable veg flavor.  This from a lady who's a freak for greens.  Don't worry, my champion eater of a brother helped us out.

On the top, with the unfortunately split skins, were the pork buns.  I was expecting, you know, pork buns, not these dumplings, but they were certainly good.  They may even have been Husbear's favorite, with their delicate skins and savory porky interior.

On the right - lamb!  I seem to recall lamb dumplings in a Tibetan restaurant in Vienna in 2001, but I don't think I've seen any on a menu since then.  If you like lamb and dumplings, you'd like these lamb dumplings.  Very lamby.

And, well, that's it.  We followed M and my brother back to her dorm, where she had a bunch of work to do in the afternoon.  We kidnapped bro for an afternoon of being outside (after all, he's been in Chicago for the last few months).  Later on that.

Xiong's Cafe is at 9888 Bellaire Blvd # 150 in Houston.  713.771.8448.  I think they're open until like 2 in the morning, but you might want to call them to check that.

Comments

[Su-Lin]

Oh! Dumpling heaven! Craving them now but there's no place to have them near me. Maybe I should make some this weekend...

The only place I've seen the open ended dumplings are at a Taiwanese restaurant.

[Bryan-oz4caster]

Hey that looks great! My brother and family live nearby in West University Place and my wife's sister also lives in the area. Looks like a good place to get them all together!

My wife is sensitive to MSG. Do you know if they use much there?

[Girlie]

Su-Lin, huh - I wonder if the place is Taiwanese? I'm really enjoying reading about Chiang Mai, btw.

Bryan, eep - I really have no idea! I know it's quite common. My husband and I aren't sensitive to it, so I usually don't check. I'm sure they'd be happy to help you out, though.

[We Are Never Full]

Why did I decide to look at this post before going to the gym? now all i want to do is eat.

[leena!]

This is the first post of yours that I have read, and all I can say is, man, I want to eat with you guys! Those beef dumplings with soup look amazing.

[Girlie]

Thanks, you guys! Sorry I've been more than a little neglectful lately, but there should be some more food posts going up in the next couple of days. Glad you enjoyed the trip to the dumpling house!