Taipei Gourmet Lexington

What's open on New Years Day? Chinese restaurants, of course, so off I went to Taipei Gourmet in Lexington for some lunch. Last year I had a really nice New Years Day lunch at Szechuan's Dumpling in Arlington, but they have gone seriously downhill after the owner change earlier this year, so they are not even in my rotation anymore.

I wanted something light today since I have been pigging out a bit lately, so the Mini Juicy Pork Buns ($6.99) for eight was a good choice. They have a number of names, Xiao long bao, soup dumpling, xiao long mantou or just XLB. There are two ways of eating them, in the first one you pop the whole thing into your mouth and bite down. This usually results in 3rd-degree burns in your mouth. The second way is to put the dumpling into the spoon and carefully nibble it open, add some of the vinegar/ginger sauce and then carefully slurp up the broth and then eat the dumpling. The dumplings here are nice with a light skin and a tender pork filling, but they could do with some more soup inside.

I got some complimentary Hot & Sour Soup while I was waiting for the dumplings. Did I say that the owner is really nice?