RSS
Home
Swallowing Clouds at Wonton City
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Chicken broth-based soups are some of the ultimate comfort foods, and are especially good when sick. I love them all, from matzo ball soup (a.k.a. “Jewish penicillin”) to tortilla soup to good ol’ Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup (or, better yet, Chicken & Stars – my childhood favorite, though I shudder to think about the sodium content).
I've long lamented the lack of good xiao long bao in Seattle. So I decided to go back to broth outside the dumpling, boogieing to Bellevue and a hole-in-the-wall joint in the Lake Hills Shopping Center. I wanted wonton soup, and I figured a restaurant named Wonton City would be just the place to get my fix.
Wonton soup, per my childhood memories, was just a time-filler and stomach-filler before the “real” food (one from column A and two from column B) came to the table. Trips to China have taught me that wontons, translatable as “swallowing clouds,” can be prepared in a variety of delicious ways, and as a main of the meal. While I like them hot and spicy (Sichuan style), I also grew addicted to the big bowls of wonton soup I could get cheap on the streets of Shanghai.
So, how did Wonton City’s soup stack up? Ma ma hu hu (horse-horse-tiger-tiger, meaning so-so). The wontons themselves – minced pork and shrimp with ginger and more inside a pastry wrapper – didn’t have the snap of others I’ve enjoyed. And the broth could have been better; this one lacked depth and tasted a bit concentrated. I hate to send you afar again, but Mak’s in Richmond (Vancouver) offers a far superior soup. Closer to home, you can sample so-so soups in the various noodle shops of the International District. Or give Wonton City a try; let me know what you think, and whether they still accept the 10% off coupon (with a 2004 expiration date) from their website.
Originally posted at Seattlest in September 2007. That coupon is still at their website!
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
