China Queen

Start your meal at China Queen with a pot of pu-erh tea, which is complex and flavorful and will be constantly replenished.

China Queen has received a lot of social media buzz about their pork bao buns. These are so popular (and it turns out for good reason) that they often sell out early. Their house special steamed buns are pan-fried with sesame seeds on the bottom and pork in the center, not the barbecue/sweet variety that one often finds in such buns, but rather a ground pork meatball. These were steamed perfectly and had a wonderful texture and taste with a lovely contrast between the slightly crunchy sesame seed bottom and the soft bun top.

China Queen offers scallion crepes that were wonderfully crunchy yet with a bit of chew. The xiao long bao are of course soup dumplings, and are deliciously prepared, but perhaps were a bit less soup-filled than one traditionally finds in such dumplings. Pork and chives steamed dumplings were traditionally served with a dumpling skin that was steamed just right and a filling that hit all the right notes; these came eight to a basket.