I previously reviewed XO Taste’s sister restaurant, XO Kitchen, which I like a lot. The XO restaurants have such huge menus of Chinese Dim Sum dishes that I thought it was worth doing another review. XO Taste has pretty much the same menu as XO Kitchen, but with a few Japanese and Korean dishes mixed in and has soup dumplings, which I don’t remember seeing at XO Kitchen.
The Dumplings: For this go around I tried the Har Gow, the crab and pork soup dumplings and the pan-fried Japanese style dumplings.
Har Gow – These are a steamed shrimp dumpling with an intricately pleated crystal wrapper. In my experience very few places do Har Gow well, often the wrapper is rubbery and gelatinous, but XO Taste pretty much nailed these. Their Har Gow had a slightly elastic but delicate wrapper and the shrimp filling was particularly sweet and fresh tasting.
Har Gow
The Kearny Street Workshop is hosting its second Dumpling Wars fund raiser on April 12th at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. Teams of amateur chefs will battle to serve up the best dumplings with a panel of San Francisco foodies passing judgement. Tickets are $25 at the door which buys you samples of food from local restaurants, live entertainment and the right to vote for your favorite dumpling. The Kearny Street Workshop is the oldest Asian Pacific American multidisciplinary arts organization in the country and offers classes and workshops, salons and student presentations, as well as professionally curated and produced exhibitions, performances, readings and screenings.
The search for the world's best dumplings 