Growing up in a Chinese home and being sent to school with some sort of funk in my lunch thermos that would permeate the lunch room did not help my popularity in elementary school. Last night’s dinner of braised pork belly with pickled mustard greens over rice would be the only thing on my mind leading up to lunch time. Nowhere to be found in my He-Man lunchbox were there any fucks packed by my mom to give about the kids who thought it was gross; frozen chicken nuggets or peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat and other latch-key loveless lunches. Trying to explain what my lunch was, I fought fodder for ridicule and ultimately groomed my passion for Chinese cuisine and subsequent appreciation.
The Xiao Long Bao is classified as a soup dumpling based on technique in wrapping and filling – a mixture of minced pork, scallions, ginger and gelatinized pork soup; the little bundle is steam-cooked.
If there’s one thing I love most in the world is the sweet sweet sense of comradery when fellow Montreal motorists band together, hold the line and not let that one jerk cut in line in front of queuing cars at a highway exit. Ok, if there’s another thing I love most in the world is an awesome sandwich.