We’ve got our standard restaurant take out rotation ever since the pandemic lockdown started over a year ago. We’re not opposed to trying new food, but we really like our regular places.
But after a few weeks of hype from my group of friends, we needed to try this new restaurant Tasty Moment. They have xiaolong bao aka soup dumplings, beef noodle soup, and pork belly – three of our staple favorite foods. Hearing that they have indoor seating available with nice distanced tables, we decide to eat inside for the first time since lockdown.
When we arrived today, there was a 20 minute wait so it was promising. Lots of people love this place! As we waited on the benches outside, it was a constant flow of people ordering and grabbing take out. We were getting really hungry. The hype was building.
We get seated and quickly pick a selection of promising dishes. My spicy beef noodle soup comes out within 5 minutes. Awesome!
The flavor was decent, but the beef was large, chunky, and deliciously tender. Some of the best beef I’ve ever had!
But it was a steady downhill slide from there.
My wife’s pork belly flavor was great, but it wasn’t as tender as she liked. The soup dumplings turned out to be a tad too sweet. The pan fried dumplings and buns both had the same problem of being too sweet. Although the buns had a nice crisp bottom, the inside was oddly “melted” for a lack of better term. Flavor was ok, but again, too sweet.
And finally, the spicy soup dumplings. Wow, what a disappointment. The soup itself was almost pure oil. Basically the only way to eat it was to drain the liquid and thus defeating the whole point of soup dumplings!
Throughout this experience, I’m texting my friends with my food review. With this kind of hype, I expected better. But that’s the problem with hype, right? We get these expectations that don’t turn out that great.
I’m not sure we can really stop the hype we feel when we’re excited about trying something new. But we can try and not get too disappointed when results don’t end like like we want.