I saw Anthony Bourdain’s show where he was chowing down on soup dumplings at the Nanxiang Xiaolong Mantou Dian, a restaurant in Shanghai.
It made me hungry and reminded me of the time when my mom and I went to Shanghai.
My mom and my two aunts (her two sisters) made dumplings one night for twelve of us. It was a labor intensive process because there weren’t any dumpling wrappers from the store nor a Cuisinart to make the dough in 5 seconds. They kneaded the dough and then rolled it out into wrappers. The dumplings were perfect.
That’s what I thought of when I was walking by a freezer case at 99 Ranch and saw these Pork and Leek Mini Buns. My brain connected back to an event I could grasp. I also hoped these wouldn’t be dried out inside like the other ones I bought once. These were about one third the size of the ones my family made but they were juicy. I’d buy them again and not just for the memories.