I reserved for late lunch at 1:30pm but arrived an hour early. My apos are famished and I sort of expected there would be the lunch crowd when we arrived. Not so.
They gave us a table, shoved the menu and waited for our orders. Hungry, we went on auto-mode: Xiao long bao, mushroom and vegetable dumplings, braised beef noodle soup and pork chop with fried rice.
The xiao long bao is so-so. My elves had their 1st xiao long bao in Din Tai Fung (Shanghai) so their tastes can be a bit discerning, so to speak. Can't blame them.
We had hoped the mushroom and vegetable dumpling would "surprise" us. It did, but not in a pleasant way. Blah. Dud. Enough said.
When the order of fried rice with pork chop came, we gave it one quick look before my hungry grandson claimed it. Now, this growing boy knows his fried rice well. When I saw his bowl half eaten, I knew something's not right.
We shared a bowl of braised beef noodles and for the first time, I wanted to send this order back to the kitchen. We expected it to be piping hot. It wasn't. It was hot in the spicy sense. So the kids didn't like it either.
We left Shin Lin full. But not content. We ate because we were very hungry. If we weren't, I bet we'd send the soup and the mushroom dumplings back. Well, there's always a first time. But no second times for us here.
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