Our first adventure to Houston's Chinatown included lunch at Xiong's Cafe for dumplings, a stop-in at a natural remedies store, a visit to H-Mart grocery and a frozen treat at Class 502.
My neighbor who is married to a man from Taiwan recommended Xiong's. You place your order at the front counter and find a seat. Thankfully there were menus in English and they do accept credit cards. (Many places in Chinatown are cash only.) Our order included boiled pork and Chinese chives dumplings (the kids' favorite), spicy Szechuan dumplings (not spicy, but great flavor), pan fried pork dumplings (nice and crispy on bottoms) and steamed pumpkin bun (looks more like a pancake and very sticky). All of this was less than $20 for 4 people!
You know it's authentic when everything on the wall is in Chinese!
Patiently waiting for our food.
My mom joined us on our first adventure. She's always happy to go on food adventures!
Spicy Szechuan dumplings, filled with pork. Not spicy, but great flavor.
The pan-fried pork dumplings were delicious and perfectly crispy.
With full bellies, we departed Xiong's Cafe and started walking to H-Mart, a large grocery store. But, on our way we discovered what I believe was a Traditional Chinese Medicine store (with no English name). The first items I noticed were dried sea cucumbers priced at $358/pound sitting just inside the door in open plastic bins. Upon inspecting the store further, it appeared that the glass bins were filled with various herbal remedies including lots of ginseng, dried squid, sliced deer antlers and lingshi (a type of fungus). The store was tended by several women dressed neatly in pink uniforms who appeared a bit nervous about my kids wandering around the store. Their English wasn't great, but they were very polite and offered us a taste of herbal tea in hopes we'd buy something before leaving!
Sea cucumbers are a delicacy used in fancy dishes.
Lots of huge containers of ginseng
licorice prunes, dried plums, dried squid, spicy squid, salty lemons
sliced deer antler
huge lingshi (reishi)
I love visiting ethnic grocery stores and always see interesting things. Dried products and produce are generally safe to buy, but I would recommend using caution when purchasing items such as meats and seafood since the prices are very low and the quality can seem questionable at times. In particular, it's safe to say the seafood is not sourced from sustainable suppliers (plus we saw a dead fish in one of the tanks). That said, we enjoyed our visit to H-Mart. The store was very clean, did not smell fishy at all and the people working there were very nice.
Our last stop was at Class 502, a rolled ice cream shop. With any luck, we'll be ending most of our adventures with a sweet treat as a reward to my little adventurers being such great troopers! Class 502 is in a large plaza crowded with lots of restaurants and stores. I recommend parking in the first spot you find as it can get busy there. There is a garage attached which is nice for hot Houston summers.
There are two round plates like the one above that are freezing cold. Upon selecting your flavor, they pour the liquid ice cream on the frozen plate and proceed to manipulate the ice cream until it freezes. Then they spread it on the plate in a perfect square, but it into five pieces and then carefully scrape it off the plate with a putty knife into a perfect little roll of ice cream. These 5 pieces are then set on their ends in a cup and garnished with toppings. I would recommend going during the week or early in the day because I can see this place getting crowded and waiting a long time on the weekend.
This happy customer ordered the black swan (mint flavored chocolate)!
This happy customer ordered the cookies and cream!
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