Peanut Free Chinese Restaurant

Dumpling-Hours Palo Alto is our favorite place for XLBs in the Bay Area. Apart from their awesome food, how close it is to parking garages nearby, and how much we like Palo Alto, they also don’t have any peanuts on the menu. (They do have sesame seeds and sesame oil in some dishes though, and peeps with peanut allergies can sometimes react to sesame as well.)

This time we ordered:

- Pork XLBs (8 for $16.95): their pork XLBs are the ones that are as good as what we got from Shanghai 21 in Manhattan, which are essentially our most favorite XLB place in the US). The dough is nice, smooth, and thin but still strong enough to hold the broth without breaking. The soup is sweet, which is similar to what you expect from Shanghai XLBs.

- Shrimp and gourd XLBs (8 for $21.95): I wouldn’t call this dish soup dumplings as the gourds just absorb all the broth inside. I would just call them dumplings instead. The shrimps are small and fresh while the gourds are soft but not mushy. I probably won’t order them again and stick with their XLBs instead.

- String beans with garlics ($15.95): the string beans were nice and crisp but still cooked. The flavor profile was umami with enough saltiness and the garlics were nicely cooked without the strong garlic taste.

- Red bean pancakes ($10.95): the pancakes were crispy. I wish there was more red bean paste in the filling but that might also make it too sweet.

All in all, this place has legit XLBs that are our favorite. Their vegetable dishes and their noodle dishes are also awesome. There is usually some line during the weekend lunch. We had to wait for 20 minutes before we got seated but it’s worth the wait. #dumplings #dumplinghours #xlb #xiaolongbao #paloaltoeats #peninsulalife #bayareaeats