Husband bought deep dish from Lou Malnati’s, and had a hot dog and Italian beef from Luke’s. He really enjoyed them, and he doesn’t like hot dogs. So we went to Portillo’s and had them there as well. I should have listened to you about the hot dogs. I didn’t think I’d be trying them and didn’t read closely enough. Oh well.
We had a steamed chicken bun and an order of dumplings from the Castro Valley location as a light supper. Very good–we’ll be back. This location is pretty small and has a limited selection of frozen dumplings.
We have friends in Vacaville, and the last Xmas we went 88 BaoBao to celebrate Jewish Christmas with them: Chinese food and a movie. (I’m the obligatory Jew in this equation)
Last year I made them see Poor Things, which went over really well, as did the XLB.
We’ve hit it up a number of times since with them. I HIGHLY recommend the wontons in chili oil. It’s an excellent version (maybe even better than Din Tai Fung’s, which is saying something) with a great balance of numb/tingle to spicy.
There is one of these in Vallejo now. It opened last year and we were excited about it. We have only been once but found it mediocre in that visit. Maybe the QC at the Vallejo location was off or something but it was so disappointing I am not sure we would go back.
It’s also relative. Hopefully you have many better options available.
We will “suffer” many dumplings once or twice, but these we go back to.
We really wanted to like it. I have a feeling our experience is specific to the Vallejo location. But then I have a friend who likes it so perhaps we were there on an off night. We live in Vallejo. We go to Asian Pearl Kitchen in the 99 Ranch Market in Richmond for Dim Sum. This place has been around for a while and has had it’s up and downs over the years, but has been consistently good since it reopened after being remodeled during the pandemic.