A-Bowl

A-Bowl is a new Chinese restaurant that opened recently, specializing in Shanghai cuisine. We visited a few weeks ago, trying dishes like Shanghai grilled pork buns, soup dumplings and more.

The restaurant occupies the space that formerly housed Infini Tea. The menu is quite extensive, with more than 100 items, but we tried to stick with Shanghai specialties.

Shanghai Grilled Pork Buns

I was most looking forward to this dish because there aren’t many places in San Diego that you can get this at. Tasty Noodle House, another Shanghainese restaurant, does a decent job but that place is always so crowded.

The buns had a nice crispy bottom, and the pork filling had a good amount of soup filling. I thought these were on par with the version at Tasty Noodle House.

Shanghai Soup Pork Dumpling

I found the filling to be a little too sweet for my liking. The filling also didn’t have as much soup as I would like.

Shanghai Style Pork and Vegetable Rice Cakes

This was one of our favorite dishes. The stir-fried rice cakes were perfectly cooked and seasoned.

Spicy Pan-Fried Green Beans with minced dry shrimp

Not our favorite version of this dish. I felt the seasoning was off balance and there was too much of the dry shrimp, making the beans salty and briny.

Whole Pork Elbow with House Sauce

This dish looked quite impressive. It’s something my family loves to order. I found this version to be okay. The braised pork wasn’t quite as fall-off-the-bone tender as I’ve had in the past. I did enjoy the sauce though.

Sweet Fermented Rice with Sesame Ball Soup

The sweet fermented rice soup is served with black sesame rice balls. This is a dessert that Mr. K and I both really love and always order it when we see it on the menu. We enjoyed the version here.

Overall, we had a decent first experience. The staff was really nice. The restaurant seemed to be still working out some kinks. I am happy to see another Shanghai restaurant in San Diego and I think this is a good alternative for those who don’t want to wait for a table at Tasty Noodle House.

You can see some other dishes from A-Bowl from mmm-yoso’s visit.

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