Los Angeles: Kang Kang Food Court

Ever since Abby watched a video of David Chang biting into a pan fried dumpling and squirting meat juice everywhere, she'd been obsessed with Kang Kang Food Court.  We finally made her shen jian bao dreams come true back in August:

The second we walked inside, we knew it was going to be good:

Only Chinese people inside.  Zero shits given about decor.  Styrofoam cups for your tea:

All signs of a good old fashioned Chinese restaurant.  

Like an actual food court, don't expect someone to seat you or take your order.  Instead, walk up to the counter and pick and choose what you want from the ready-made selections.  Or you can order from the posted menus.

Our original plan was just to get the pan fried dumplings, but when I spotted Jing Dong meat pie ($7.76) on a poster, I pestered Abby into sharing one with me:

I wasn't entirely sure what a Jing Dong meat pie was, but what came out certainly exceeded my expectations.  That crispy exterior with layers of juicy meat inside...oh, mama!:

But of course the star of show was still the pan fried dumplings or shen jian bao ($8.17):

Be really careful when you bite into one because each bao is filled with lava hot meat juice, ready to burst out and scald you.  And possibly your dining companion as well.  As an experiment, I nibbled a hole in one and drained the juice into a spoon to find that one dumpling has enough juice to fill an entire spoon.  Holy moly.

The meat filling itself was tender and oh-so-flavorful:

Kang Kang Food Court definitely has found lifelong fans in the No Shame Sisters.  Pan fried dumplings are our favorite kind of dumpling and we have yet to find a place that makes it as good as Kang Kang.

Now if only they would open a branch in NorCal...

Kang Kang Food Court

27 E Valley Blvd 

Alhambra, CA 91801

(626) 308-3898