I wanted to treat family to a midweek lunch as we happened to all be in town on the same day. A-Bowl is a Shanghai style restaurant that opened a few weeks ago in San Diego. They offer a variety of dumplings, xiao long bao, noodles, soups, and more. We ordered quite a bit during our lunch visit.
A-Bowl is located in the same plaza as China Max and Jeong Won Korean BBQ. Cathy from mmm-yoso visited awhile ago. Kirbie also visited.
The cold appetizer came out first. Mom and sis said this dish was similar to ‘saliva chicken’ you often see on menus.
The meat was relatively tender. The sesame sauce was thick and topped with peanuts. We found the spice level to be mild.
The presentation was pretty with the fanned pancakes. This was the most expensive dish priced at $15.99 that day for us.
The minced lamb was sauteed in a savory cumin sauce. Family enjoyed this and said it was the best dish of the meal.
There are eight xiao long baos per order. Sisters and I knew right away this would be a disappointing dish.
The wrapper was thick and gummy.
There was relatively zero soup in each xiao long bao. The pork filling was strangely sweet. Sis commented her xiao long bao benchmark is still Din Tai Fung.
The beef noodle soup had pickled mustard greens and fresh bok choy.
There were plenty of silky noodles that had a nice chew to them.
The cube chunks of beef were hard and not tender. The broth didn’t taste as if it had been simmered very long. The soup tasted like an after thought. There wasn’t much depth or base to it.
This was a large bowl of soup and looked plain.
I preferred this soup over the beef noodle. The broth tasted porky. It wasn’t overly seasoned so it was a simple easy soup to enjoy. The bone in pork ribs weren’t simmered long so it wasn’t very tender.
There were eight grilled pork buns to an order here at A-Bowl.
Their version of the sheng jian bao is topped with green onions and black sesame seeds.
The bottom of the buns had a nice pan sear.
Unfortunately, the pork filling tasted sweet and dry. The dough, like their xiao long bao, was too thick. We only ate one per person and took the rest home.
Service was quick. The food came out quickly. The restaurant wasn’t too busy that weekday lunch. It wasn’t a very hot day but the restaurant was a bit stuffy as they didn’t use a/c. We weren’t impressed with the overall experience. They have an extensive menu so I’m sure we’d try other items if we return to A-Bowl in the future.
A-BOWL
4690 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111
(858) 384-2278
We then boba hopped!
We got a free keychain with our drinks at Gong Cha! Anything with Hello Kitty makes me smile so I was happy the way the lunch meal ended for us girls that day –
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