Mei Long Village Review V1.2
Sometimes I’m a fumbling IDIOT, I forget my keys in the back of my trunk, I leave my camera at restaurants, I forget to zip up my jeans, etc. And apparently, I’d forgotten to hit the “post it” button yesterday after writing a 500 word essay railing against XLB lovers. *shrug*
So let me repeat: XLB is cliched. It’s 2006 (or 07, depending when you jumped on the wagon). It’s not the new black. I don’t care if someone won ROTD with a XLB review of this exact restaurant. Every John, Joe and Jane has done the “XLB tour”, written, argued, debated and blogged it to death. The Chowhound/LA XLB thread has over 100 replies, the LTH thread (one of the finer XLB articles written) has 19810 reviews: http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=9453 . PIGMON, the author of the LTH article, declared last weekend: at this high level of execution, it’s just a matter of taste. And I concur.
OTOH, it takes a true hound to find something as unique as “sesame rice ball with wine sauce”, ie, jiou nian tang yuan, ie, fermented rice soup with sesame paste stuffed gluttinous rice balls. Someone at the table casually mentioned it and I was hooked: http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/sWeN-L3Na4torXl9C4sgIw?select=eLRLn7ROSn-pcRFingqK5Q
At $7, it’d seemed an item with low value/dollar ratio, but after the first sip of the lightly winey, highly aromatic, immensely sugary soup fluffed with perfect egg swirls, I knew this was the closest thing to the jiou nian my pops used to make on Sunday mornings.
The other joint serving jiou nian is Ding Pangzi on Lincoln/Garfield/Garvey, as well as J&J next door, but there’s something about MLV’s rendition that is just so right. Thanks for bringing back a bowl of my childhood.
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