Albert T.
Yelp
Diving straight into the food since I'm at the character limit:
N2 Spicy Braised Beef Noodle, Homemade Noodle ($12.99) - When this came out and I had a whiff of the broth, I was very concerned. While it had a bit of the herbal soup fragrance, the rest smelled like something burnt and acrid. At first I thought maybe the spicy peppers were unusually smoky, but when I tasted the broth, I could taste a hint of acrid burnt taste. Just a hint, not enough to overwhelm, but noticeable. Other than that, there's a bit of a fermented bean and herbal taste, with a spice level that hits the throat but isn't enough to hurt. The hand pulled noodles are indeed hand pulled, nice and chewy. I felt like they could use just a bit more consistency, since there was a large variation in size, and thus the noodles differed a bit in texture between strands. The dish also comes with a half hard boiled egg underneath all the noodles and beef. It's very well marinated, with a salty soy flavor that's quite nice. While most of the ingredients are good, that burnt taste really ruined the dish, especially because I wasn't sure if it was supposed to taste like that or not. (2/5)
N4 Braised Pork Short Rib Noodle, Homemade Noodle ($12.99) - I found this dish to be a bit better than the beef noodle. The pork ribs, tender but not fall off the bone, rest in a very fragrant, herbal, white peppery and garlicky broth. The broth is filled with umami and and is quite nice to drink by itself. There's a sprig of bok choy, and again the hand pulled noodles and half egg. The major issue with this dish is the pork. While texturally good, the taste is a bit strange and very porky, like meat that's been sitting a while and is almost going bad. Again, very off putting, which kind of ruined the dish. (2/5)
I revisited Mama Dough a couple of weeks later thanks to the article from 2019 in the Seattle Times stating that the XLBs rival those at Din Tai Fung. Maybe I just got the wrong dishes?
C2 Pork Meat Xiao Long Bao ($11.99) - As soon as these came out, I was confused. These looked more like spheres rather than the traditional purse shape. In addition, it didn't look like the staff particularly care about presentation or service speed - there were several pieces sitting on their sides, they looked shrunken/dried out (seriously, look at my photo and tell me they don't look desiccated), and were completely lukewarm. That wasn't promising. Starting with the skins - they aren't papery and delicately thin, but also aren't thick and doughy. Good for a homemade version of this dish. The skins are a bit chewy and have a bit of a dry edge to the exterior, probably because they were sitting a while instead of being steamed fresh. The filling is plain bad. Firstly, there's no soup at all inside. Secondly, the pork itself is dense and dry, not tender and loose as it should be. Finally, the nail in the coffin - instead of a porky, aromatic taste, the filling doesn't taste right, like they used pork that's a day away from going bad. Maybe the XLBs were good 5 years ago when the Seattle Times article was written, but what I got was honestly terrible. I would eat frozen, machine made XLBs over these. (1/5)
C5 Mama's House Bao with Pork, Pan Fried ($13.99) - I'm not sure if they make the bao in house or not, but it seemed like these were bought at the 99 Ranch next door and just steamed and fried to order. While frying, they add a cornstarch slurry skirt to add some additional oomph to the presentation. The bottoms are actually fried until a decent crisp is developed. The bun, for the most part, is soft and pillowy to a degree, but a good amount is quite soggy from the filling. The filling is not bad, kind of generic without much aromatics. The bao are a bit on the oily side, similar to a sheng jian bao, but that's to be expected from being pan fried. (3/5)
J4 Pork Dumplings with Chives, Boiled ($11.99) - These dumplings are good and were by far the best thing I ate over my two visits. The skins are nice, slightly translucent, yet chewy. The filling has great flavor. They add a lot of garlic chive inside and the flavor mixes very well with the fatty pork. The salt level is appropriate and the filling is quite tender. The dish comes with smashed garlic cloves in soy sauce, but it isn't really needed given how flavorful the dumpling is. This is the only dish I would get again. (4/5)
I really don't know what's going on at Mama Dough. The dumplings are good, but everything else I ate was either just okay, or plain bad. I feel like their pork supplier has some major issues, or perhaps they buy discount pork past the best by date. Whatever the case, a lot of the flavors here are off putting. I would not visit again.
Overall food rating: 2.4/5
Bathrooms: Two individual rooms, one per gender behind the curtains to the side of the kitchen.