Alee 88 Chinese

Just a few bullet points to illustrate my impression: 1. Very greasy. There's normal Chinese food greasy, and then there's them. 2. Odd practice. The restaurant owner told me the food won't take long, because most of the stuff's already cooked. All they needed to do was heat it up for you. I'm pretty sure other restaurants do this too, but it made me feel very uncomfortable. 3. Loud. My whole time there, the owner was playing very loudly whatever show he was watching on his phone. Not sure if he has a hearing problem, but it was very annoying. 4. Inaccurate description of menu items. Not all spicy foods are marked clearly. When you order for small children, and finds out that the food is spicy only after you got home, it takes you quite a bit more time to prepare something else for them, which basically defeats the idea of takeout food. 5. Expensive. I understand cost is being raised due to global shortages caused by various reasons, but for the quantity of food they offer in each order, the marked-up prices are a bit too high. For this much money, I expected to be stuffed, not healthily half-full. Last time I paid this much money per person was for French cuisine in Montreal only a short while ago, with tax included, and everybody was happy with the portions. I don't think we'll be coming back before another change of ownership.

A pleasant surprise. Visiting the Boston area and was very impressed. Didn't expect this in a Boston suburb.

Great restaurant, great service, and generous portions. I particularly enjoyed the wontons in spicy and sour broth, although everything we ordered was excellent.

I scooped eater dot com and everyone else again! Technically this is not XLB. It is a shumai. And it 's Inner Mongolian Lamb style. Massively sized about twice as big as typical xlb. 6 not 5. The lamb meatballs inside yield a broth that is extraordinary in it 's amount and you will want not for the unctuousness of pork fillings or it 's variants of concern. (Sorry bad joke. The skins are not bao type but they are thinner than anything you 've seen on any xlb or dumpling. To give you some background, shumai was actually invented in Huhhot, the capitol of Inner Mongolia. Most Americans and even Chinese believe it is of Guangzhou or Shanghai origin but that would be incorrect. There are no tricks involved like freezing the meat mixture to solidify the fat or liquid, except for a bit of starch added. It 's flavored with a variety of spices including white pepper, ginger, scallions, and flax seed oil. It is quite easy to devour the entire bamboo steamer 's worth, because compared to xlb, it 's a bit lighter in flavor and not as fatty, even if it 's twice the amount. The skins are made in a quite delicate manner, pressed out twice, and only rested for about a half hour. The outer surface is folded and creased upon itself to yield a top that is as complex as a carnation flower. When the lid of the steamer is lifted, the petals flutter bewitchingly as the steam wafts, beguiling you, yet you can 't just dig in, you just stare in fascination. Did you take 6 photos yet lol. The edges on my sample were so thin, flakes of completely dried out flour started flaking off, it 's basically shamanic cookery. So I found this in a Chinese style restaurant and I 'm not quite ready to reveal it. Almost no one knows this place, no chatter on WeChat, nothing. I sat there two nights ago and one Chinese student couple at, and only one takeout order went out. The phone rang once. Yesterday I ate lunch alone. The other dishes, jeez, some of the best it 's category in Boston or even NYC. This is a huge discovery and you are getting in on the ground floor, old-timers! This dish does not exist in NYC, it briefly existed in a closed Xinjiang style place for a while and was written up on Grubstreet. Pro-tip, because of the massive size it is easy to burn your mouth. Eat with caution at first.

Good and authentic Chinese food. It includes a lot of food from sichuan and northern area in china.Food is a little bit pricy but quality is good