COCONUTS HOTSPOT — Paradise Dynasty: Legend of the Xiao Long Bao sounds like one of those awful-wonderful Kung Fu flicks college students watch when they have nothing better to do than eat pizza and drink cheap beer. But it’s actually a Siam Paragon eatery playing on the traditions of ancient China, where servers wear traditional dress and wield teapots with sword-like spouts. These are like Samurai swords that nearly chop the heads off diners as their tea is served, were Samurais from China and not Japan.
Also known as soup dumplings, xiao long bao are now a go-to Chinese treat around the world, but Paradise Dynasty sets itself apart by offering these soup-filled Chinese morsels in colored varieties using semi-exotic ingredients. There are not dumplings to be approached with a devil-may-care attitude. Containing both oily soup and special filling inside, enjoying the eating experience demands both method and precision.
Paradise Dynasty takes their dumplings so seriously in fact that instructions for this are included on the second page of the menu:
First: Bite off a small bit of the dumpling to allow the soup inside to fill the spoon
Then: From said spoon, slurp said soup.
Finally: Okay, you can just eat the rest of the dumpling now.
My thoughts? Experiment a little. Be brave. Take a risk by dropping an entire foie gras dumpling into your mouth and letting it burst into a decadent mess of soup, pork, and liver fat. The variety set (THB285) includes eight different renditions of the dumpling using different ingredients, the most exciting ones being foie gras, black truffle, and Szechuan. The black truffle taste comes through the strongest, and the fatty nature of the foie gras means it has the melt-in-your-mouth feel, but the rest of the flavors are rather bland, particularly the Ginseng. You can opt to order ten of the original dumplings for THB195, a safe bet.
Aside from the colorful dumplings, which some might find gimmicky, there are some unique takes on classic Chinese dishes found at Paradise Dynasty. The drunken chicken is done well, with meaty chicken portions served well-below room temperature in the kind of whisky that feels very warm going down. La Mian, a hearty noodle dish, appears in various iterations, like the unctuous La Mian with sliced pork in signature pork bone soup(THB195), or the seafood medley of scallops, crab, and prawn(THB305).
It’s a shame Paradise Dynasty is in a mall, as the odd open plan means no insulation from the sound outside, it also just subtracts from the overall character, which is otherwise very strong.
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