The hallmarks of a good sheng jian bao, to me, is a soft, fluffy, relatively thin and slightly elastic wrapper with a beautifully golden and crunchy bottom + characteristically xlb-like juices bursting right out on the first bite. I’ve heard a lot about Ding Tele’s sheng jian baos so I was super excited to try em — especially since I wasn’t gonna get my fix overseas anytime soon. They were indeed tasty and really not too shabby, buuuuut I was a wee disappointed tbh. Don’t get me wrong: super tasty mince they nailed; crisp pan-fried bottoms a big thumbs up; shiok bursting juices also a yay. What I found lacking was their technique in sealing the little baos. See that disproportionate amount of dough at the base? If you zoom in you’d notice that the mass of dough’s quite dry in the middle, while the rest of the bao dough’s rather silky smooth and hydrated.