One distinctive feature of 551 Horai is its queue. Yes, and its queue was what caught my attention. Actually, I wasn’t that interested in trying Chinese food in Japan. But when my sister said this is the only Chinese she wanted to try, I decided to get up early on one of the days to specially queue for it.
I arrive half an hour before opening time, and a queue is formed already. The good part is that the queue now is significantly shorter. So I get a big box of four pork buns and another box of twelve shrimp shumai since I figure that I got to buy more to make the wait worth it.
The dough skin is fluffy and slightly stretchy, which is different from the pork buns in Singapore. The magic is in its meat fillings, which is super juicy. Juiciest pork bunnmeat fillings? Yes! And the gamey taste of pork is light, which is how I like it.
Shrimp shumai is juicy and full of umami.
