Soba Noodle Azuma, New York, NY

Posted on September 2, 2026 by rundlea

For years now I have slept on Soba Noodle Azuma, not realizing that, in addition to its wide selection of soba noodle dishes, it has a solid Izakaya style menu too. I have been to its next-door neighbor, Donburiya, several times for Izakaya style food.   Soba Noodle Azuma, is a narrow restaurant that goes back quite far, with a front dining area and back dining area with a bar in between.   The tomago at Azuma was fabulous, the best I have had since the amazing Kokage by Kajitsu closed and we lost its mind blowing tomago.  Azuma’s grilled mackerel was also excellent, but the okonomiyaki was a disappointment.  The okonomiyaki was largely comprised of batter, with very little cabbage and no discernable seafood.

The dumplings: I got the hand made pork gyoza and the spicy gyoza, but they also sell veggie gyoza and Takoyaki. The pork gyoza are depicted on the menu as being golden pan-fried, but my order looked more like the dumplings had been seared and blackened on a griddle.  They were very tasty, with a slightly smokey and tangy char flavor, but just a little different from what I was expecting based on the menu.  The spicy dumplings appeared to be the same dumplings as used in the pan seared dumplings, but were served steamed and sitting on a drizzle of Sriracha looking sauce, with a dollop of chili crisp on top of each dumpling.   These dumplings were fabulous!  The chili crisp had a strong smokey, spicy flavor with the slight numbing of peppercorns and the Sriracha-like drizzle had a slightly sweet, tangy, medium intensity heat.  So good, I will be returning to Azuma for the chili dumplings and the tomago.

The Location:  Soba Noodle Azuma is on 55th street between Broadway and 8th avenue.  It is next to two other Japanese restaurants, Donburiya next to it and Yakitori Totto above it, and just down the street from The Original Soup Kitchen of Seinfeld “Soup Nazi” fame.

Posted in Gyoza, Japanese, New York City, Pan Fried, Pork, Potsticker | Leave a comment

Meet Harbin, Philadelphia, PA

Posted on August 26, 2026 by rundlea

In 2024 Cheng Du Center City opened in the old location of the much loved Kosher vegan Chinese restaurant Su Xing House. While focusing on Sichuan dishes Cheng Du kept many of the vegan dishes from Su Xing.  In 2026 Cheng Du gave way to Meet Harbin, another Chinese restaurant, this one focused on Northeastern Chinese cuisine.  However, the Meet Harbin menu retains the vegan dishes that Cheng Du kept from Su Xing and also some of the dishes form Cheng Du.  To further complicate this lineage, the web site for  Cheng Du Center City still exists using the SuXinghouserestaurant.com domain.

The Dumplings:  Meet Harbin’s menu features a fine selection of dumplings: steamed or pan-fried vegan vegetable dumplings, Chili oil pork dumplings, pork wontons in soup, pork wonton with chili oil, golden cheese wontons, and sauerkraut and pork dumplings.

As expected they use the same dumpling, which appears to be a frozen dumpling, for the steam or pan-fried vegan vegetable dumplings.  The preparations of this dumpling were mediocre, the flavor was fine but the filling was just mush, so there was a textural issue with this dumpling.  However, the sauerkraut and pork dumplings, which come 12 to an order, were excellent.    These dumplings are made in house and have tangy, slightly sour flavor from the sauerkraut that hits right up front and then a savory pork flavor that plays out as you chew.  There is an optional side of white or brown rice that can be included in your order. 

Location:  Meet Harbin is located in Philadelphia’s Center City neighborhood on Sansom street between 15th and 16th streets.  This is a great block with a lot of other excellent dining options.

Posted in Chinese, Pan Fried, Philadelphia, Pork, Potsticker, Vegan, Vegetarian, Veggie Dumplings | Leave a comment

Tompopo, Philadelphia, PA

Posted on July 30, 2026 by rundlea

Tompopo is a small restaurant in West Philly that has been serving home-style Korean and Japanese food of the past 20 years.  The menu includes Banchan, rice bowls, bento boxes, dumplings, bib-bim-bob, noodle dishes, and soups.  Food is ordered at the counter and the menu is a combination of traditional laminated menus, signs sitting on the counter and signs on the wall behind the counter.  Although this is not clear on the menu, there are a couple of vegan options on the menu and several other dishes can be prepared vegan.

Dumplings:  Tompopo serves: steamed, pan-fried and deep-fried gyoza stuffed with your choice of pork, shrimp, chicken or vegetables; steamed spicy seafood gyoza; and steamed or deep-fried shrimp shumai.  I tried the steamed and deep fried versions of the pork gyoza and the steamed spicy seafood gyoza, all of which appeared to have been made in house.  Both styles of pork dumplings were flavorful and juicy, with the deep fired ones being my favorite of the two – deep frying usually makes things even better. The filling of the spicy seafood gyoza included glass noodles and kimchi, but it was unclear to me what seafood was in these dumplings, maybe shrimp.  These were the best of the three styles of dumpling I tried, really spicy, almost painful for me, with a great kimchi sour, funk, salty flavor.

The Location: Tampopo is located in West Philly on the western edge of the University City neighborhood.  It is on South 44th Street between Spruce and Locust.

Posted in Japanese, Korean, Philadelphia, Pork, Shumai | Leave a comment

Ling Long Soup Dumplings, New York, NY

Posted on June 22, 2026 by rundlea

Ling Long Soup Dumplings is a kiosk sized vendor in a shared space with a coffee shop and a choose your own ingredient mala hotpot place.  The space felt like an Asian version of KFC/Taco Bell combo restaurant – but with more interesting food. The Ling Long kiosk has a plexiglass enclosed food prep area, and you can watch the dumplings being hand-made in real time.    

The Dumplings:  Ling Long has an extensive menu of dumplings, although some of them were sold-out the evening I was there.   I tried the classic pork and crab xiao long bao, the Serrano ham xiao long bao and steamed pork dumplings in spicy and sour sauce.   All of the soup dumplings, which are 4 per order, arrived with their wrappers intact and were not leaking any soup. But I think part of their success in maintaining the integrity of the dumplings was that the wrappers were thicker than those typically served at restaurants in NYC.  The xiao long bao fillings were very tasty and each dumpling had a full soup spoon worth of soup.  The filling of the Serrano ham dumplings looked like pork and appeared identical to the filling of pork and crab dumplings.  But I definitely tasted ham in these dumplings, so I think there were pieces of ham mixed into the pork filling. The steamed pork dumplings in spicy and sour sauce were less successful than the soup dumplings, but only because they did not come with enough sauce.  The sauce was delicious but there was not enough of it to dunk the dumplings in.

The Location: Ling Long is located at213 West 35th between 7th and 8th Avenue, on the north side of the street. The location has big neon signs that say Yanggoufu and Malatang, but has minimal signage for Ling Long, so it was a little difficult to spot the restaurant.  

Posted in New York City, Pork, Xiao Long Bao | Leave a comment

Tina’s Café, Philadelphia, PA

Posted on May 31, 2026 by rundlea

Tina’s Café is a small café, with half a dozen tables, that opened in Oct 2025, in Philadelphia’s Queen Village neighborhood.  I can’t really find any background information on the place and outside of Yelp, which only has three reviews, no one seems to have reviewed it yet.  Tina’s caught my eye because they serve empanadas.  They also make a really good flat white coffee.

The Empanadas:  Tina’s empanadas are deep fried, but not greasy, and super crispy and crunchy.  I have not fully got a handle on the range of empanada styles Tina’s sells, and the selection seems to vary day-to-day.  On most days they have empanadas with beef or chicken filling (neither of which I eat), and I have tried a breakfast one filled with ham, egg and cheddar cheese, and a ham and mozzarella one.  Both styles were really good and I loved the crunch of the fried pastry.  The breakfast one was the more flavorful of the two, but last time I stopped by I was told they had stopped making it.  Tina’s bring back the breakfast empanada!!

The Location:  Tina’s Café is on East Passyunk Ave between Monroe and Bainbridge Streets.  Passyunk is one of two streets that run diagonally through the otherwise fairly regular, gridded streets of South Philadelphia.

Posted in Beef, Empanadas | Leave a comment

Mokban Korean Bistro, Providence RI

Posted on May 21, 2026 by rundlea

Immediately upon walking into Mokban, I was skeptical about whether this restaurant was serving the traditional home-style Korean food it advertised. There was just no smell of cooking sesame oil, which I associate with great traditional Korean restaurants in NYC and Korea. But after eating there, I just think Mokban’s kitchen has an extreme air extraction system in place, because the food was home-style and excellent.

All of the banchan (small plates brought out with the meal) were really good and the seafood pancake (Haemul pajeon) was one of the best I have had in a long time.  The pancake was very crisp, thick with seafood, and was delicious.  The seafood Jjamppong I had was also very flavorful, with a serious seafood broth, although maybe a little mild on the spiciness. Mokban also serves a side dish of crispy rice, which I really enjoyed (seen on the left of the bowl of Jjamppong).

The Dumplings:  Makbon serves fried or steamed dumplings that are filled with either, beef, pork or shrimp.  The fried mandoo are deep fired and the pork dumplings I got were very crisp on the outside, very juicy on the inside, and had a robust pork flavor.  The dipping sauce was mildly spicy, but I could taste the mild, and enjoyable, funk of Gochujang paste, which can be very spicy.

While the dumplings were good, they were not good enough to motivate a second visit, but the Haemul pajeon is worth a second visit.

The Location: Mokban is located in downtown Providence RI, on the corner of Eddy and Westminster Streets.      

Posted in Korean, Pork | Leave a comment

Joong Boo Wang Mandoo, Chicago, IL

Posted on May 14, 2026 by rundlea

Joong Boo Market is small (four stores) chain of Korean markets in Chicago.  It has three supermarkets and one houseware market, that it claims provides the “largest selection of kitchenware, appliances, cutlery, gifts, and other housewares products in the Midwest.” I tried the location on Kimball Avenue, which is in a light industrial/commercial area, right next to the Kennedy Expressway.  If you are anywhere near the store, you can see its green sign poking above the elevated expressway.  The best part of the Kimball Ave location is the mandoo kiosk, Joong Boo Wang Mandoo, right at the entrance to the store.  This kiosk provides pick-up window service, and has a small counter with a few plastic stools next to it, where you can eat your dumplings before heading into the store.

The Dumplings:   Joong Boo Wang Mandoo sells large, steamed buns and orders of small steamed dumplings.  The large buns are filled with pork or pork and kimchi and there is also a large black rice bun filled with red beans.  The choices for the small mandoo are pork, kimchi (both come 6 to an order), shrimp and pork, and shrimp and kimchi (both of the shrimp ones come 5 to an order).  The steamed pork mandoo are the traditional style, filled with pork, glass noodles and chives.  My order was perfectly steamed and really delicious.  I am guessing, based on the shape and uniformity, that the dumplings were frozen, packaged dumplings and not home/house made, but I really enjoyed them. 

The Location:  Joong Boo Wang Mandoo is on Kimball Avenue at the Kimball Ave exit off the Kennedy Expressway.  Other nearby major thoroughfares that intersect with Kimball Avenue are, N. Milwaukee Ave, Belmont Ave, North Avondale Ave and Elston Ave.    

Posted in Chicago, Korean, Pork | Leave a comment

Return to Xi’an Famous Foods, 2026 Edition

Posted on May 7, 2026 by rundlea

In 2015 I ranked Xi’an Famous Food’s veggie dumplings as my favorite of the year and gave them a shout out in my 2016 round-up of dumplings. I continued to feast on their veggie dumplings regularly up until the beginning of the pandemic and they were one of my last meals before I decamped from NYC in Feb 2020.  Previously I described their veggie dumplings as “…stuffed with a giant wad of spinach, some glass noodles and a little egg…” and “…packed with spinach, probably an entire day’s worth of vegetables are in each order,..”.  The spinach filling doused in the fiery and funky, sour and spicy sauce was amazing.

I recently went to a Xi’an Famous Food outlet for the first time since the pandemic and was disappointed by the changes that had been made to their veggie dumplings.  The veggie dumplings contained minimal spinach, which was mixed with filler ingredients that looked like chopped mushrooms and maybe textured soy protein.  Their veggie dumplings seem to have become the generic, green dough wrapper, veggie dumplings you can find anywhere.  The sauce also tasted less pungent and spicy than I remember, it used to be a thrill to slurp down Xi’an Famous Food’s sauce, but on this outing the sauce was, at best, solid or good enough effort.

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Mom-Mom’s Kitchen Frozen Vegan Potato Pierogi

Posted on February 24, 2026 by rundlea

Philadelphia’s Mom-Mom’s Kitchen started out as a roving food cart and then in 2018 opened a sit-down brick and mortar location in Bridesburg, which was featured in an 2020 episode of Diners, Drive Ins and Dives.  The Bridesburg location closed during the pandemic, but they maintained a pandemic era take-out spot on South Street next to the venerable dive bar, Bob and Barbara’s. They most recently opened a restaurant in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond neighborhood in collaboration with Carbon Copy Brewing.  Mom-Mom’s Kitchen also sells frozen pierogis at the Port Richmond restaurant and at the Headhouse Square Farmer Market.

The Dumplings: We picked up a bag of a dozen frozen vegan potato pierogi at the farmers market. The pierogi dough is made with flour, oatmilk, and margarine, and the filling is made of potato, oatmilk, margarine, garlic and salt and pepper.  The bag has cooking instructions printed on it, including several “pro tips”.  I boiled the pierogi and then tossed them in a pan with a lot of cooked onions and some Earth Balance (vegan butter substitute) and let them fry a little bit.  These vegan pierogi were delicious, although cooking most things with a lot of sauteed onions and some buttery spread will taste good.  A dozen frozen pierogi weighs around a pound, and one bag makes a good dinner for two.

The Location:  Mom-Mom’s Kitchen has a stall at the Headhouse Square Farmers Market.  The market is located on South 2nd Street between Pine and Lombard streets in the Society Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA. The history of the market dates back to 1745, and the market building is one of the oldest surviving market buildings in the U.S.  The Market is open year-round from 10am to 1pm.

Posted in Boiled, Frozen Dumpling Review, Philadelphia, Pierogi, Vegan, Veggie Dumplings | Leave a comment

Bites of Xi’an 56, NY NY

Posted on February 11, 2026 by rundlea

The NYC mini-chain, Bites of Xia’an, is one of the many Northern Chinese restaurants that launched after Xi’an Famous Foods captured the tastebuds of New Yorkers.  Bites of Xi’an 56 is a small, low rent feeling, joint with an open kitchen, 3 or 4 tables and a narrow counter along one wall. In the open kitchen you can see four pressure cookers braising meat for the Roujamo – Xi’an style meat sandwiches.  One thing this restaurant has going for it, is that it smells really good.

The Dumplings:  Bites of Xi’an 56 serves pan-fried dumplings (veggie, pork, or chicken) and steamed dumplings (pork & cabbage, chicken & cabbage, pork & chives, and shrimp, pork and chives) served in spicy and sour soup, clear broth or spicy red oil. Alone the pan-fried pork dumplings had a very mild, almost timid, flavor, but blossomed when dunked into the really flavorful, gingery soy dipping sauce.  These dumplings come 10 to an order and were served piled in a plastic bucket.  Unfortunately, the residual grease on the upper dumplings in the pile flowed down onto, and saturated, the dumplings at the bottom of the pile.   I did not love this.

I also tried the steamed pork and cabbage dumplings in spicy and sour soup, which was quite disappointing.  The dumplings themselves had the same bland flavor as the pan-fried dumplings and the soup was very watery, with little sour or spicy flavor.  The lack of spice was surprising because it looked like there was a decent amount of red chili oil in the soup.   This version of the dish was nothing like the flavor bomb that is Xi’an Famous Foods’ version of this dish.

The Location.  Bites of Xi’an 56 is on 56th, street midway between 5th and 6th avenues.  It is on a strip of Asian restaurants that look like they mainly cater to lunch orders from nearby office workers.              

Posted in Chinese, Dipping Sauce, New York City, Pork | Leave a comment