Pan-fried mini-pork dumplings
Mom’s Dumpling and Noodle is a little bit of a misnomer, it only sells two varieties of dumplings and three varieties of noodles. The menu lists more rice plates that it does dumplings, and also includes kimchi, braised pork feet and braised eggs – the last of which I highly recommend. Mom’s Dumpling and Noodle, which opened in late 2014, is an offshoot of the well regarded Mom’s House Chinese Market that has been selling to-go Chinese meals and groceries for the past 15 years on Route 9.
The Dumplings: Mom’s serves pork and vegetable dumplings that are prepared either steamed or pan-fried. The pork dumplings are mini-sized, like slider dumplings, and come twelve to an order for $4.99. The pork filling was a mix of pork and scallions and the pan-fried preparation was juicy and tasty. Mom’s doesn’t provide a lot of dumpling choices but it is well worth stopping in to try the mini-pork dumplings.
The Dipping Sauce: The sauce at Mom’s explodes with flavor, it is a mix of soy, vinegar, chili flakes and grated ginger. About a third of the sauce by volume was pulped ginger, so the sauce had a strong peppery flavor that tasted amazing with the pork. You can essentially make bite size servings of DIY pork with ginger sauce and noodles by dunking the dumplings in the sauce.
The Location: Mom’s Dumpling and Noodle is at 61 Main Street in Amherst MA, just off the town common and across the street from Amherst Chinese.
The search for the world's best dumplings 
This comes in handy! — We may be in Amherst tomorrow at lunchtime, and had thought of stopping in to Oriental Flavor, our great favorite. But maybe we’ll give this one a try for a change. When are you up around these parts? We’re in Northampton, and maybe some day we could actually “do dumplings” together.