Inside DumplingGo

I reviewed DumplingGo a couple of months ago but they have been changing up their menu recently so I decided to return and try their new offerings.

The Dumplings:  for this outing I tried the Flounder Dumplings and Black Pepper Fish dumplings.

Flounder Dumpling

Black Pepper Fish Dumpling

Flounder Dumplings – Flounder is a very mild flaky white fish so I wasn’t expecting a lot of flavor from these dumplings. The filling for these dumplings is prepared with mushrooms and green peppers mixed into the fish. I think the mushrooms added some umami to the filling and the result was a seasoned fish flavor but without any “fishiness”.  I got these dumplings finished on the flat-top which added some smokey char flavor to the wrapper that nicely accented the filling.  They come either steamed or pan-fried on a flat-top.

Black Pepper Fish Dumpling – these dumplings are essentially an effort to make a Vietnamese style pepper fish dish in dumpling form, and are pretty successful in the effort.  The filling contains mushrooms, peppers and flakes of fish in a light Black Pepper sauce.  The dumplings are not fully wrapped, but are like little boats made of wonton wrapper cradling the filling, they are like a very open shumai.  The Vietnamese Pepper flavor of the filling was very successful but I found the dumplings wrapper boats to be floppy and very hard to pick up.  My efforts mostly resulted in me dropping the filling out of the wrappers and having to eat it off the plate, it wasn’t until my fourth dumpling that I figured out how to eat them successfully.  These dumplings come steamed only.

The Dipping Sauce:  The menu lists some interesting sounding sauces, Japanese Wasabi, Chili Oil, Curry, DumplingGo Special Sauce, and a Sriracha sauce, but again on this second outing they only had the Chili Oil, the Special Sauce and Sriracha sauces available.  The Special Sauce is actually just a traditional Chinese style soy, vinegar, and sesame oil sauce with chili pepper flakes.

Locations:  DumplingGo has two locations at the moment: West 3rd street between 6th Avenue and Macdougal Street next to NYU and in the East Village Dumpling Alley area on 2nd Avenue between 11th and 12th streets.