The Dumpling menu at Dim Sum Go Go

I found Dim Sum Go Go on the excellent Vegan in NYC Instagram feed.  Its not a full vegan restaurant but it has the largest selection of vegan dumplings I’ve come across in my Dumpling Hunting career.  Rather than ordering small plates from carts pushed around the restaurant, Dim Sum Go Go has a menu-based system where you order by ticking items off on a card that you hand to your waiter.  Ordering from the menu takes some of the fun out of the dim sum experience but you are assured the food is hot out of the kitchen. The food at Dim Sum Go Go is hit or miss, the sauteed pea shoots were overcooked and the salt baked shrimp tasted like frozen in a bag, supermarket shrimp; at $28.90 an order they were a bland rip-off.  The meal was so unsatisfying we got second dinner at Veggie Dim Sum.

The Dumplings:  there is a huge selection of steamed dumplings at Dim Sum Go Go but the mixed platters help you sample them efficiently.  The down side of the platters is that if you like something you only get one of the dumpling and it is hard to tell what each dumpling corresponds to on the menu.

The Vegetarian Platter – all of these rice flour dough wrapped dumplings are vegan and they look really pretty in the steamer.  They were all good, but I really enjoyed one that had pickled crunchy pieces in the filling, I think this was the Bamboo Heart Dumpling.  One draw back with the Vegetarian Platter is that the dumplings vary in their optimal cooking times, some were perfectly cooked while the pea vine and spinach dumplings were a little over cooked.  I recommend selecting two or three of the vegetable dumplings and ordering them a la carte. The wierd looking fungus in the middle of the steamer was really good.

Roast Duck Dumplings – these steamed dumplings are stuffed with duck, mushrooms and carrots and were the best part of the meal.  The duck was smoky and sweet, the mushrooms provided an earthy umani quality and the carrots gave texture and crunch.  These dumplings come three to an order and I would come back to Dim Sum Go Go for an order of these dumplings.

Crab Dumplings – the crab dumplings were wrapped in a bright green rice flour dough and were shaped like the shoulder joint where a crab leg meets the crab body.  Despite their visual artistry these dumplings were a complete dud.  The waiter told us that while other places use mock crab they use the real thing, but the filling had no flavor at all, nothing.  It seems that Dim Sum Go Go can’t do seafood.

The Dipping Sauces:  The dipping options were probably the best feature of the whole meal. They serve a selection of three different sources; an X.O. Sauce, a spicy vinegar sauce and a slurry of ground up scallions and ginger.  All three were really good but my favorite was the X.O. Sauce, which is made of chopped dried scallops, dried fish and shrimp cooked with chili peppers, onions, and garlic.

The Location:  Dim Sum Go Go is located at the southern edge of Manhattan’s Chinatown on East Broadway near where East Broadway hits Chatham Square.  The location is near the court houses and City Government offices and apparently they do a lot of lunch business with jurors.