I have mentioned Food Gallery32 in my prior posts about the excellent Bunch/Bunn/Mama.  Food Gallery32 is a Korean style food court in Manhattan’s Koreatown that has around a dozen food kiosks selling everything from stuffed buns, Korean style ramen, Korean school lunch food, street food, omu-rice, Korean BBQ, Korean style Chinese food, Korean stews and soups and noodle dishes.  It is no where near as good as the food courts in the basement of the Lotte or Shinsegae department stores in Seoul, but it blows away your typical American food court and gives you some feeling of the Korean food court experience.

Fried Pork Dumplings

The Dumplings:  Besides Mama, the kiosk called Seoul is the only place in the Gallery to get dumplings.  Seoul has deep fried or steamed  pork, chicken or vegetable dumplings, steamed shrimp dumplings and steamed pork with Kimchi dumplings.  I was by myself and in a rush so I only tried the deep fried pork dumplings, which come either three or eight to an order.  The dumplings were good; they were deep fried and had pork filling, so you know, how bad could they be?  They were filled with pork, glass noodle, scallions and what was either minced egg or tofu and were plated with a mound of shredded white cabbage dressed with a spicy mayo sauce.  I am pretty certain Seoul is using frozen dumplings, maybe even from the H-Mart at the end of the block.  It is no Mandoo Bar, but when you don’t want to deal with the wait there and need a quick pile of dumplings and maybe a bowl of Kimchi jjigae or Ramen on the side, Seoul works.

The Dipping Sauce:  the dumplings come with a little plastic tub of soy and sesame oil dipping sauce which was fine,… well kinda meh.  They also come with a tub of quite good kimchi and a tub of sliced pickled diakon.

The Location:  Food Gallery32 is on the north side of 32nd street, mid-block between Broaday and 5th Avenue, in Manhattan’s Koreatown neighborhood.  Seoul is on the ground floor of the Gallery all the way in the back, behind the stairs.