In the overwhelming, colorfully kaleidoscopic frozen dumpling aisle at H-Mart, Hong’s Dumplings caught my eye for its austere black and white packaging. It reminded me of the generic black and white labelled “Food” and “Beer” eaten in the classic film Repo Man. Hong’s Dumplings are made by Hong Jin-kyung Co., Ltd, founded by the South Korean model, variety show host, comedian and actress, Hong Jin-kyung.  Her food business began in 2004 focused on kimchi and achieved the No. 1 spot in online kimchi sales.  The company soon expanded into dumplings, japchae, galbi, gomtang, doenjang, gochujang, and various sauces.

I picked up a bag of mushroom dumpling and a bag of kimchi dumplings, which were both excellent and are both are vegan.  The kimchi dumplings are filled with kimchi, glass noodles, tofu, dried radish, green onion, onion, and leek. The dumplings have strong kimchi punch and are quite spicy, but a little oily. The front of the packaging for the mushroom dumplings features shiitake and black fungus, so I was surprised that these dumplings did not have a strong mushroom flavor and tasted more like a traditional veg dumpling.  When I looked more closely, I saw the package says, with a surprising precision, shiitake 4.18% and black fungus 3.69%.  The filling also includes carrot, green onion, tofu, dried radish, onion, cabbage and leeks.  So with these dumplings you won’t get much mushroom flavor but they are a very tasty veg dumpling.  Both of these dumplings are going to become a staple in my freezer.