HanSang Pork and Vegetable Dumplings & Mizkan Goma Shabu Sauce

Posted on April 1, 2019 by rundlea

Rating: 

HanSang is HMart’s house brand for frozen foods and they sell a variety of dumplings under this brand.  Their Pork and Vegetable Dumplings look like frozen soup dumplings and have enough juice in them that they could almost pass as Xiao Long Bao.

Because of their tall shape, these dumplings are a little tricky to cook all the way through, and the directions on the bag for pan-frying them don’t really work well.  When I pan-fried them from frozen as directed, by the time the bottom of the buns were crispy going on burned, the filling in the top of the dumpling was still cold.  On my third attempt at cooking these bao, I went with micro-waving them first and then pan-frying them, which worked well.  Once I figured out how to cook the bao all the way through they were pretty good. They had a mild savory pork flavor and enough juice that you should consider eating them soup dumpling style.

I have been on a sesame sauce kick of late, so I paired these bao with Mizkan Goma Shabu sauce which is a sesame sauce for Shabu Shabu.  Unfortunately the sauce was sugary and insipid with very little sesame flavor and did not complement the pork in the bao at all.

Posted in Bao, Buns, Dipping Sauce, Frozen Dumpling Review, Pork, Sesame Sauce, Xiao Long Bao | Leave a comment

Izakaya Ida Closed

Posted on March 20, 2019 by rundlea

After a roughly one and half year run it appears that Izakaya Ida has closed.  I discovered Ida a year ago and really enjoyed there entrees, but at that first visit their dumplings offerings were restricted to Takoyaki, but man those Takoyaki were good.  Their tofu dish and their sesame broth ramen were so good.  I tried it again a few months ago and again their food was excellent and they had expanded their dumpling offerings, including their fabulous grilled Shumai. The truth is though the restaurant was usually pretty empty and for some reason never seemed to get a lot traction, which I assume is the reason for its closure.  I’ll miss you Izakaya Ida.

Yaki Shumai
Takoyaki at Izakaya Ida

 

Posted in Shumai, Takoyaki | Leave a comment

Big Wong, New York City

Posted on March 18, 2019 by rundlea

Big Wong (sometimes referred to as Big Wong King) has been a fixture in New York City’s Chinatown for decades (a picture here from 1978) and has been racking up good reviews the whole time (GrubStreet, SeriousEats, NY Times, Eater).  Big Wong has two bare bones, communal dining rooms separated by a wall with a big round hole cut in it.  By communal dining, I mean if you come in with a small party you are likely to be seated at a large table with another party.  The BBQ Roast Pork and BBQ Pork Ribs at Big Wong are juicy and flavorful and are some of the best I have eaten.

Wonton Noodle Soup

Steamed Pork and Shrimp Dumplings with Oyster Sauce and Chinese Broccoli

The Dumplings: We tried the pork and shrimp wontons in soup with noodles and the steamed pork and shrimp dumplings with oyster sauce.  Their wonton soup was awarded “Best Chinese-American Style Runner Up” in Serious Eat’s 2013 round-up of wonton soup.  The soup comes with five big wontons and a lot of noodles and easily serves two.  The broth has a well balanced pork and chicken flavor with some roasted pork notes.  The shrimp in the wontons were sweet and crunchy, signs they are using good, fresh ingredients.  The dough wrappers were slightly chewy and had deep wrinkles that the soup and oil clung to.  I really enjoyed these wontons.

The filling in the steamed pork and shrimp dumpling was identical to that in the wontons and similarly flavorful.  The dumplings were served sitting on top of a layer of Chinese broccoli and were doused with oyster sauce, so you essentially get a small portion of traditional Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce with dumplings.  Ordering this dish is a great way to get your greens.

The Location:  Big Wong is on Mott Street midway between Canal and Bayard Streets in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Posted in Chinese, New York City, Noodles, Pork, Shrimp, Soup, Steamed, Wontons | Leave a comment

Return to Shanghai Asian Cuisine, NYC

Posted on March 11, 2019 by rundlea

In a prior review (5 years ago) I harshed on Chinatown’s Shanghai Asian Cuisine for shorting us on our change, but I did point out that their dumplings were amazing.  When it was operating under a prior name, this was the place where I was first introduced to Soup Dumplings, probably in September or October of 1991.  I have been back several times since the visit I blogged about and after a recent feasting there I thought that Shanghai Asian Cuisine deserved to be highlighted again.

Pan-fried pork dumplings
Steamed shrimp and pea vine dumplings
Wonton Szechuan style
Fried tiny buns with Pork
Crab and pork soup dumplings
  • The Fried tiny buns with pork don’t contain the soup that traditional Shanghai Shen Jian Bao are known for, but the ones served here are light, fluffy, bready buns filled with perfectly seasoned pork.
  • The sauce that comes with the Szechuan Wontons is loaded with Szechuan flavors, chili heat and numbing pepper corns.  It was so good that after we finished the wontons, we ate the rest of the sauce with a spoon.
  • Shanghai Asian Cuisine is one of the few places where you can taste the flavor contribution made by the crab and crab roe in the crab and pork soup dumplings.  They also manage to pack lots of soup into the dumplings, which are always perfectly cooked.
  • The pan-fried pork dumplings were masterfully cooked to a crispy golden color and were so juicy they could pass as soup dumplings at a lesser restaurant.
  • We finished up with the steamed pea vine and shrimp dumplings, which were lite and refreshing after four rounds of pork.  The fresh green-ness and mild bitterness of the pea vines paired perfectly with the sweet and slight brine of the shrimp.

Shanghai Asian Cuisine is on Elizabeth street between Canal and Bayard streets in New York City’s Chinatown.  It is next to the Chinatown arcade which is a covered ally that connects Elizabeth Street to the Bowery.

Posted in Bao, Buns, Crab, New York City, Pan Fried, Pea vine, Pork, Potsticker, Sheng Jian Bao, Shrimp, Sichuan Dumplings, Soup Dumpling, Steamed, Wontons, Xiao Long Bao | Leave a comment

Arata Vegan Japanese Closed

Posted on March 6, 2019 by rundlea

Shitake Summer Vegetable Gyoza

I just found out that Matthew Kenny’s Japanese vegan concept, Arata, closed in late 2018, coming and going in less than a year.  While I like Kenney’s nearby vegan restaurants, I was not impressed with Arata.  We tried three or four dishes and I didn’t really like any of them, and the overpriced Shitake Summer Vegetable Gyoza were terrible.

Posted in Gyoza, Vegan, Vegetarian, Veggie Dumplings | Leave a comment

Vegan Dumpling Update

Posted on March 4, 2019 by rundlea

Spicy and Sour Vegetable Dumplings

I noticed recently that my local Xi’an Famous Foods no longer lists its sensational Spinach Dumplings in Hot and Sour Sauce as being vegan.  The staff confirmed that they haven’t added added egg or shrimp to the fillings but told me they boil the vegetable dumplings in the same water as the lamb dumplings and so took away the vegan indicator on the menu.  So I would term these dumplings as “vegan adjacent”.

Nearby at Grain House the vegetable dumplings are vegan and delicious.  I reviewed Grain House about a year ago, shortly after it opened, and gave its Spicy and Numbing Pork Wontons and Pork Potstickers lots of love.  The steamed vegetable dumplings, which appear to be house made, are as good or even better than the Pork Potstickers.  The wrappers are just thick enough to be chewy without being doughy and envelope a tasty mix of tofu, cabbage, carrot, glass noodles and maybe mushroom.

Steamed Vegetable Dumplings at Grain House

Steamed Vegetable Dumplings

 

Posted in Chinese, Lamb, New York City, Pork, Potsticker, Sichuan Dumplings, Vegan, Vegetarian, Veggie Dumplings | Leave a comment

MaLa Project, New York, NY

Posted on February 25, 2019 by rundlea

Everything old is new again.  Mongolian BBQ, which was very trendy in the mid-90s in NYC, seems to have been reborn as the now trending Dry Hot Pot.  Both meals involve selecting meats, vegetables, tofu products and noodles from a menu and then the selected ingredients being flash cooked in a sauce on an incredibly hot surface – for Mongolian BBQ it was a flat circular grill and for dry hot pot it is a wok.  With Mongolian BBQ you had a choice of sauces that would be mixed in with the ingredients, while dry hot pot is cooked with a sauce made of Sichuan spices and peppers.  While dry hot pot is a traditional Sichuan dish, Mongolian BBQ has no actual cultural connection to Mongolia, it was invented in Taiwan by a Chinese refugee from Mao’s revolution.

My first dry hot pot experience was at MaLa Project, which is named for the traditional Sichuan dry hot pot sauce and means “numbing” and “spicy”.  MaLa Project’s menu presents you with with a huge array of meat options, including cuts from the stomach, intestine and artery, and a large array of vegetable hot pot options.  I went all vegetarian that night and was able to choose ingredients from a wide range of mushrooms, greens, starches and tofus.  You have a choice of Non-spicy, Mild, Spicy, or Super Spicy and as a guide the spicy peanuts they serve at happy hour have a spice-level that is mid-way between the Mild and Spicy dry hot pot.  We went with Mild, but still got some of the spicy and numbing effect in a quite flavorful sauce.  I recommend the taro root, which had been coated in flour or corn starch and then crispy fried, and I really enjoyed the five spice firm tofu.

The Dumplings:  MaLa Project serves an interesting array of appetizers, rice and dim sum dishes including pork and vegetable dumplings that can be cooked fried or steamed.  The fried vegetable dumplings are ping pong ball size and come six to an order.  I really enjoyed the texture and mouth feel of the wrappers, which were just thick enough that when pan-fried the outer surface was crispy but the inner dough was still slightly chewy.  The dumplings were filled with cabbage and pieces of five spice pressed tofu which gave the filling an interesting flavor and contrasting texture.  The downside of these dumpling though, was that they were greasy and I could taste too much of the fry oil.

The Dipping Sauce:  we were served a sweetened soy based dipping sauce in a tiny to-go plastic cup that was too small to dip the dumplings in.  It was annoying.

The Location:  MaLa Project has locations in mid-town and the East Village.  We hit the East Village location, which is on 1st avenue between 7th and 8th avenue.

Posted in Chinese, New York City, Vegan, Vegetarian, Veggie Dumplings | Leave a comment

Izakaya Ida Mini Review

Posted on February 18, 2019 by rundlea

Yaki Shumai

I originally tried Izakaya Ida a little while after it opened and at the time the only dumplings they had were Takoyaki, which were excellent.  I recently returned and discovered that they had added pork gyoza and shrimp shumai to the menu.  The shumai are prepared either, in the traditional steamed fashion or Yakitori style where the shumai are steamed and then grilled.  The Yaki Shumai only come two to an order but they were amazing, the grilling adds whole new dimensions to the shumai experience.  On the grill the shumai wrapper became crispy and charred and a smokiness infused all the way into the shrimp filling.  The shrimp filling is made of chunks of shrimp that had a fresh pop texture and sweetness to them.  I also had the Vegetarian Tan Tan Men ramen which was so good.  Izakaya Ida is on 72nd street between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

As an aside, these shumai made me imagine how amazing it would be if Sun Chan Yakitori style grilled their Wasabi Shumai.

Posted in Izakaya, Japanese, Shumai | Leave a comment

Shizen Vegan Sushi Bar and Izakaya, San Francisco, Ca

Posted on February 11, 2019 by rundlea

Shizen Vegan Sushi Bar and Izakaya regularly gets mentioned as one of San Francisco’s top vegan restaurants and has a laudable mission statement, but I think this restaurant is completely over-rated.  First of all, it has a reservation and entry policy that probably maximizes its profits but is annoying as hell.  The only thing we ate at Shizen that reached for excellence, was the Goma Ae spinach with sesame paste.  The specialty rolls were all squeeze bottle sauce drizzled, inside-out roll confections, that mainly tasted of sweetened soy sauce.  Shizen doesn’t pay enough attention to its sushi rice, the rice was over cooked and mushy.  But, one of the rolls we ate had me convinced that there was a layer of unagi on the outside, I don’t know how they did it, but that was a plus.  In addition to meh food, the service at Shizen was slow and confused.

Shizen’s Potstickers, probably Assi Brand Veg Potstickers

The Dumplings:  It is obvious that Shizen serves frozen gyoza and the waitress confirmed it.  I am convinced they are using Assi Brand Vege Potstickers, which is a brand I like a lot, but I really expect house made dumplings from a restaurant with Shizen’s reputation.  To add insult, Shizen doesn’t even pan-fry them very well, the dumplings we were served were under cooked.  The women who give out free samples of Assi dumplings at H-Mart do a better job of cooking them than Shizen did.

The Location:  Shizen is in The Mission District on 14th between Mission and Valencia.  The Armory Club bar on Mission and 14th street is a good place to wait out your time on the Shizen waiting list.  It is a 10 minute walk from Shizen to IndoChine, so think about eating there instead.

 

 

Posted in Frozen Dumpling Review, Gyoza, Japanese, Potsticker, San Francisco, Vegan, Vegetarian, Veggie Dumplings | Leave a comment

IndoChine, San Francisco, CA

Posted on February 4, 2019 by rundlea

IndoChine Vegan’s website makes the claim of “fine dining”, and while the restaurant is not a high-end, fine dining experience, this small funky, pan-Asian restaurant serve some really, really good food.  The menu includes dishes from a range of Asian cuisines and has a Western section with vegan burgers and fish and chips.  When I was there the lone server/hostess was quickly overwhelmed by the dinner rush of customers and to-go orders, so the service was a little slow.  My other complaint is that the kitchen venting needs upgrading, the dining room gets a lot of cooking fumes.  But go there for the food, it is awesome, the Sweet and Sour Soy Protein was the best sweet and sour pork I have ever eaten.

Veggie pot stickers
Veggie pot stickers
Veggie pot stickers

The Dumplings:  IndoChine’s perfectly pan-fried pot stickers were very simple and well-balanced, just filled with cabbage, shiitake mushroom, and ginger.  They had a mild cabbage flavor, with a fragrance from the ginger and a slightly earthy, umami undertone from the mushrooms.  If we hadn’t ordered two other amazing dishes and filled up, we would have ordered a second round of these dumplings.  The dumplings were so good, that the next day we considered going back and just ordering piles of these dumplings.  Instead we went to Shizen which was a mistake (see next week), we should have gone back to IndoChine and binged on their dumplings.

The Location:  IndoChine is on Valencia Street between 16th and 17th streets in The Mission District.  This block is full of stores/boutiques, small funky bars and Asian and Central American restaurants and is a really good eating and drinking destination.

Posted in Potsticker, San Francisco, Vegan, Vegetarian, Veggie Dumplings | Leave a comment