The search for the world's best dumplings

Omni Plant-Based Pork Teriyaki Bao, a frozen dumpling review

Posted on April 13, 2025 by rundlea

I have made a bunch of dumplings using Omni’s Pork-Style ground plant-based meat, and it has become my go to for making vegan dumplings. But it is increasingly hard to find this product, and the pork strips and luncheon slices, in the supermarkets. Instead, I am seeing more and more of Omni’s ready to eat processed foods, like their frozen Teriyaki Bao. I guess their profit margins are higher on the value added, packaged foods compared to their raw ground and strips pork replacement products. The frozen Omni Plant Based Teriyaki Bao come four to a bag and are each a little larger than a golf ball. They turned out to be a very good frozen bao, the filling had a ground pork texture and a sweet and slightly smoky Teriyaki flavor. The bun is quite sweet, more so than your usual bun, and after microwaving, the bun has the fluffy texture of a fresh steamed bao. This is a vegan bao that presents as a really good frozen pork bun.

Posted in Bao, Buns, Frozen Dumpling Review, Pork, Vegan, Vegetarian | Leave a comment

Return to Pasta B Jinghua, Milan, Italy

Posted on April 6, 2025 by rundlea

I originally tried Milan’s Pasta B Jinghua during a work trip in 2023 and had to go back there again during a recent trip to Italy. It seems like the word is out on how good this place is, it was packed for lunch in a way that I had not experienced back in 2023. The pan-fried pork dumplings are still excellent. The dumplings are like sausage rolls with the wrapper folded around the filling with both ends open. The pan-fried dough wrappers are quite thick with a good chew and the filling is made of Chinese cabbage, Chinese chive, pork, shrimp and crab, although the pork flavor is most assertive. Just like last time, they were super juicy and flavorful and remain one of the best pork dumplings I have tried. We also got the homemade noodles with vegetables, which was excellent. The noodles were cooked to a perfect al dente texture so they were springy and slightly chewy and were dressed with a light sauce and lots of vegetables.

Posted in Gyoza, Noodles, Pan Fried, Pork, Potsticker, Shrimp | Leave a comment

Su Guan, Florence, Italy

Posted on March 30, 2025 by rundlea

As a vegan Chinese restaurant, Su Guan makes it onto all of the “vegan in Florence” lists that you can find on the internet. They make an absolute standout dish that I have never seen before, Salt and Pepper Corn. They use the salt and pepper seasoning and very light batter coating used with salt and pepper shrimp but apply it to corn kernels. The corn is cooked perfectly so it still pops when you chew it and the sweetness of the corn does the same thing with the salt and pepper seasoning that good, sweet shrimp do, but the corn takes it to eleven. The dish is crunchy, sweet, salty and pepper spicy and we ordered it twice. The sauteed veggies with noodles was also excellent and had a beautifully light sauce. As a plus they serve beer in giant size, mighty bottles. Their opening hours seem to be a little idiosyncratic, one night we went there when they were listed as being open and were told by the guy delivering veggies that they were not opening for another hour.

The Dumplings: Unfortunately, the dumplings we had at Su Guan were not good. We got the trio of dumplings, which appears to be three styles of dumplings, with three dumplings per style. The menu lists the filling as being , seitan, bamboo, lotus root, veggies, pickled mustard greens, mushroom, celery and dragon fruit juice. It is unclear if each style of dumplings had a different subset of these ingredients, because they all tasted the same, bland. I was looking forward to the pickled mustard greens expecting them to provide a pickled or fermented kick, but I got nothing. The main thing that distinguished the dumplings was the different color wrappers. The dumplings were also way over cooked and were served crowded on the plate so that the dumplings stuck to each other. It was impossible to pick the dumplings up without the gummed together wrappers ripping.

The Location: Su Guan is a little north of the main tourist section of town, at 22 via della Scalia, near the Piazza and Basilica di Santa Maria Novella. Be aware the Google maps app shows it having two locations on via della Scalia, the first at #22 and the second further down inside the Hotel Alba Palace. Su Guan is just down the street from an excellent pub called Joshua Tree, which has a great selection of beer. an extensive selection of whisky and very knowledgeable bar tenders. Plus, they play a solid 90’s grunge sound track and have soccer on some large screens. This is a great place to check out before dinner at Su Guan.

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

Dim Sum Time, Florence, Italy

Posted on March 23, 2025 by rundlea

Dim Sum Time is a narrow, brightly lit restaurant in Florence’s historic district, a few minutes walk from the Uffizi museum and the Piazza Della Signora. Much of the vegan food in Florence was not to my friend’s taste and there is only so many times you can eat pasta with red sauce in this steak-centric city. Dim Sum Time has vegan veggie dumplings and they can make their Mapo Tofu vegan too. We got the veggie dumplings three times in our stay in Florence. This the perfect destination for a quick lunch after spending the morning looking at art at the Uffizi.

The Dumplings: I tried the pan-fried pork dumplings and pan-fried shrimp dumplings and the steamed veggie dumplings. Both types of pan-fired dumplings had relatively thick wrappers and were seared crispy golden to brown on the bottom. The pork dumplings were delicious, savory, salty, porky and very juicy. I ended up getting them twice during our trip. Without a dunking in the dipping sauce, the shrimp dumplings were less flavorful and needed some seasoning, but the shrimp tasted really fresh. You can watch the veggie dumpling being stuffed at a workstation and steamer set-up next to the cash register. The filling looked to be solely comprised of par-cooked bok-choy greens. These veggie dumplings were excellent, the filling was well seasoned and they tasted like healthiness, without tasting too intensely cruciferous. These little veggie bombs were a great antidote to the porchetta, ham and pasta I was otherwise gorging on.

Location: Dim Sum Time is located at Via De’Neri, number 17, right near the intersection with via della Mosca, be aware that Google lists it as number 37, it is not. They are open 12:00 to 3:30 and 6:00 to 9:30.

Posted in Pan Fried, Pork, Potsticker, Shrimp, Steamed, Vegan, Vegetarian, Veggie Dumplings | Leave a comment

Pop’s Bun Shop Philadelphia PA

Posted on March 17, 2025 by rundlea

Pop’s Bun Shop opened in the winter of 2024 and quickly got write ups in the Philly Inquirer and became popular on Instagram. The shop is a small corner bakery that sells its sweet sticky buns and Kolache, riffs on the Czech treat klobásník, from a to-go window. There is almost always a line down the block waiting to be served, especially on Friday and Saturday. My experience was that part of the reason for the line was that it seemed that everyone needed to have some sort of conversation with the server at the window, took some photos at the take-out window and then struggled to get their Apple/Google pay apps to work. The menu is handwritten on a school lunch bag taped to the inside of the glass door and items get crossed off the list as they sell out. The buns and kolache are baked in small batches and Pop’s stays open until they sell out. They are open Thurs 9am – 1pm, Fri 9am – 1pm and Sat 9am – 1pm/sellout. They typically sell three kinds of sweet buns and three types of Kolache, one sweet and the other two are savory. Ona random note I learned from Wikipedia’s interesting entry on Kolache, apparently they are big in Texas.

The Dumplings. Kolache are a type of stuffed, baked bun, and so are within the remit of Dumpling Hunter. Pretty consistently when I have walked past the store the two choices of savory Kolache are egg, cheese and tomato chutney, which I ordered, or sausage and gravy. The Kolache looked very similar to a Chinses baked bun. But my take on Pop’s Kolache is that it did not live up to the Instagram and media hype, in fact the bun was really bland. The cheese appeared to be either white cheddar or white American cheese, either way a very mild cheese, and the chutney was the least flavorful chutney I have tasted. The filling also needed more salt and a dash of pepper.

The Location: Pop’s Bun Shop is at the northern end of Philadelphia’s amazing Italian Markey, on ninth street at the corner of Catherine street. It is just down the street from the stellar Sarcone’s Bakery, which sells fresh Italian bread and tomato pie, and about 2 blocks from the famous Isgro’s Italian pastry bakery. If you are near the Italian Market and crave bread/pastry products Isgro’s and Sarcone’s are your top choices.

Posted in Bao, Buns, Kolache, Philadelphia | Leave a comment

Return to Din Tai Fung, downtown Seattle, WA

Posted on February 24, 2025 by rundlea

On this trip to Seattle, I returned to down town Din Tai Fung location which I reviewed previously here. As I have written before, I think Din Tai Fung’s soup dumplings are over rated, they are good and consistent restaurant to restaurant and outing to outing, but I do not think they deserve the cult following that have achieved. The wrappers are consistently thin and supple and almost never rupture or leak and the dumplings have a generous helping of soup. My critiques have been that the dumplings are on the small side, the pork filling is bland and they don’t cook them to a high enough temperature.

But after this latest meal I need to revise viewpoint somewhat. Ok, the pork soup dumplings are still under seasoned and the Shanghai style shumai are bland to the point of flavorless. But the truffle and pork soup dumplings are a sensation. The soup has a really strong truffle flavor that infused into the pork, which was actually well seasoned. The down side is that instead of the usual 10 soup dumplings, you only get five dumplings in an order of truffle and pork soup dumplings, for about the same price as the plain pork ones.

They also now have desert Xia Long Bao which use a very think sheet of mochi as the dumpling wrapper. We got the Chocolate & Mochi Xiao Long Baowhich had a ball of warm soft, almost molten, chocolate truffle inside. These things are genius.

Din Tai Fung has also stepped up its vegan game since I last was at one about a year before the pandemic. I recall the location in Seoul I tried about 10 years ago had no vegan dishes, the US locations I subsequently tried had a few dishes, but now they really seem to have expanded the vegan options.

Posted in Seattle, Shumai, Soup Dumpling, Vegan, Vegetarian | Leave a comment

Vivienne’s Bistro, Seattle, WA

Posted on February 17, 2025 by rundlea

The branding, design and aesthetic of Vivienne’s Bistro reminded me of PF Chang’s, so much so, that I initially thought it was a new upscale sub-brand of PF Chang’s. But Vivienne’s Bistro is a local Seattle area venture that started on Mercer Island. The original restaurant opened in 2022 serving Asian Fusion dishes and quickly made it onto multiple Seattle Best Of lists. The Executive Chef, Danna Hwang, is from Guangzhou, China and did stints at Cooking Doll Catering and Peony Kitchen, and then revitalized the 27-year-old China Harbor restaurant. The Sautéed Vegetables in Garlic Sauce was delicious and included the best sliced Lotus root I have eaten.

The Dumplings: I got the Pork Wonton and Seafood Soup, which was also excellent and was a perfect lunch sized meal on its own. The soup had big chunks of shrimp and 10-12 fat pork wontons with a tasty broth soup. The wontons did not have any excess wrapper luffing around in the soup, each wrapper was fully used to contain the pork, which was well seasoned and savory. I really enjoyed this soup and was pleasantly surprised by the food and bar service.

Location: I went to the Vivienne’s Bistro location in downtown Seattle which is in the Sheraton Grand Seattle building, at 600 Union Street. The original location is on Mercer Island in Lake Washington.

Posted in Seattle, Vegetarian, Wontons | Leave a comment

Pike Place Chinese Cuisine, Seattle, WA

Posted on February 6, 2025 by rundlea

Pike Place Market’s Pike Place Chinese Cuisine, and its sibling store Mee Sung Pastry, hold a special place in my heart. When I moved to Seattle in 1992 and lived at the youth hostel in Pike Place Market for a week, I ate my first meal in Seattle, a plate of pork pot-sticker dumplings, at Pike Place Chinese Cuisine. It is a tiny, long narrow restaurant with, what used to be stunning views of Elliott Bay, that are now partially obscured by a parking garage that was built between the market and the bay. But you can still see a little of the bay and the water. The restaurant has an extensive menu of Chinese-American classics, the scale of which is way out of proportion to the tiny kitchen. Mee Sung Pastry is the go to place for steamed and baked stuffed buns.

The Dumplings: I had full day of eating planned, with Pike Place Chinese Cuisine squeezed in between trips to Shanghai Garden and Din Tai Fung, so I only got a plate of pork pot stickers. I am not going to pretend that these dumplings were great, but there was a lot of nostalgia bundled up with them. It seemed like they had been quickly deep fried to heat them up and then lightly pan fried on the bottom, so the entire wrapper was slightly crispy and the bottom of the dumplings had a slight char. The filling was a little bland, but nothing that a some dipping sauce couldn’t elevate. Go there and have a plate of dumplings, a Tsingtao and check out the partial view. Then go to Mee Sung Pastry and get an excellent BBQ pork Bao. Also, while you are in the market get a Piroshky at Piroshky Piroshky.

The Location: Pike Place Chinese Cuisine is in Pike Place Market on the mezzanine level, below the Main Arcade. Mee Sung Pastry is across the street from the main markets.

Posted in Bao, Buns, Chinese, Pan Fried, Piroshky, Pork, Potsticker, Seattle | Leave a comment

NY Times Dumpling Recipes for Lunar New Year

Posted on January 27, 2025 by rundlea

For Lunar New Year the NY Times just published an article with five dumplings recipes – Kimchi Napjak Mandu, Chile Oil Wontons, Gok Jai (Vegetable Crystal Dumplings), Beef Dumplings with Zucchini, Tofu and Chives, and Chocolate Sesame Dumplings. I recently had something similar to the Chocolate Dumplings at Din Tai Fung, they have a Chocolate and Mochi Xiao Long Bao that was delicious.

Posted in News | Leave a comment

bibigo Frozen Kimchi Dumplings

Posted on January 2, 2025 by rundlea

After a long pandemic, my local H-Mart has returned to offering food samples and have been highly successful in getting me to buy new products. Recently they were giving out samples of bibigo pan fried kimchi dumplings, which was a convincing argument to buy a bag of these frozen dumplings. bibgo is a brand of the South Korean international food company, CJ CheilJedang Corporation, which was founded in the 1950s as a manufacturer of sugar and flour, as part of the Samsung Corp.

I have been really enjoying these dumplings, they have a strong cabbage kimchi flavor but are not overwhelmingly spicy, and they pan fry well. These dumplings are vegan and filled with cabbage, salted napa cabbage, onion, leek, green onion, dried radish, garlic, tofu, red pepper powder, vinegar and sesame oil.