The search for the world's best dumplings

Vegetable Buns

Rating:  

If you have eaten fake meat in an Asian restaurant on the Eastern seaboard the chances are it was provided by May Way, the go-to place for fake meat products and vegan dry foods since 1994.  Their line of products include Veggie Prawns, Sweet and Sour Citrus Spare Ribs, Crispy Chicken Nuggets, Shumai, Dumplings, Delicious Chicken Legs, Spicy Gong Bao Chicken, Smoked Chicken, Corn Burgers and Vegetable Burgers.  May Wah imports its branded products from Taiwan, where they are made by Taoist and Buddhist manufacturers.  The inside of the store in New York’s Chinatown looks like a 7-Eleven, the store is brightly neon lit and the walls are lined with glass doored freezers like the coolers in a convenience store, but instead of being packed with ice-cream and soda they are packed with bags of frozen vegan and vegetarian food.  The staff at the store are really friendly and provide cooking tips and menu ideas and lots of free samples of their food, the lemon chicken and the BBQ Pork were really good, the grilled salmon was a little too fishy.

Packed with vegetables

The frozen vegetable fist sized buns come four to a pack and can be heated up in a micro-wave or steamed.   These were some of the best steamed buns I have tried. The filling is a mix of cabbage, carrots, glass noodles and either finely minced bok choy or broccoli – I couldn’t quite tell.   I went the steamer route to re-heat the buns which worked great and took about 15 minutes. The bread of the bun came out really light and fluffy and slightly sticky. The filling had a mild cabbage cruficerous flavor, but was also quite savory which balanced the sweetness of the bun bread.