February is Dumpling Month

Posted on February 6, 2015 by rundlea

The media world seems to be dubbing February “Dumpling Month”.  The NY Times posted a really tasty sounding dumpling recipe for Lunar New Year and Lucky Peach is posting a series of dumpling articles.  David Cheng’s essay, “The world’s most underrated dumpling” is a spot on description of the joys of eating Shen jiang bao.  There is also a great essay from Mei Chin on the tradition of making dumplings for the Chinese New Year, and rounding out the essays posted so far, there is a really in-depth “field guide for dim sum”.

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Miss Korea BBQ, NY, NY

Posted on February 2, 2015 by rundlea
Kimchi Dumplings

Steamed Kimchi Dumplings

I have probably eaten at two thirds of the restaurants along Manhattan’s 32nd street Korea Town corridor and I have been trying to complete my tour, so for a recent lunch I stopped in at Miss Korea BBQ.  As its name suggests Miss Korea BBQ is mainly a Korean barbeque joint.  Each table has a hot plate grill set in the middle of the table and suspended just above each grill there is a steam-punky looking copper metal exhaust duct: at first glance it looks like each table has copper column sticking out of the center of it.  The restaurant looks like something out of the movie Brazil. Continue reading →

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Chopsticks, Grace Bay, Turks and Caicos

Posted on January 26, 2015 by rundlea

Chopsticks is one of the few Asian restaurants on Turks and Caicos but is essentially an airport terminal food court “Wok and Roll” level Chinese restaurant. They charge a $10 delivery fee and it still took an hour to get the food, on top of that, the portions are small and expensive.

Disintegrating dumplings

Disintegrating dumplings

The Dumplings: they sell steamed pork, chicken, prawn and vegetable dumplings, although the chicken ones are listed as momos and the others are listed as dim sum. They come four to an order and run between $10 and $14 per order. The menu in the tourist dining guide that is handed out at the airport depicts what looks like soup dumplings in a bamboo steamer, but I think this is more aspirational than real.

Do not order their dumplings for delivery, by the time they got to us the wrappers had started to fall apart and had adhered themselves to the bottom of the to-go container. To eat the pork dumplings I had to resign myself to eating deconstructed dumplings; the naked pork meatball filling and chunks of thick rubbery wrapper. The vegetable dumplings were impossible to get out of the container in one piece and disintegrated into a sort of vegetable hash. The vegetable dumplings were vegan, but considering the quality, they get no points for that.

These were deeply bad dumplings

The Sauce: The dumpling sauce appeared to be soy sauce with some sesame oil floated on top. They sent me one tiny container for two orders of dumplings.

The Location: Chopsticks is located in Grace Bay on Sandcastle road near the The Seven Stars Resort, it is behind the Grace Bay Gourmet grocery store.

Posted in Chinese, Pork, Vegan | 1 Comment

Otafuku x Medetai, New York, NY

Posted on January 19, 2015 by rundlea
Otaku logo

Otafuku logo

Otafuku x Medetai began life as a tiny nook selling Takoyaki through a window to customers standing on the street. You would see little knots of people huddled over paper boats filled with blazing hot balls of crispy fried dough stuffed with pieces of octopus. Since then they have moved down the street to a slightly larger space with an larger industrial size Tako-pan and a standing counter that can accommodate about six people. The old spot used to make Takoyaki to order but sadly this is no longer the case at the new location.

In regards to the name, their web site says “Otafuku, the Goddess of Mirth, is our symbol not only because she looks like one awesome lady but also because she brings happinessinto people’s lives. We hope our authentic, Japanese street food will make you smile the way she does.” Takoyaki from  Otafuku x Medetai gives me a stupid grin. Continue reading →

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Google is Taking Away The Tools I Use To Blog

Posted on January 14, 2015 by rundlea

Google_logoGoogle seems to have been making unwelcome changes to some of the tools I use to run Dumpling Hunter.  It looks like I can no longer embed RSS feeds of custom Google news searchers, so no more Google Dumpling News.  Luckily I was able to replace this with a RSS feed of Dumpling News from Bing News – thank you Microsoft.

Google also migrated its customized map tool to My Maps which lacks the ability to embed maps with customized zoom and centering.  This makes it very hard to include new restaurant location maps into my posts.  The large map of N. American Dumpling Spots still works and you can click on a restaurant in the drop down list of restaurants to help locate the place you are interested in.  The Google forums are quite agitated over this omission in the My Maps tool.  Any one know of a good alternative mapping tool I could use?

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Return to Xi’an Famous Foods, New York NY

Posted on January 12, 2015 by rundlea
Spicy and Sour Vegetable Dumplings

Spicy and Sour Vegetable Dumplings

Spinach Stuffing Doused with Sauce

Spinach Stuffing Doused with Sauce

Xi’an Famous Foods has seven locations in New York City, although the original spot in Flushing Queens and the spot in midtown don’t sell dumplings.  I previously tried the lamb dumplings at Xi’an Famous Foods and to balance out my meat eating tendencies I recently went back to try out their vegetable dumplings.

The Dumplings:  The fresh boiled vegetable dumplings have green spinach juice infused dough wrappers and are stuffed with a giant wad of spinach, some glass noodles and a little egg (so vegetarian, not vegan) and come topped with black and white sesame seeds and cilantro and doused with spicy and sour sauce.  These were some of the best vegetable dumplings I have tried, the spinach tasted fresh and alive and each dumpling is so packed with spinach that a serving of dumplings probably counts as your entire recommended daily intake of vegetables.  The dumplings also make an excellent delivery vehicle for Xi’an Famous Food’s great sauce.  The best way to eat these dumplings is to bite off part of the wrapper and then spoon lots of sauce onto the spinach filling.

The Dipping Sauce:  The dumplings are served with Xi’an’s secret sauce poured over them – a spicy and sour sauce that seems to include at least chili oil and vinegar and has a flavor profile that is similar to Chinese hot and sour soup.  The sauce left my lips and mouth tingling for about 15 minutes after I finished eating these dumplings.  I am not quite sure which is better the dumplings or the sauce.

The Location:  I have been going to the Xi’an Famous Foods location in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, located on Broadway between 102nd and 103rd.  Its a small spot with counter space for maybe a dozen people and a sound track of hip hop music programmed by the owner’s son.

 

Posted in Vegetarian | 1 Comment

Ful Green Family, Kimchee Flavored Vegetable Frozen Dumplings

Posted on January 5, 2015 by rundlea

Photo Dec 23, 9 11 25 PMRating:  stars_5

There is almost nothing written on the web about these dumplings or this company.  A Swedish blog, Gastronomibloggen, has a review of their veggie dumplings and MyFitnessPal and FatSecret have the calorie and nutritional data for several of the Ful Green Family products, including the Kimchee Flavored ones.

The Kimchee Flavored Vegetable Dumplings are shaped like traditional Korean Mandu and look like typical frozen Korean dumplings.  But these are some of the best frozen dumplings I have tried, the filling was crisp and crunchy, and these were by far the spiciest Kimchee dumplings I have retrieved from the freezer aisle.  I defrosted the dumplings in the microwave and then pan-fried them so the wrappers were crispy on the bottom.  These dumplings are vegan.

 

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Veselka, New York City

Posted on December 22, 2014 by rundlea
Pierogi at Veselka

Pierogi at Veselka

Veselka is an East Village classic, serving up Ukrainian food around the clock to locals and late night bar crawlers.  Today’s full service restaurant had it’s beginnings in 1954 as a news stand that also served soup and sandwiches and then in 1966 expanded into a full coffee shop.  A subsequent expansion brought Veselka to its current design; a classic styled coffee shop counter and stools in the front and an open dinning room in the back.  It is currently owned by the founder’s son-in-law and managed by the founder’s grandson. Veselka serves up some classic diner fair and a great selection of classic Ukrainian dishes, including; stuffed cabbage, Kielbasa, meat balls, Bigos, Goulash and absolutely amazing potato pancakes, it also sells Ukrainian beer. But obviously the reason we came was for the pierogi. Continue reading →

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Hibachi Dumpling, New York, NY

Posted on December 15, 2014 by rundlea

Photo Dec 03, 9 35 08 PMNew York City’s East Village is quickly developing a Dumpling Row of innovative, sometimes quirky, and often tasty dumpling joints. While geographically in Dumpling Row Hibachi Dumpling is light years away from having these qualities.

The Dumplings: for a place called Hibachi Dumpling this spot has a surprisingly limited menu of dumplings, you can have pan fried pork and chive dumplings or no dumplings. Immediately upon ordering, my dumplings to-stay were unceremoniously plopped down on a tray in an aluminum to-go container. These dumplings had been pan fried at some point in the past but had sat in their container until loop warm and limp. Instead of crispy and golden the dough wrappers were grey and spongy. These dumplings were nasty and even at $1.99 for four dumplings they are not worth eating. Continue reading →

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Mimi Cheng’s, New York City

Posted on December 8, 2014 by rundlea
mimi_cheng

The Mighty Veggie and the Re-invented Classic dumplings.

Mimi Cheng’s is a relatively new joint on what is fast becoming the East Village dumpling row and has been getting a lot of good press lately. This dumpling house is named for the mother of the co-owners sisters Hannah and Marian Cheng, and mom is often upfront at the dumpling making station hand rolling dough and stuffing dumplings. It is a pretty small spot with a communal table that seats about eight and then counter space that seats maybe another dozen people.

Mimi Cheng’s makes an elevated dumpling using high-end ingredients and cooking to them to order.  They have partnered with Fleisher’s Grass-fed and Organic Meats in Brooklyn and the Lancaster Farm Fresh Co-op to source their meats. The pork is from pasture-raised pigs from a small, sustainable farm in upstate New York and the chicken is sourced from small family farms in Lancaster County, PA. They don’t use meat that has been given antibiotics or hormones to promote growth. Continue reading →

Posted in Boiled, New York City, Pan Fried, Pork, Vegetarian | Leave a comment