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 →

Posted in New York City, Pierogi | Leave a comment

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 →

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

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

New Big Wong, Washington DC

Posted on November 24, 2014 by rundlea
New Big Wong's fried pork dumplings

New Big Wong’s fried pork dumplings

Usually I am skeptical of restaurants in Washington, DC’s Chinatown but New Big Wong has built a reputation as a spot where chef’s and restaurant staff gather for late night Chinese food – Mike Isabella (of Top Chef fame) and Nick Stefanelli are known to head there after hours.   New Big Wong came into existence in 1992 when Michael Weng bought Big Wong and changed up the menu from purely American-Chinese to a mix of American-Chinese and Traditional-Chinese dishes.  There is apparently also a informal menu of dishes that can be ordered for those in the know.  I recall eating at Big Wong back in the day and being underwhelmed by the food, especially compared to what I was getting in NYC’s Chinatown. Continue reading →

Posted in Chinese, D.C., Pan Fried, Pork | 1 Comment

Plump Dumpling/Pho Seng/Mamak, New York City

Posted on November 17, 2014 by rundlea
New Plump Dumpling Logo

New Plump Dumpling Logo

AKA Mamak

AKA Mamak

It is hard to know even where to start with this place. Maybe it is the fact it is called Plump Dumpling and Pho Seng and Mamak; the owner appears to be operating three restaurants out of one space and in a prior permutation it sold sushi too. Maybe it is the grudge match between Dumpling Man on St. Marks, the spot that pioneered East Village dumplings, and the Plump Dumping persona because the original Plump Dumpling logo looked too much like the Dumpling Man logo. Then there is the owner. When my group indicated we wanted to get some dumplings and started asking about the menu, like what are Peanut Dumplings?, the owner cut us off and declared that he would bring us dumplings and we would eat them. Within three minutes of him storming off to the kitchen multiple plates of steamed dumplings were deposited in front of us. Unfortunately, I have a food allergy to chicken and no one could tell us which plate was the pork verses chicken dumplings. Both have the same wrapper and the fillings are both seasoned with Hoison sauce and looked so identical, so I didn’t try either. This spot needs a refresher course on food allergies. Continue reading →

Posted in Pork, Shrimp, Vegan, Vegetarian | Leave a comment

Google Dumpling News Feed Broken

Posted on November 13, 2014 by rundlea

Seems like Google has changed its News Feed system, my news feed has stopped listed Dumpling related news.  I will have to get that fixed.

-DH

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Gogogi, Washington Heights, NY

Posted on November 3, 2014 by rundlea
Fried shrimp dumplings

Fried shrimp dumplings

My day job has been crazy lately so I have been doing more take-out dumplings than I should. Gogogi is probably the Northern-most Korean restaurant in Manhattan, there are plenty of sushi joints run by Koreans in Northern Manhattan, but this the most uptown spot selling Korean food.  Gogogi mainly sells Korean BBQ meats over rice and Bib Bim Bop, but also has fried beef, shrimp and vegetable Mandoo. I think their main target customers are the students and physicians at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center.

The Dumplings: I ordered in the shrimp Mandoo, which showed up fast and were still hot and crispy when they arrived. These juicy dumplings were deep fried and were filled with chunks of shrimp, grated carrot, slivered scallions and a green vegetable that I think was super finely chopped broccoli. The overall flavor was relatively mild but pretty enjoyable.

The Dipping Sauce: the Mandoo came with a tiny tub of dipping sauce that was impossible to dip a dumpling in, so I ended up pouring the sauce over the dumplings. The sauce was a sweetened soy sauce with a little bit of vinegar tang.

The Location: Gogogi is on Broadway between 163rd and 164th in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood.

Posted in Mandoo | Leave a comment

New China 1, Dumpling Hunting in Detroit

Posted on October 27, 2014 by rundlea
Award winning delivery

Award winning takeout

I recently took a business trip to Detroit and when I checked into my downtown hotel the front desk guy told me that the hotel restaurant and room service were out of commission, but here have some menus for pizza delivery. So I donned my Mighty Mighty Bosstones hoodie and took to the streets for a dumpling hunt in downtown Detroit. In pretty short order I came across a liquor store and New China 1, the local ghetto Chinese take-out. The guys in the liquor store gave me some top tips on food at New China 1 and their recommendation for the Pork Lo Mein was spot on. New China 1 has also won some recent accolades, in 2010 it made the Top 100 list “In recognition of Excellence in Chinese Cuisine” in the Top Takeouts category.

The money-food exchange airlock

The money-food exchange airlock

New China 1 showed the remnants of the bad-old days, there was the remainder of a plexiglass partition that in the past would have divided customers from staff and there was a rotating air-lock like device that your food would have been passed through. At some point in the past the staff would have been completely sealed off from the customers.  Today some of the plexiglass has been removed and you can hand your cash directly to the teller and the rotating air-lock is used to hold menus. Continue reading →

Posted in Chinese, Gyoza, Pork | Leave a comment

In the News

Posted on October 20, 2014 by rundlea

I’ve had a busy couple of weeks at work and a couple of work dinners, so I haven’t had a chance to get out and try new dumpling spots to review.  On the plus side I did get to eat at Le Bernardin and Fig & Olive in the same week.  A couple of pieces of news caught my eye recently that I thought I would share.

  • Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown hit Shanghai and featured several dumpling eating outings.
  • Also in Shanghai, a Sports Illustrated reporter,  Courtney Nguyen, who is covering Asian tennis tournaments wrote up a nice dumpling tour post.  She hit my favorite spot, Yang’s Dumplings, even going to the same location I was first taken to by colleagues in Shanghai.  She also wrote up a great list of reasons to be skeptical about Din Tai Fung.  I have basically had the same reaction at the LA and Seoul Din Tai Fung locations.
  • The owners of Mom’s House Chinese Market, a great Asian market in Amherst MA, have opened Mom’s Dumpling and Noodle in the old Mango Mango spot in downtown Amherst.

 

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Dumpling Crimper, Kitchen Gadget

Posted on October 13, 2014 by rundlea

Dumpling Crimper

I have always crimped and pinched closed the wrappers of my dumplings by hand, but I was recently in my local Asian food market and saw these plastic clam-shell style dumpling crimpers and thought I would try them out. My take on them is that they produce a decent dumpling with some nice features but I will probably stick to hand crimping.

The circumference of even the larger of the two gadgets is smaller than the standard round dumpling wrapper available in Asian markets, so you can’t really pack a lot of filling into the dumpling. Until you get used to the smaller volume it is hard to keep the edges of the wrapper free of filling and get a clean closure. Also you get a fairly wide fringe of crimped dough around the edge. But if you pan fry the dumplings this fringe of dough fries up nicely and provides a crispy crunch feature to the dumpling. The crimping worked well and the dumplings stayed closed throughout the whole pan frying and steaming process.

The dumplings pictured above were stuffed with tofu, snow pea vine shoots and kim chi.

Posted in Kimchi, Recipe | Leave a comment