The search for the world's best dumplings

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.

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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.

Posted in Frozen Dumpling Review, Kimchi, Korean, Mandoo, Pan Fried | Leave a comment

Furama, Philadelphia, PA

Posted on December 1, 2024 by rundlea

Furama is a new Dim Sum palace style restaurant in South Philadelphia where dim sum is served from carts that roam the dining room. I am conflicted about dim sum served from carts. I enjoy the tension/surprise of spotting a cart across the room that looks good and waiting for it to arrive at my table and then trying to understand what dishes are available, are they sweet or savory, shrimp, chicken or pork? But often in large restaurants the dishes are cold or luke-warm when they arrive to the table and I don’t enjoy dumplings with cold rice flour dough wrappers. The Sunday morning I was at Furama there were plenty of carts prowling the dining room, with lots of different dishes and all of the ones we picked were still hot when served.

Furama has a large open dining room with a lot of big round family tables and a few smaller two and four top tables. One wall is dedicated to a very large flat screen TV which seems to play continuously on a loop and is fairly distracting.

The Dumplings: we focused on the steamed dumplings, including the shrimp and pork shumai, the shrimp and chive dumplings, the shrimp and pea vine dumplings, and shrimp har gow. Overall the dumplings were all tasty, especially the shrimp and pork shumai, which were large, juicy, sweet and savory. But all of the dumplings were overcooked and so the rice flour wrappers tended to tear and spill their filling into the steamers or onto our plates.

The dish with tofu skins wrapped around pork, and some sort of crunchy vegetable, was really good. The tofu skin had been braised or marinated in a sweet soy sauce, which balanced the slightly fatty and savory pork. But the standout dish was the salt and pepper baked tiny squid, which were super salty, spicy, crispy and crunchy, and so good.

The Location:Furama recently opened in Wing Phat Plaza, the Vietnamese shopping plaza on Washington Street between 11^th and 12^th street in South Philadelphia.

Posted in Bao, Chinese, Chive, Crystal Shrimp, Dim Sum, Pea vine, Philadelphia, Pork, Shrimp, Shumai, Steamed | Leave a comment

Quick Reviews: London, Edinburgh and Glasgow

Posted on October 8, 2024 by rundlea

Itadakizen London. Near King’s Cross St. Pancras train station, Itadakizen is a plant based Japanese restaurant that serves deep fried vegan gyoza. The gyoza were excellent as was the Goma-Q, the vegan Karage and the Shoyu Ramen. I recommend this place.

The Pasty Shop, at King’s Cross Station. Forget going to the tourist trap of platform 9 and 3/4, waiting on line for a photo with the luggage trolley embedded in the wall and the Harry Potter Shop, instead turn around 180 degrees and go to the Pasty Shop. They have the traditional Cornish Pasty and some not so traditional varieties, and a vegan pasty and a vegan sausage roll. As you can see the warm orange lights they use in the display cabinet make the pastys look more golden than they really are, but they are quite tasty.

Soul Vegan, Edinburgh, Scotland. In the university district around Edinburgh University you can find Soul Vegan which serves South East Asian vegan food. Overall we were a little disappointed by the food, but the pan-fried to seared vegan dumplings were quite good, but a little heavy on the blackened/charred flavor. Sen Viet (Vietnamese) and Sora Lella (Roman/Italian) were much better options for vegan food. Sora Lella was so good we ate there two nights in a row.

Sainsbury’s Melton Mowbray Pork Pie. This classic English mini-pork pie was a delicious calorie bomb. A single mini-pie is meant to serve two!!, at 256 kcal, and 17.6g of fat (25% of recommended daily allowance) per serving (1/2 a pie). This is a dumpling the same way a pasty is a dumpling. Available at every Sainsbury’s I have ever gone to.

St. Bernard’s Bar, Stockbridge Edinburgh, of the many Scottish pubs I tried in Edinburgh this was the best. This is a small pub decorated in an endless array of antiques, or quasi-antiques, with a proprietor sporting old timey mutton chops and suspenders. The ground floor is so small that when he seats, you the proprietor will let you know that you may be sharing a table with another party. When I visited he was giving everyone free tastes of a Belgium Ale called Pauwel Kwak, and like any good dealer, only the first taste is free. The Kwak was excellent and is served in a special 10 ounce, bulb shaped glass. St. Bernard’s is dog friendly.

Namu Korean Kitchen, Glasgow. Namu Korean Kitchen served up some of the best Korean food we have had in a while, with lots of vegan options. The service can be slow, but the food is worth the wait. I think they use frozen dumplings, but if so, their dumpling sommelier chose an excellent veggie dumpling for the restaurant to serve. Very good dumplings served with a very tasty dipping sauce.

Posted in Korean, Pan Fried, Pasty, Pork, Travel, Vegan, Vegetarian, Veggie Dumplings | Leave a comment

Ray’s Café and Tea House, Philadelphia, PA

Posted on September 28, 2024 by rundlea

Ray’s Café and Tea House is a family run Taiwanese café that introduced siphon coffee brewing to Philadelphia and serves some great house made dumplings. Ray’s is a small place that sells drinks and food and ground coffee and packages of tea and has table seating for about a dozen customers. Their siphon brewing rig has multiple glass chambers that hold water and coffee grounds and as the water is heated it moves into the chamber that has the coffee grounds and brews. Ray’s also has a machine to make ice coffee that adds room temperature water very slowly, one drip per second, to the grounds and takes 12 hours to brew a cup of coffee.

The Dumplings: Ray’s has a pretty extensive menu of Taiwanese food and American-Chinese dishes. Their home made, pan-fried dumpling menu includes; pork & napa, pork & leek, vegetable, and chicken curry dumplings, leek boxes and a sampler plate. I got an order of pork & napa dumplings and an order of the vegetable dumplings. The dumplings are very large, which explains why the waiter looked at me funny and asked if I was sure when I asked for two orders. A single order of dumplings would make a filling lunch. The pork & napa dumplings were delicious, savory, well-seasoned and juicy and the wrappers were nicely pan-fried seared on the bottom. In contrast the vegetable dumplings were bland and uninspired and I would have been disappointed if I had just ordered these dumplings. Luckily I was stuffed after eating the order of pork and napa dumplings.

There is an interview with the owner in a 2007 issue of Gastronomica in which she laments that people do not buy enough of her dumplings. She quoted as saying “I hope that someday I’ll sell so many that my pot will boil continuously, and my chef and kitchen helper will be able just to stand there and make dumplings to order.” Hopefully this blog post will help her achieve that goal. Go to Ray’s Café and buy some pork dumplings.

The Location: Ray’s is located on the Eastern edge of Philadelphia’s Chinatown, on North 9^th street between Cherry and Race streets.

The Philadelphia 76ers basketball team is trying to build a new arena in Chinatown, a move that is seen as threatening to the continued existence of the neighborhood. There has been a groundswell of opposition to building the arena, but Mayor Parker just announced an agreement with the 76ers to build it. The project now needs City Counsel approval to move forward. There is a long history of arenas being build and displacing communities and I am hoping the Counsel rejects the plan.

Posted in Chinese, Pan Fried, Philadelphia, Pork, Potsticker, Vegetarian, Veggie Dumplings | Tagged Chinese, chinese-food, Dim Sum, dumplings, food | Leave a comment

Stargazy, Philadelphia, PA

Posted on September 3, 2024 by rundlea

Philadelphia’s Stargazy is styled as a classic east London pie and mash shop, and totally hits this mark, even down to the green parsley liquor sauce on the mash. It is a small store front shop with counter service and 3 or 4 tables. In addition to pie and mash, Stargazy sells Scotch Eggs, sausage rolls, Shepard’s pie, pasties and Bedfordshire Clanger (aka Trowley Dumpling). On Fridays they have Fish and Chips, on Saturdays a Full English Breakfast and on Sundays they have a full Roast Dinner. They also sell a small selection of imported English groceries and soda’s. Unfortunately in my experiences going there, the east London classic, jellied eels, have not been available.

The Dumplings: I have argued previously that pasties are a form of dumpling, and Stargazy offers a variety of pasty options including; the Classic Cornish, cheese and onion, the Priddy Oggy, Potato Masala and a Cheesesteak style. On my latest visit I tried the Potato Masala pasty, which was essentially a vegetable samosa in a pasty format and baked rather than fried. The pasty wrapper was buttery and flaky and the filling consisted of curry flavored potato, onion and peas. This pasty was delicious and filling, and I am planning to work my way through the rest of their pasty styles.

The Location: Stargazy is at 1838 East Passyunk Ave in South Philly, just north of Miflin Street and next to Big Catch, which I have reviewed previously. East Passyunk is one of Philadelphia’s major commercial and entertainment corridors and a great place to bar hop and go out to eat.

Posted in Pasty, Philadelphia, Vegetarian, Veggie Dumplings | Leave a comment

Ramen Kuraku, New York, NY

Posted on August 17, 2024 by rundlea

Ramen Kuraku opened during the pandemic in a Columbia University building neat the 168^th street medical center, making it one of the northern most ramen restaurants in Manhattan. The restaurant offers shio black, miso and shoyu ramen broths, served spicy and non-spicy, with pork or chicken toppings. They also serve curry ramen and abura soba, which is warm no soup ramen. I have tried the shio black pork tonkatsu ramen, non-spicy, twice now and both times it was quite good. They also have a variety of rice bowls and serve beer.

The dumplings: Ramen Kuraku sells Takoyaki and a variety of dumplings: pork gyoza, chicken gyoza, ebi shrimp gyoza, Ika squid gyoza; and tofu vegetable gyoza. They are served steamed or pan-fried and the pan-fried versions come spicy and non-spicy. While I have enjoyed the ramen, the dumplings I tried at Ramen Kuraku were disappointing. The pan-fried gyoza needed more time on the pan, the bottoms of the gyoza were not crispy or charred enough, and the filling tasted a little metallic. The Takoyaki were not spherical and were flat on one side so that each one looked like half a takoyaki. This shape is a sign that the restaurant is using frozen Takoyaki and they are probably throwing them in the fryer to heat them up and re-crisp them. Takoyaki should be served blazing hot with lots of toppings, but the ones I got at Ramen Kuraku were not hot enough and needed more toppings.

The Location: Ramen Kuraku is located on Broadway between 165th and 166^th streets, in the Washington Heights neighborhood. It is near the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center 168^th street A/C/1 subway stop.

Posted in Gyoza, Japanese, New York City, Pork, Potsticker, Takoyaki | Leave a comment

Dim Sum Bloom, (ne Shun Lee Cafe, and Shun Lee 98th), New York, NY

Posted on June 23, 2024 by rundlea

The food at Upper West Side’s Dim Sum Bloom was meh when I ate there, but the back story of the restaurant is interesting. It originally opened, to great anticipation, as “Shun Lee Cafe” and then later changed its name to “Shun Lee 98th St”. The opening announcement was greeted with joy by Upper West Siders, who though they were getting an outpost of the beloved Shun Lee restaurants (Shun Lee Palace on East 55^th and Shun Lee West on west 65^th). But the menu at Shun Lee Café/98^th didn’t include any of the Shun Lee classics and the food was not nearly up to the quality of the OG Shun Lee’s.

It turns out that during the height of the pandemic an accountant working for the real Shun Lee had pitched the restaurant’s owners on opening a more casual dining version of the classic Shun Lee. Apparently, the owner of Shun Lee initially bought into the concept and partnered up with the accountant, but then decided to back out of the arrangement and sold his ownership stake to the accountant. But Shun Lee inexplicably agreed to license their name to the new venture, causing much confusion on the Upper West Side. In the wake of customer confusion and disappointment, even though they apparently had a legitimate right to the name, the owners of Shun Lee Café/98^th decide to change the restaurant’s name to Dim Sum Bloom.

The Dumplings: As its name suggests, Dim Sum Bloom has a large dim sum menu with a lot of dumplings options. We tried the Pork Soup Dumplings, the Pork and Shrimp Shumai, the Duck Dumplings, the Fried Fish Wontons, and the Honey Roast Pork Buns. Overall, the dumplings were competently executed but were not great, and with so many excellent options for dumplings on the Upper West Side, a Dim Sum restaurant needs to be more than competent to be worth eating at. The Fried Fisk Wontons were the one standout of the meal, and if I was dragged back to the restaurant I would order them again. The wontons were filled with white fish, that had a mild, sweet fish flavor without being fishy, and were near perfectly pan-fried. But with Moon Kee two blocks north, Happy Hot Hunan a few blocks further up on Amsterdam Ave and the newly opened Na Xiang Express on Broadway and 107^th, there are some great dumpling options that I’ll go to instead of Dim Sum Bloom.