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 klobásnĂ­k, 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.

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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 11th and 12th 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 CafĂ© 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 â€śI 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 CafĂ© and buy some pork dumplings.

The Location:  Ray’s is located on the Eastern edge of Philadelphia’s Chinatown, on North 9th 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 , , , , | Leave a comment