Windsor Dim Sum Cafe, Boston, MA

Posted on July 7, 2014 by rundlea

Photo Jun 21, 1 07 01 PM (HDR)The reviews on Yelp indicate that Windsor Dim Sum Cafe is the best Dim Sum house in Boston’s Chinatown, and my informal polling of people on the street in Chinatown seems to back that up.  The Windsor doesn’t provide the traditional Dim Sum experience of ordering food from little carts that are pushed by the staff from table to table, instead the waiters provide cards listing all the dishes and you put check marks next to what you want.  The restaurant helpfully supplies a menu with pictures and numbers that correspond to the check boxes on the card.

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Posted in Boston, Buns, Dim Sum, Pork, Shrimp, Soup Dumpling, Steamed | 1 Comment

Ollie’s, New York NY

Posted on June 30, 2014 by rundlea

Locally known as “Oillie’s”, the Manhattan mini-chain Ollie’s has been serving up Sichuan inspired American-Chinese food to West-siders for 25 years.  I recently noticed that the 116th street Columbia University location had a poster in the window advertising that they now had Xia Long Bao.

The Dumplings:  Ollie’s serves pork, shrimp, chicken and vegetable dumplings that come either steamed or pan-fried and steamed little juicy buns with or without crab.  The steamed dumplings are a mini-dumpling, about half the size of a dumpling you would normally expect to get.

Steamed Shrimp Dumplings – These dumplings were a solid effort with a reasonable amount of shrimp flavor.  Based on the uniformity of the dumplings pleats I think these were commercially made rather than home made.

Steam shrimp mini-dumpling

Steam shrimp mini-dumpling

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Posted in Buns, New York City, Shrimp, Soup Dumpling, Steamed, Vegetarian | Leave a comment

Xi’an Famous Foods, New York, NY

Posted on June 22, 2014 by rundlea
Original Queens location

Original Queens location

I really like the boiled lamb dumplings that are indigenous to western China and the city of Xi’an. New York’s Xi’an Famous Foods chain-lette got its start as a ten seat noodle bar in the Golden Shopping Mall basement food court in Flushing Queens that in 2006 caught the attention of Anthony Bourdain.  With a newly minted business degree the owner’s son, Jason Wang, jumped into the business to help handle the Bourdain inspired flood of customers and saw the potential for expanding Xi’an across NYC. Now there are two locations in Queens, four in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn. I have stopped by the East Village and the Upper West side locations and they are both small, close to being hole in the wall joints, that seat maybe a dozen people. Since Boudain, a parade of TV foodies have stopped in to try the hand pulled noodles, including Andrew Zimmern, Adam Richman and Bobby Flay.

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Posted in Boiled, Chinese, Lamb, Vegetarian | 1 Comment

Ping Pong Dim Sum, Washington, DC

Posted on June 16, 2014 by rundlea

ping_pong_logoI hear you can get excellent Asian food in the surrounding suburbs but in D.C. proper I have come to expect the worst, with the low point being the time I opened a dumpling steamer to find a cockroach stuck to a dumpling.  Within this context I think Ping Pong Dim Sum is D.C. good.  The restaurant has a wide array of steamed dumplings and an acceptable bar, the lychee martini was good but there are only three beers on tap and four in bottles.  Overall their dumpling dipping sauces probably spoke to me more than their actual dumplings.  But they are good about marking which dumplings are vegetarian, vegan and/or gluten free. Continue reading →

Posted in D.C., Dim Sum, Pan Fried, Pork, Shumai, Soup Dumpling, Vegan, Vegetarian | Leave a comment

Kung Fu Steamed Little Buns Ramen, New York, NY

Posted on June 9, 2014 by rundlea

KungfuramenAs a huge fan of Kung Fu movies I was predisposed to like Kung Fu Steamed Little Buns Ramen just based on the name and before I ever read the strong review in the New York Times.  Thankfully all of my pent up hopes for this place were not disappointed.  Kung Fu Ramen serves excellent Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings) and Sheng Jian (Shanghai pan-fried pork buns), and is perhaps only surpassed by those at Shanghai Asian Cuisine.  The chef, Peter Song, grew up in Fushun, in northeastern China, but learned the craft of making hand pulled noodles at the Lan Zhou Handmade Noodle stall in the Golden Mall in Flushing, Queens.  Then, before opening Kung Fu Ramen, he returned to China for advanced study with a noodle master.  You can see Chef Song pulling noodles in the open kitchen and hear the thump-thump of him smacking the noodles onto the counter as he pulls them out.  Chef Song also had a career in TV and movies in China and one of the walls is adorned with photos from this part of his life, including, if I am not mistaken, a photo of him with the great Wu Ma, who was in A Chinese Ghost Story, Prodigal Son, Project A, Miracles and many other classic Hong Kong films.

The Dumplings: There is a wide selection of dumplings available at Kung Fu Ramen which I have only begun to sample (there will be repeat reviews of this spot).  For this outing I went with the Kung Fu Soup Dumplings, the Shanghai pan-fried pork dumplings and the vegetable dumplings.

Kung Fu Soup Dumplings

Kung Fu Soup Dumplings

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Posted in Buns, New York City, Pan Fried, Soup Dumpling, Vegetarian | Leave a comment

Shanghai Garden Update, Seattle Wa

Posted on June 2, 2014 by rundlea

I recently returned to Seattle’s Shanghai Garden, one of my favorite Chinese restaurants on the west coast (see my prior posts here and here), to find they had upped their dumpling game even further.  The lack of a soup dumpling had been one of my only complaints about this spot, but now their tasty steamed pork buns are full on soup dumplings packed with luscious pork broth.

Shanghai Garden fills their vegetable dumplings with seasonal greens and this season’s pan-fried vegetable dumplings tasted fresh, bright and savory.

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Tea Magic, New York NY

Posted on May 27, 2014 by rundlea

Tea Magic provides the local bubble tea (boba milk tea) fix for Columbia University students.  They also sell steamed Chinese buns and have a cooler with cooked boiled dumplings and noodles in to-go containers.  They will microwave the dumplings for you to eat in, but I got some to go and pan-fried them at home.

The Dumplings: Boiled shrimp, pork and chive and pork and cabbage dumplings are available, as are an assortment of steamed Chinese buns.  The dumplings are brought in each day from Flushing Queens’ Chinatown; I’m not sure of the origin of the buns, but I assume they are also from Flushing.

Pan fried to-go Pork and Chive Tea Magic dumplings

Pan fried to-go Pork and Chive Tea Magic dumplings

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

XO Taste, New York NY

Posted on May 19, 2014 by rundlea

I previously reviewed XO Taste’s sister restaurant, XO Kitchen, which I like a lot.  The XO restaurants have such huge menus of Chinese Dim Sum dishes that I thought it was worth doing another review.  XO Taste has pretty much the same menu as XO Kitchen, but with a few Japanese and Korean dishes mixed in and has soup dumplings, which I don’t remember seeing at XO Kitchen.

The Dumplings:  For this go around I tried the Har Gow, the crab and pork soup dumplings and the pan-fried Japanese style dumplings.

Har Gow – These are a steamed shrimp dumpling with an intricately pleated crystal wrapper.  In my experience very few places do Har Gow well, often the wrapper is rubbery and gelatinous, but XO Taste pretty much nailed these.  Their Har Gow had a slightly elastic but delicate wrapper and the shrimp filling was particularly sweet and fresh tasting.

Har Gow

Har Gow

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Posted in Dim Sum, Gyoza, Japanese, New York City, Pan Fried, Shrimp, Soup Dumpling | 2 Comments

The Mill Korean Restaurant, New York, NY

Posted on May 12, 2014 by rundlea

Photo May 03, 2 36 10 PMThe Mill Korean Restaurant is an ex-diner turned Korean restaurant near Columbia University.  The Mill (ne Mill Luncheonette) was originally a greasy spoon diner with an Orthodox Jewish owner that in the early 90s began a slow-motion metamorphosis into a traditional Korean restaurant.  I remember when the Mill was 95% U.S. diner food with a few Korean dishes on the menu prepared by a recently hired Korean sous chef.  Now the last vestige of the that diner heritage is the Lime Ricky listed in the drinks section. Continue reading →

Posted in Mandoo, New York City, Vegetarian | 1 Comment

Jin Ramen, New York, NY

Posted on April 28, 2014 by rundlea
Tonkotsu ramen

Tonkotsu ramen

Jin Ramen, sitting in the shadow of the 125th street station of the number 1 subway line, is probably the northern-most ramen joint in Manhattan.  They do a rich and complex Tonkotsu ramen (pork bone broth), their Chashu Pork is really good and they have a long list of extras that can be added to any of the soups.  They also have seafood and vegetarian broths.  The same owners also just opened a Japanese tea shop next door that serves Donburi and will apparently soon have sake.

Jin Ramen has Chicken Gyoza on the appetizer menu, but as long time readers know I don’t eat chicken so my dining companion ordered them and wrote up a guest review.

Chicken Gyoza

Chicken Gyoza

The Dumplings, a guest review:  Jin Ramen is a nice little joint in Harlem. A pretty good place to get your ramen fix as you come out from this winter’s hibernation. The staff was friendly and service was on point. But my companions and I we were kinda split on their Dumpling Game. Their chicken and scallion gyoza was IMHO kinda bland in the flavor dept. Had it not been for the heavy vinegar influence in the soy sauce the whole experience might not have even been worth mentioning one way or the other.

They do however get 10 cool points for proper texture and consistency. The gyoza were actually fried to perfection and the added crunch from the fresh scallions made up a little for their lack of overall flavor.

All in all though still an excellent spot to get “your ramen on”…

-DH

The Dipping Sauce:  I didn’t try the dumplings but the dipping sauce was stellar, very vinegary but with a complexity such that I couldn’t really identify all of the ingredients.  The dipping sauce makes it worth ordering the gyoza.

The Location:  Jin Ramen is in Harlem, on Broadway just below 125th street.  125th street is one of the central commercial strips in Harlem and is at the bottom of a deep valley that runs East-West through Manhattan, so the number 1 subway line, which is otherwise underground, is several stories above the ground at 125th street.  Jin Ramen is on the west side of Broadway at the bottom of the escalator up to the subway stop.

Posted in Gyoza, Japanese, Vegetarian | Leave a comment