Return to Shanghai Garden, Seattle

Posted on March 31, 2013 by rundlea

We landed at SEATAC airport at 4:30 smack into the middle of Seattle’s terrible rush-hour traffic.  So rather than battle our way north past downtown to our destination we stopped in the International District and had dinner at Shanghai Garden.  I have reviewed Shanghai Garden before but their veggie dumplings are filled with seasonal greens, so I thought there might be something new to try.

The Dumplings The Garden has pan-fried or steamed pork buns, pan-fried of steamed veggie buns and chicken-shrimp dumplings with barley green wrappers; since I don’t eat chicken I skipped the last offering.

Steamed Veggie Buns – last time I was at Shanghai Garden I thought the veggie buns were pretty bland.  This time though these dumplings were filled with bok choy and were well seasoned, savory and had the distinct, slightly bitter flavor of healthy greens.

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Steamed veggie buns

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Grand Sichuan, NYC

Posted on March 30, 2013 by rundlea

Grand Sichuan is a New York City mini-chain of restaurants with locations in Hells Kitchen, Chelsea, the East and West Village, Flushing Queens and Jersey City. I have been to both the Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea locations and this review is for the Hell’s Kitchen spot. Since it moved from 9th avenue to 46th street the menu has shrunk a little, they no longer have the section dedicated to Mao’s favorite home style dishes. As long as you stay away from the American Chinese section the food here is really good, I especially like the sauteed spinach with chili peppers.

The Dumplings. Grand Sichuan serves pork and pork and crab roe soup dumplings, crystal shrimp dumplings, fried and steamed pork dumplings and Sichuan dumplings. Since I has just been to Cafe China and eaten their soup dumplings and Sichuan dumplings I decided to get them here as well and do a head-to-head comparison.

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Pork and Crab Soup Dumpling

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Cafe China, NYC

Posted on March 23, 2013 by rundlea

Michelin_starI have been to Cafe China several times since it opened and have tried a lot of the dishes which have almost always been excellent – try the fried rice with tea smoked duck. The decor evokes images of 1930s Shanghai but the food seems to have a lot sichuan influences.  This year the Michelin Guide gave Cafe China it’s first star, but I am not sure it deserves it.  The food is great, but on this most recent visit the service was lacking. After we sat down we realized our table was sticky and we had to ask for it to be cleaned. The bus boys didn’t really clear the table between courses and the servers seemed really harried – while we were eating two waiters tripped over customers and there were a couple of instances of servers dropping glasses or plates.  It was also difficult to get our check at the end of the meal.

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Himalayan Yak Restaurant, New York City

Posted on March 16, 2013 by rundlea

The Himalayan Yak Restaurant presents you with four menus – Indian, Tibetan, Nepali and “Exotic Himalayan”. The time I went, there was a great ambiance, a truly multi-national-ethnic clientele having a good time.  The restaurant has a pretty lively bar which you can eat at, but has no Himalayan beers (is there such a thing).  I would definitely go back to this place.

The Dumplings – the Himalayan Yak Restaurant has steamed or fried momo filled with beef, chicken, pork, yak or potato. Since I no longer eat beef or chicken, I went for the Yak Momo, which were delicious.

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Steamed yak dumplings

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Dumpling House, Arcadia CA

Posted on March 10, 2013 by rundlea

This outing to Dumpling House started as my second attempt to eat at Din Tai Fung, this time in Arcadia outside of LA.  We pulled into Din Tai Fung at 1:30 on a Sunday which seems to pretty much be prime time. We were told it would be at least an hour wait for a table for two.  So instead we headed down the street to Dumpling House, which I spotted on our way over to Din Tai Fung; I think this spot gets a lot of overflow business during rush at Din Tai Fung.  Overall I think this spot was decent and when you are hungry eating here beats waiting an hour or more for a table down the street.

Fried dumplings

Fried dumplings

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Franchia Vegan Cafe, Pan Asian, New York City

Posted on March 1, 2013 by rundlea
'Duck' steamed bun at Franchia

‘Duck’ steamed bun at Franchia

While its feet are firmly planted in Korea, Franchia is really a pan-asian restaurant with Chinese and Japanese sections of the menu. It also has an asian tapas menu on which the”Vegan ‘lobster’ ball stick” and “Vegetables dim sum buns” really stand out, and a must try item on the lunch menu is the “Peking Buns – Steamed buns stuffed with crispy vegetarian ‘duck’ and scallions” (photo to left). The food here is really good, and while it is all vegan, I don’t think meat eaters will feel like they are missing anything. The restaurant has a terraced design with three levels, reminiscent of a rice paddy, with a much higher end design than the dumpling houses usually reviewed here. Similarly, the chefs prepare food that is ornately presented and designed, this would be a good date spot.

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First floor of Franchia

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Posted in Kimchi, Korea, New York City, pan-Asian, Vegan, Vegetarian | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

XO Kitchen, New York City

Posted on February 23, 2013 by rundlea
Wall of specials

Wall of specials

XO Kitchen mainly serves dim sum style small plates and has a huge menu supplemented by at least two other specials menus and by specials and additions listed on pieces of paper taped to the walls. The menu ranges from American-Chinese dishes, which generally they don’t do well, to traditional Chinese dishes, to Japanese dishes, to some funky stuff – braised pickled pigs knuckles. While there are a few misses there is a lot of good food to try here.

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Phayul, New York City, Momo

Posted on February 17, 2013 by rundlea

There are thought to be ~9,000 Tibetans living in the United States and 7,000 are estimated to live in New York City. However, this is hard to verify since the US Census data on foreign born residents groups Tibetans with Chinese and does not provide separate numbers for Tibetans living in the U.S.  Regardless of the actual numbers there is a large Tibetan community in Jackson Heights Queens and this means there are restaurants selling Momos, the Tibetan dumpling. For my first Momo eating outing I wanted to try the two restaurants, Norling Tibetan Kitchen and Phayul, described in a NY Times article from February 2012.  The article didn’t provide addresses for these places and several online sources provide incorrect address information for them. As a result I walked about 20 blocks trying to find these places (correct directions are mapped below).

Norling Tibetan Kitchen is on a really busy block but was empty and had a C rating from the NYC Department of Health Restaurant Inspection team. So I quickly moved on to Phayul. The restaurant is tiny and is located on the second floor next to a beauty salon. Phayul has a counter that seats four people and five tables that seat another 20 or so people. There is a open kitchen on the other side of the counter where you can watch them hand roll dough and hand stuff the Momo. Service is pretty slow and the kitchen seems more focused on fulfilling the takeout orders than dine-in orders, but they also seem to be making dumplings to order.

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Seoul Dumpling Trail

Posted on February 9, 2013 by rundlea

I have plotted out a foodie walking tour of downtown Seoul that features dumpling stops. The walking tour takes you through some of the key sites in downtown Seoul and some of the best foodie spots.

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Vegan ricotta cheese ravioli recipe

Posted on February 2, 2013 by rundlea

Ravioli are the dumplings of Italy, and since my wife is a vegan, we recently tired our hands at making vegan ravioli. We adapted the tofu ricotta filling recipe from an online recipe for vegan lasagne. The original recipe had too much lemon flavor, so here we have halved the lemon jest and juice used, we also tripled the amount of parsley from the original and added in spinach. This came out really good.

Vegan ricotta ravioli

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