Neptune Polish Restaurant, New York, NY

Posted on August 26, 2013 by rundlea

best_pierogi_signNeptune is a small Polish dinner in New York City’s East Village neighborhood and is contributing writer, El Diablo’s, go-to spot for pierogies. I can understand his devotion to Neptune, the restaurant won best potato pierogi in the recent 2013 New York Best Pierogi Contest.  Neptune also has a full menu of Polish dishes including a tasty stuffed cabbage and kielbasa.  Unfortunately the potato pancakes were a miss, they tasted burnt and were really heavy. Continue reading →

Posted in New York City, Pierogi | Leave a comment

Ginger Garden, Amherst, MA

Posted on August 19, 2013 by rundlea

Since the decline of Amherst Chinese I have been looking for a new Chinese restaurant in Western MA, and Ginger Garden may become my new go-to spot. Its main menu is a pan-Asian mix of Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese and Chinese (American-Chinese), the type of thing I usually avoid, but they also have a Traditional Chinese menu. The traditional menu has a lot of interesting sounding dishes – Double cooked pork belly with chili leaks, Camphor tea smoked duck, Braised pig’s feet and beans in broth, Shrimp toasted rice in tomato sauce and three different preparations of sea cucumber.

Dumplings in Hot Chili Oil

Dumplings in Hot Chili Oil

Continue reading →

Posted in Chinese, Northampton, Pork | 1 Comment

Vegan Pho Soup Dumpling Recipe

Posted on August 12, 2013 by rundlea
Pho Bouillon Cubes

Pho Bouillon Cubes

These dumplings are a vegetable soup dumpling designed to mimic the flavors of Vietnamese Pho.  The filling could be made of any of the ingredients you often find in Pho, but I used spinach, tofu, carrots and scallions.  Bean sprouts are usually a prominent ingredient in Pho but they are hard to work with as a dumpling filler, so I don’t include them.  I use a Vietnamese Pho bouillon cube that you can find in many Asian markets.  To the left is a photo of the one I used.

Agar-agar is used in this recipe to make a vegan aspic, basically it turns the Pho stock into a gelatin that can be put inside the dumpling.  When the dumplings are steamed the Pho gelatin converts back into a soup. This effect is similar to the pork aspic used in conventional soup dumplings. Continue reading →

Posted in Recipe, Soup Dumpling, Steamed, Vegan, Vegetarian | Leave a comment

“Dumpling” Houses in New York City

Posted on August 8, 2013 by rundlea

My friend Dan has been analyzing the New York City Restaurant Inspection Data and did a search to find every restaurant in NYC with the word “Dumpling” in the name of the restaurant.  Below is a map of these restaurants, there are actually fewer restaurants that I would have expected.  My favorite discovery in the data is a spot called Dumpling King Pizza, on Avenue O in Brooklyn.

You can see his site at nygeog.com, I think his tag line “Geography, GIS, Geospatial, New York City, Computers, Music & Beer” says it all, although I don’t get his Phish obsession.

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Piroshky Piroshky, Seattle, WA

Posted on August 5, 2013 by rundlea

My wife has been telling me that products like Piroshkies, Empanadas, Pasties and Samosas do not count as dumplings, but are in fact, hand held pies.  For me a dumpling is a dough pocket that fully encloses a filling and so Piroshkies, Empanadas, Pasties and Samosas seem like they should count as dumplings. She argues that they are too large to be dumplings and further they can’t be dumplings as they are baked; dumplings are steamed, boiled or fried.

However, as a recent NY Times article points out, Empanadas are often fried and most of the Empanadas I see for sale in the Dominican neighborhoods of New York City are deep fried and for that matter a lot of the Samosas I see at Indian restaurants are fried too.  So I don’t think we can rule these products out as dumplings based on the cooking method – cooking method is not the sine qua non for defining a dumpling.  However, the size issue may be relevant, a Calzone meets the definition of a dough pocket that fully encloses a filling, but somehow the Calzone’s size prevents me from thinking of it as a dumpling.  I am not sure what the exact size threshold is for pushing a food out of the dumpling zone, but maybe like Supreme Court Justice Stewart defining porn, I know it when I see it.

Piroshky_Piroshky-Potato_and_Cheese

Without a sense of scale this Piroshky looks a lot like a dumpling

And speaking of Piroshkies, I recently checked out Piroshky Piroshky at the Pike Place Market in Seattle.  Piroshky Piroshky has been hand making and baking Piroshky on the premise since 1992.

Continue reading →

Posted in Piroshky, Seattle, Uncategorized, Vegetarian | Leave a comment

Pu Pu Hot Pot replaced by The Dumpling Room, Cambridge, MA

Posted on August 3, 2013 by rundlea

I periodically visit Cambridge, MA and stay at a hotel across the street from the restaurant Pu Pu Hot Pot, seeing the sign always causes me to flash back to Beavis and Butthead. On my most recent trip Pu Pu Hot Pot was no more, it had been replaced by The Dumpling Room.  I had hoped to do a review, but unfortunately The Dumpling Room was not yet open for business.  A bunch of the Boston food bloggers are posting in anticipation of its opening and there seems to be a good buzz.  Dumpling Room will serve Beijing Ravioli (pork), Taipei Ravioli (pan-fried pork), Chicken Dumplings (chicken and cabbage), Kimchi Dumplings, Emperor Dumplings (beef, chicken and shrimp), Papa Chen’s Veggie Dumplings (Taiwanese vermicelli, chives and egg), Patty Chen’s Vegan Dumplings (five spice tofu, celery, carrots, shitake mushrooms), Soupy Pork Buns, Nutella and Banana Dumplings, and Sweet Red Bean Dumplings.

Artist's rendering of Dumpling House posted in the window

Artist’s rendering of Dumpling House posted in the window

I mainly report on this so that my traveling companion, the Butthead to my Beavis, will see “Pu Pu Hot Pot” on his Facebook news-feed.

The Location  The Dumpling Room will be in Central Square in Cambridge MA, near the MIT campus.

Posted in Boston, Chinese, Kimchi, Pan Fried, Pork, Vegan, Vegetarian | 1 Comment

Pierogi Fest, Whiting Ind.

Posted on August 3, 2013 by rundlea

Last weekend Whiting Indiana held its 19th annual Pieorgi Fest, its population of 5,000 planned for crowd of 250,000 people for the event.  The event includes pieorgi tastings  (19 pierogi vendors were represented), pierogi eating contests, a pierogi toss, a beer garden, a whole lot of Polka music, a polka dance off and The International Polka Parade with Mr. Pierogi the pierogi mascot, the Babushka Brigade and a Precision Lawnmower Drill Team (I am not making this up).

We at Dumpling Hunter love Pierogis and salute Whitting, Indiana.  A review of Neptune Polish Restaurant will be posted soon, with commentary from El Diablo.

Taking a bite out of Mr. Pierogi

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Dumpling Poisoning in China

Posted on August 1, 2013 by rundlea

Lu Yueting pleaded guilty on Tuesday to, in 2008, spiking frozen dumpling made by Tianyang Food in China with the pesticide methamidophos. It was reported at the time that 80 people fell ill from the dumplings, but reports of the trial say ten people in Japan and four in China were sickened by the dumplings.  The incident led to the recall of millions of bags of frozen dumplings.  Apparently Lu Yueting was unhappy with his wages and wanted to get the attention of his mangers.

Obviously we at Dumpling Hunter are outraged at the notion of contaminating dumplings.

Lu Yueting in court

The crazy reports over the past couple of years of food contamination in China have led my wife and I to avoid all food made in China.  But in all fairness the bacterial contamination issues we keep seeing with beef and chicken in the U.S. are part of the reason I don’t eat these two meats at all.

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Lobster and Butter Soup Dumpling

Posted on July 29, 2013 by rundlea

These dumpling attempt to mimic eating a steamed lobster tail dipped in butter as a soup dumpling.  The lobster and melted butter are contained within the dumpling wrapper like a soup dumpling.  I made these once and they came out well but alas I did not take any pictures.

Ingredients:

Dumplings wrappers

A lobster tail ~ 1 lb

Butter

Old Bay seasoning

Lemon juice

Instructions:  Lightly season the lobster tail with Old Bay seasoning powder and they cut the tail meat up into small bite size pieces.  Hold the dumpling wrapper in the palm of your hand and use a knife to place a generous amount of butter in the middle of the wrapper.  Add a few drops of lemon on top of the butter and then place a piece of  lobster meat in the middle of the wrapper on top of the butter.  Moisten the edge of the wrapper and fold the wrapper together to completely enclose the filling and crimp the wrapper edges tightly together.

These dumplings can either be steamed or pan-fried, but I think with steaming more of the butter stays as a liquid inside of the wrapper.  Careful when you eat these, as the butter will be melted and scalding hot.

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Ping’s Dumpling House and Market

Posted on July 22, 2013 by rundlea

On past trips to Seattle I had read several good reviews of Ping’s on Yelp and in the Seattle Times and decided to try the spot on my next trip.  Ping’s started out as a market with a small dumpling counter in the back and has since cut back the space dedicated to groceries to make room for a small dumpling cafe area on one side of the store.  Since I was staying with a group of people and we were going to be eating big family style meals, I decided to try Ping’s frozen take-out dumplings, ~$12.00 for 50 dumplings.

The Dumplings:  Ping’s serves eight styles of dumplings for eating-in, including: pork and napa cabbage; pork and chive; beef and yellow onion; lamb with carrot and green onion; shrimp, pork and napa cabbage; wood ear fungus, tofu, chive and egg; and mixed vegetable. The menu also notes there are 20 varieties of frozen to-go dumplings and considering the list the server ran down for us, this number is probably about right.  I got the pork and chive and the vegan mixed vegetable dumplings – both of which were a bust.

Ping_pork_chive

Pan-fried frozen pork and chive dumplings

Continue reading →

Posted in Chinese, Seattle, Vegan, Vegetarian | Leave a comment