BB Tee House, Philadelphia PA

Posted on February 23, 2024 by rundlea

BB Tee House is a new Vietnamese café in South Philly specializing in bubble tea and Banh Mi sandwiches. They also sell Vietnamese coffee, prepared foods, frozen foods and Vietnamese pantry staples.  They have excellent Banh Mi sandwiches and Bao and really good summer rolls.  On any given day they have 4-5 varieties of summer roll, my current top pick contains Chinese sausage and omelet.    

The Dumplings:  BB Tee sells baked BBQ pork buns (Char Siu Bao) and steamed pork buns (Banh Bao).  The Char Siu Bao are flat slightly sweet, fluffy buns, about 4 inches across, and are packed with juicy sweet BBQ pork.  The buns are good, but between the sweetness of the BBQ sauce and of the bun, they are a little one note.  On the other hand the steamed pork buns are sensational, probably the best I have eaten (sorry Tran’s World Food Market). These fist size buns are filled with seasoned ground pork, a whole Quail egg and Chinese sausage, all contained in slightly sweet fluffy bun.  The sausage is hard and slightly chewy and is salty and sweet with some soy notes, while the ground pork has a mild, savory taste and then there is a whole boiled egg.  These buns are large and one bun is sufficient for a solid lunch.         

Banh Bao
Char Siu Bao
Banh Bao, on a plate by Dumpling Hunter

The Location:  BB Tee is located in Wing Phat Plaza on Washington Avenue between 11th and 12th street in South Philly.  Wing Phat Plaza is a shopping plaza anchored by a large Vietnamese supermarket, that has several Vietnamese restaurants (one of the highest rated Pho restaurants in Philly), a Dim Sum restaurant and an excellent Indonesian restaurant.     

Posted in Bao, Bao Battle, Philadelphia, Pork | Leave a comment

Stick to My Pot Potstickers

Posted on February 2, 2024 by rundlea

Stick to My Pot, Potstickers is a small dumpling restaurant on West 35th street near Penn Station.  The restaurant has a long wooden counter, with metal stools, along one side of the space, and counter service at the back, where you order and pick up your dumplings.  They serve five kinds of dumplings, braised pork bao, and a selection of small plates, including noodles with scallion sauce, scallion pancakes, spring rolls and pickled Napa cabbage.

The Dumplings:  The dumpling orders are available in three sizes, small at four pieces, medium at six pieces and large-at eight pieces and they can be ordered fried or steamed.  The choices are: the Classic –pork napa cabbage and chives; Shrimp – shrimp, water chestnut, and shepherd’s purse; Chicken – chicken, napa cabbage and cilantro; Vegan – pumpkin, edamame, shiitake mushroom and corn; and Wontons – chicken, spinach, shepherd’s purse, served with a sesame sauce. From what I saw of the preparation of my order and a few other orders, the dumplings are all cooked fresh while you wait. 

I know I should have gone for the classic fried potstickers, but the Dumpling Hunter is on a diet, so I went for the steamed Classic dumplings and the braised pork bao.  The pork dumplings were well seasoned, tasty and juicy, a good dumpling, but not outstanding.  The dumplings came with two thimble sized tubs, one with a soy-based dipping sauce and the other with hot chili oil.  It was impossible to dip the dumplings into the tiny tubs, so the only way I could enjoy the sauces was to bite off part of the dumpling and then pour a bit of the sauce into the dumpling. 

The white fluffy, open bao came with generous serving of pulled pork, that had been braised for six hours, preserved vegetables and cucumber.  The pork had a lot going on flavor-wise; sweetness, savory soy and slightly spicy. I would return to Stick to My Pot for this snack.   Top Tip on the Bao: eat this first.  The bao is served in a little paper envelope and mine kept steaming while I ate the dumplings.  So by the time I turned my attention to the bao, the fluffy bun was over cooked and had lost its ability to contain the pork.  As a result it was a messy, but very tasty snack.

The Location: Stick to My Pot Potstickers is on 35th street, between 7th and 8th avenue.  This the southern edge of Manhattan’s Garment District and is very close to Penn Station.  This restaurant will likely become my snack destination before riding the rails.

Posted in Bao, Buns, Chinese, Chive, Gyoza, New York City, Pork, Potsticker, Steamed | Leave a comment

Shanghai Time, Manhattan, New York

Posted on December 18, 2023 by rundlea

Shanghai Time had me at “it our mission to introduce the traditional Shanghainese Shengjianbao to the New York City culinary community”, I love Sheng Jian Bao and great ones are hard to find in the U.S.  I first tried this style of dumplings at Yang’s Fried Dumplings in Shanghai, which launched my ongoing search to find these dumplings in the U.S. and inspired me to start this blog.  Shanghai Time has got a huge menu, with an array of Shanghainese dishes, lots of dumpling offerings and three styles of Sheng Jian Bao. The marinated pork belly on the cold appetizers menu is amazing, try this. The restaurant is a casual café with super-fast service and doesn’t sell alcohol, but you can bring your own.  Each table has the all-important instructions for eating Sheng Jian Bao without burning yourself with the soup.

The Dumplings:  Shanghai Time serves three types of Sheng Jian Bao: pork, which has a white flour wrapper; pork and crab meat, which has a yellow wrapper; and shrimp, which has a black wrapper.  We tried the pork and pork and crab sheng jian bao, the rice shumai with bacon and the pork and shrimp potstickers.  Both styles of bao were delicious with at least two Chinese soup spoons worth of soup in each bao.  While most places in the U.S. that serve Sheng Jian Bao pan-fry the bottom of the bao, Shanghai Time cooks them the traditional (and better) way with the pleated side pan-fried.  Because the pleats tend to be the thickest part of the wrapper this preparation produces a crispy outer layer to the fried part of the wrapper, with a layer of fluffy sweet dough wrapper beneath the crispy exterior.  Weirdly, while the copy on their web-site makes the point that they prepare the bao in the traditional manner, the banner graphic on their web-site shows the Sheng Jian Bao fried on the non-pleated, bottom side. 

Shanghai style shumai are stuffed with pork flavored savory, sticky rice, usually with flecks of BBQ pork mixed into the rice, making the filling similar to Southern U.S. style “dirty rice”.   Shanghai Time takes these shumai to 11 by adding bacon to the rice.  So good!! The pork and shrimp pot stickers were also really good; flavorful pork and chunks of sweet shrimp with enough juice that they border on being a soup dumpling.  We also got the BBQ pork buns.  The word from my dinning companions was that they were really good, but I was too full to indulge.

The Location.  Shanghai Time is in NYC’s Garment District neighborhood, on 38th street between 7th and 8th Avenues.  It is located almost at the corner of 8th avenue and this stretch of 38th street is pretty dismal, so I recommend coming from 8th Ave as opposed to 7th Ave.

Posted in Bao, Buns, Chinese, New York City, Pan Fried, Pork, Potsticker, Rice Dumplings, Shanghai, Sheng Jian Bao, Shrimp, Shumai, Soup Dumpling, Sticky Rice | Leave a comment

Ninja Bao, Philadelphia

Posted on December 11, 2023 by rundlea

Ninja Bao is a small kiosk sized restaurant in the underground concourse of Philly’s Suburban Station. They have an extensive menu that serves bao, gyoza, buns, wontons, sheng jian bao, and ramen.  Ninja Bao is counter service and has seating for about a dozen people, and when I was there for lunch it was doing crazy amounts of take-out business.  Both of my dumpling orders were served in to-go boxes with little tubs of dipping sauce. This is a great place to get tasty food during duty jury lunch breaks.

The Dumplings: Ninja Bao has an extensive menu of bao, gyoza and wontons and I tried the pork wontons in chili oil and the sheng jian bao (pan fried soup dumplings).  The wonton filling does not have the usual aromatics of ginger and garlic mixed into the pork, instead they use aromatics-infused water to make the wonton skins.  They take this approach so that you get the flavor but don’t bite into pieces of garlic or ginger in the filling.  The tasty filling is also flavored their homemade soy sauce.  The wontons come doused in chili oil and adorned with chopped scallions and cilantro, but while flavorful, the chili oil is disappointingly mild.

The sheng jian bao come 6 to an order and are pan-fried golden brown on the pleated side.  The bao skins are admirably thin and the pork filling is seasoned with scallions and fresh ginger and is super flavorful.  The bao I was served only had a modest amount of soup inside, but was rich and flavorful. Ninja Bao is a tiny place so you get your soup dumplings almost directly off the fry pan, so they are really hot. Make sure you follow correct procedures for eating these buns or you will get burned.

The Location: Ninja Boa is in Suburban Station’s underground concourse near City Hall.  Use the escalators across from City Hall (directly west of City Hall) to go down to the concourse level.  At the bottom of the escalators you should see the Post Office, Ninja Bao is about 20 yards to the left of the Post Office, past the Dunkin Donuts.   

Posted in Bao, Buns, Philadelphia, Pork, Sheng Jian Bao, Soup Dumpling, Wontons | Leave a comment

Lisa’s Dumplings, New York, NY

Posted on September 30, 2023 by rundlea

Lisa’s Dumplings is in the Turnstyle Underground Market, one of the NYC MTA’s attempts at an Asian style underground shopping arcade.  Lisa’s has an open kitchen concept where the dumpling wrappers are rolled out on a counter in front of the customers and there is a team working away putting stuffing in the wrappers and pinching them closed. Like all of the food outlets in Turnstyle, Lisa’s is a to-go kiosk, but there is seating in the main aisle of the arcade. Lisa moved from Northern China 20 years ago and since then has been building a hospitality empire, with a fine wine and spirits shop in Massapequa, Panda Bubble Tea and investments in several restaurants in Flushing, Queens.

The Dumplings:  The menu includes dumplings stuffed with: pork & Chinese cabbage; pork & green pepper; pork & sauerkraut; chicken and green peppers; beef & celery; beef & onion; shrimp, egg and chives; shrimp, pork and chives; and veggies – Chinese cabbage, mushroom, and carrot.  All of the dumplings can be ordered steamed or pan-fried.  The dumplings are served in clam-shell to-go containers with a small tub of dipping sauce. 

I went with the classic, pan-fried pork and Chinese cabbage, which were delicious.  The wrappers were medium thick, and so slightly chewier than pan-fried gyoza style wrappers, and were seared on just the bottom surface of the dumpling.  The pork and cabbage filling was savory with a strong pork flavor and the filling was really juicy.  Biting into these dumplings when they are first served risks having hot juice spilled on your chin or shirt.

My one complaint with Lisa’s is that the dumplings are a little pricey, 7 dumplings for $10.99.  Maybe these prices are the result of inflation or the MTA trying to subsidize commuters by charging high rents for the kiosks in the arcade.        

The Location:  The Turnstyle Underground Market is an underground arcade of shops and food kiosks that stretches from the 59th street Columbus circle subway station to 57th street.  These underground arcades are common in Asian cities and some of the ones I have visited in Seoul go for blocks and blocks in multiple directions from the subway station.  NYC only has a few of them and the Turnstyle Market is one of the MTA’s latest efforts to create these types of commercial and eating spaces.   

Posted in Chinese, New York City, Pan Fried, Pork, Potsticker | 3 Comments

Corey’s Crafty Vietnamese Cuisine, Philadelphia

Posted on September 4, 2023 by rundlea

Corey’s Crafty Vietnamese Cuisine has been criminally overlooked by the Philly food press. As of 9/4/2023 it has 100% five-star reviews (on 129 reviews) on Google, but no articles have been written about the restaurant by the local papers, online news outlets or food blogs.  Corey’s serves up some of the best Vietnamese food in Philadelphia, with amazing rice dishes, Pho, Banh Mi and Bun. The Com Dac Biet is sensational – it is a broken rice dish with your choice of a Vietnamese BBQ pork chop or boneless BBQ pork, with pate and shrimp and a fried egg that is cooked with insane technique. The vegan salt and pepper crusted tofu is another standout dish and is the best substitute for salt and pepper shrimp I have come across.  They serve a house made chili oil that is blazing hot, but has layers of flavor, some of which comes from Kaffir lime, which brings bright and tangy notes. Chef Corey has a classical French cuisine background, having worked in top restaurants in Philly, and opened up his own venture in the penumbra of the pandemic.    

The Dumplings: Corey’s menu has five dumpling options, each of which is served with its own sauce.  The vegan Portobello Mushroom and Leek dumplings come with a soy balsamic vinaigrette over baby greens, and while the dumplings could stand alone flavor-wise, you will want to sop up all of the vinaigrette with the dumplings and eat the greens garnish to get every last bit of the sauce.  This dish can be ordered with steamed or pan-fried dumplings. 

I have also had the Golden Bags several times, which are deep-fried dumplings filled with shrimp and crab, wrapped in a pouch made of a wonton wrapper that has been tied shut with pandam leave strips.  These dumplings come sitting on a sweet and spicy chili sauce.  The shrimp and crab filling always tastes fresh and flavorful and the thin crispy wrapper provides a great textural contrast to the filling.  One issue with this dish is that it is a little hard to get the chili sauce onto the dumplings, a side bowl of sauce that the dumplings could be dunked into would be welcome.          

Another favorite is the Berkshire Pork and Shrimp Dumpling served with a roasted bell pepper sauce. The wonton wrapper on these dumplings is thicker, so when you order the deep-fried version, the wrappers are crispy, crunchy and bubbled like a cannoli shell.  These dumplings have a seriously unctuous, savory pork flavor, typical of Berkshire pork, that is delicious, but I am never quite sure what the shrimp bring to the recipe.  As with the other sauces, the roasted bell pepper sauce is a tasty compliment to the dumplings. 

In addition to these dumplings, Corey’s serves Crispy Curry Chicken Dumplings and Beef Dumplings.

      

Deep Fried Berkshire pork dumplings, Portobello and Leek Dumplings and Golden Bags

The Location:  Corey’s Crafty Vietnamese Cuisine is on the 1300 block of South Street in Philadelphia.  Their web-site is pretty poor, lacks photos of a lot of the dishes and generally looks like it is from the early 2000’s.  But ignore their weak web presence and go for the food.

Posted in Dipping Sauce, Pan Fried, Pork, Shrimp, Steamed, Vegan, Vegetarian, Vietnamese | Leave a comment

Soy Sauce Review

Posted on July 9, 2023 by rundlea

Shibanuma Koikuchi Pure Soy Sauce (far right), has the clearest and thinnest color of the four sauces but has a bold long-lasting taste. This sauce is crafted by a 330 year-old, soy sauce maker, that uses traditional production methods, with wooden barrels that have been in use for decades for brewing.  This sauce is recommended for sushi and sashimi, particularly white fish.  This is an unpasteurized soy sauce so the enzymes in the sauce are still alive.

Junmai (Pure Rice) Gluten-Free Shoyu (second to right), is made from sake lees (residual yeast left over from sake production), rice, rice koji, salt and water.  This rice ‘soy sauce’ is made by Taisho-ya Shoyu, an esteemed soy sauce and miso specialty maker in Shimane Prefecture.  The company spent 10 years to develop this sauce as a gluten free substitute for soy sauce. This sauce is lighter bodied, like a pinot noir of soy sauce, and is delicious.

Kanro Soy Sauce (second to left) is a medium bodied sweet soy sauce that is darker and more like a table soy sauce.  This soy sauce is brewed without salt, but instead with another soy sauce which has been previously aged for two and a half years in cedar barrels. This mixture is brewed and then aged for another two and a half years, bringing the total brew/aging time to 5 years.  Kanro Soy Sauce is brewed by Igeta Shoyu, a century-old brewery in Shimane Prefecture, which has produced this sauce since 1912. This sauce is recommended for use as a dipping sauce or as a finishing sauce, not as a cooking sauce.

Smoked Marudaizu (Whole Soybean) Soy Sauce (far left) is thick and deep black in color and has a smoky flavor that is a quick intense hit of umami and smoky aroma.  To achieve this flavor the sauce is smoked with cherry wood, rather by using an artificial smoke aroma liquid.  Takasago has been making soy sauce in the Izumo region of Japan since 1877.  This was my favorite of the four sauces and makes a great dumpling dipping sauce.

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Dim Sum Garden, Philadelphia

Posted on June 12, 2023 by rundlea

The owner of Dim Sum Garden claims to be the 5th generation descendent of the Chef who invented Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings).  This is obviously hard to verify, but online reviews are consistent in praising the soup dumplings. When we were there was a squad of cooks making fresh soup dumplings and the food flew out of the kitchen fast.  Dim Sum Garden is a narrow restaurant that goes back deep into the block, with some tables next to the open kitchen, it sells beer and is also BYOB. 

The Dumplings:  Dim Sum Garden has a deep menu of dumplings and buns and we tried the pork soup dumplings, the fried pork soup dumplings, the sticky rice shumai and the pan-fried pork dumplings. Al of the dumplings were good and I am happy to report that the online reviews are correct, the soup dumplings were excellent.  The wrappers were slightly chewy and kept the soup and filling in place, and not a single dumpling sprang a leak in the steamer we were served.  The soup was fatty and luscious and the pork filling was delicious. These were some of the best soup dumplings I have had in Philadelphia so far.

But the clear star of the show was the pan-fried pork soup dumplings, the Sheng Jian Bao. Ever since I first had these buns at Yang’s Fried Dumplings in Shanghai I have been obsessed with finding good versions of these buns in the U.S.  Dim Sum Garden has the best rendition of these buns I have found so far.  Sheng Jian Bao are a type of soup dumpling with a slightly fluffy, semi-leavened dough wrapper. The buns are prepared by first steaming them and then pan frying the bottom of the bun until they are charred brown.  The Shanghai style Sheng Jian Bao typically have thinner crispy wrappers, while versions from other regions have thicker bread-like wrappers.  Most Shen Jian Bao served in the U.S. are not Shanghai style and the soup gets absorbed into the thicker fluffy wrapper, which is always disappointing.  The version served at Dim Sum Garden have thin wrappers with lots of liquid soup inside.  Instead of just being crispy on the bottom, their Sheng Jian Bao are entirely crispy and look like puffed up ping pong balls.  This makes me think they prepare them by steaming them, pan frying them on the bottom and then quickly deep frying them.  Putting aside the mechanics of preparation, these bao were fabulous, great charred dough flavor, lots of soup and really tasty pork filling.

The Location:  Dim Sum Garden is at 1020 Race Street between 10th and 11th in Philadelphia’s Chinatown which is adjacent to the Convention Center.    

Posted in Bao, Buns, Chinese, Dim Sum, Pan Fried, Philadelphia, Pork, Sheng Jian Bao, Shumai, Soup Dumpling, Sticky Rice, Xiao Long Bao | Leave a comment

Dan Dan, Philadelphia

Posted on May 18, 2023 by rundlea

The Philadelphia area mini-chain, Dan Dan, serves up Sichuan and Taiwanese dishes.  Dan Dan spun off from Han Dynasty’s University City location in 2015, with a first location in Rittenhouse Square and then locations in Ardmore and Wayne.  Dan Dan has a 10-seat U shaped bar on the ground floor, with three tables for two in the front window and a six-seat communal table behind the bar. The balcony has 30 seats and offers a view of the bar and the street. 

The menu is heavy on dishes with chili oil.  I tried the pork belly with sweet garlic chili oil which was insanely tasty.  It is a cold dish of paper thin sliced fatty pork belly dressed with diced garlic, slivered scallions, sweetened soy sauce and chili oil.  It is on the small plate menu but it is a large portion that could easily be shared by two.  The waitress sort of tried to wave me off the dish by saying that some people don’t like the texture of the pork fat, but I thought the dish was excellent. 

Dumplings:  The menu includes several dumpling options: wontons in chili oil, dumplings in chili oil, and pot stickers (chicken or veggie).  The difference between the wontons and dumpling in chili oil, both of which are stuffed with pork, is that the dumplings are dressed with sweetened soy and chili oil (probably the same sauce as the cold pork belly) and the wontons are dressed with black vinegar and chili oil and so have a sour vinegar edge.  Because I ordered the cold pork belly first and was surprised with how large it was and couldn’t restrain myself from eating it all, I only got one dumpling order: the wontons in chili oil.  The wontons were tasty and had lots of excess dumpling wrapper to carry the sauce, but the sauce was crazy spicy.  The the dish was so burning spicy I couldn’t finish the wontons and my mouth was on fire for like an hour afterwards.  The vinegar chili oil sauce was way more intense than the sweetened soy chili oil on the cold pork belly.

The location:  Dan Dan is located near Rittenhouse Square, in Philadelphia.  It is on 16th street just south of Sansom street.          

Posted in Chinese, Philadelphia, Pork, Potsticker, Sichuan Dumplings, Wontons | Leave a comment

Pasta B Jinghua, Milan. Italy

Posted on April 28, 2023 by rundlea

Milan’s Pasta B Jinghua is the Italian outlet of Singapore’s well regarded Jing Hua Xiao Chi, which is known for its home-style Chinese cooking. Pasta B Jinghua’s first floor is dominated by an open kitchen that looks out onto the street and a dumplings making station with a hand cranked pasta machine, while the dining room is in the basement. The first time I was there the restaurant was playing an awesome playlist of roots reggae and ska: dumplings and ska is Dumpling Hunter heaven. The restaurant is 2 or 3 blocks from the Duomo and is a great alternative to the tourist Italian restaurants that populate the blocks around the Duomo. The homemade noodles with vegetables is a delicious vegan option, as is the homemade noodles with soup and vegetables. I ate at Pasta B Jinghua three times while I was in Milan and highly recommend it.

The Dumplings: Jing Hua Xiao Chi serves a wide array of dumplings but is known for its pan-fried pork dumplings, and Pasta B Jinghua seems to be replicating the original’s menu in Italy. The pan-fried dumplings have thicker wrappers than is typical for a pot-sticker or gyoza and the wrapper is closed with a single long pinched fold rather than a series of crimped folds and the ends of the dumpling are left open. They reminded me of mini English sausage rolls. The dumplings are filled with Chinese cabbage, Chinese chive, pork, shrimp and crab, although the pork flavor is most assertive. The flavor of these super juicy dumplings was sensational, one of the best pork dumplings I have tried. After my dinner at Pasta B Jinghua, I went back for lunch just to order these dumplings again.

The “Little juicy steamed meat dumplings “Syorompo” stuffed with pork” were Shanghai soup dumplings that had been overcooked to the point that the wrappers broke and could not contain the soup and meat filling. Although Pasta B Jinghua’s web site describes these soup dumplings as the stars of the menu, they were really disappointing. The vegetarian steamed dumplings are vegan and contain Chinese cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, kikurage mushrooms, carrot, fried tofu and vermicelli. This was a very good veggie dumpling with a strong cabbage flavor and savory umami from the mushrooms. The Gyoza Pie was a large, fried, flat disc shaped pie, with a flaky crust and the same filling as the pan-fried dumplings. The Gyoza pie was tasty but less juicy than the pan-fried dumplings and I preferred the dumplings.

The Location: Pasta B Jinghua is at Via Ulrico Hoepli, 3, near via Agnello, about two blocks directly north of the east end of the Duomo square. This square is one of the major tourist attractions in Milan and is surrounded by Italian restaurants catering to tourists. Pasta B Jinghua seems to attract patrons who know great Chinese food.

They have a slightly thicker crust than the average pan-fried dumpling and are folded to leave both ends open.
Their bottoms are crisp fried to perfection and the juicy filling gushes into your mouth when you bite into them.

Posted in Bao, Chinese, Chive, Crab, Gyoza, Italian, Noodles, Pan Fried, Pork, Potsticker, Shanghai, Shrimp, Soup Dumpling, Steamed, Vegan, Vegetarian, Veggie Dumplings, Xiao Long Bao | Leave a comment