Momos are Himalayan dumplings found in Tibet, Nepal and Northern India. They are commonly filled with potato, chicken, yak, or beef and are flavored with ginger, coriander, cilantro and garlic. I tried making potato momos with a recipe I cobbled together from several recipes found online. These came out really well.
Home made momos about to be steamed
I saw the following post on Facebook, and while it is not directly related to dumplings, I completely agree with it.
Real Kimchee Jiggae
“So the current foodie kimchee fad has gotten distinctly annoying. First of all, kimchee is a generic term, like cheese. Thus nappa kimchee is one type, like cheddar is one type of cheese. Second, I’ve yet to see a single kimchee recipe in the food media that isn’t a total insult to the art that my mother and aunts have mastered over a lifetime of study and generations of lore. There needs to be a new word developed for faux-kimchee bastardization equivalent to the word cheeZe.” Copied with permission
Has adding kimchee to everything become the new adding bacon makes everything better? Although Bunn’s new bacon and Kimchee bun is quite good.
The Huffington Post recently published a short piece on pierogies with some mouth watering photos. Pierogis are East European style dumplings that come in either savory potato, cheese or meat filling styles or as sweet desert style dumplings. I am planning a tour of the East Village’s Polish and Ukrainian restaurants soon.
It has been a tough month eating dumplings, this will be my third mediocre to negative review this month.
Dumpling Man is a small, low key, dumpling snack bar in New York City’s East Village. This spot has an open kitchen where you can see the dumplings being hand made and has two small counters to eat at. You place your order at the front register and when the dumplings are ready they yell out your number for you to come pick up you order. The dumplings are served in paper boats on cafeteria trays and come garnished with some curls of scallion.
Bunch, the steamed bun take out kiosk located at Food Gallery 32 (on 32nd Street in New York’s Korea Town & reviewed here), has a new name, Bunn, and a slightly altered menu. Bunch has become one of my go-to spots for a snack in midtown, they serve large, excellent, steamed buns. With the re-branding they have add Gua Bao to the menu and a bacon and kimchi steamed bun. Gua Bao are essentially braised pork and slaw sandwiches that use steamed Chinese white bread as the bun. While it sounds like the bread might be heavy and soggy, when done well, it actually comes out as a light, fluffy bread. Bunn serves a spicy, braised pork that is delicious. They have also instituted a frequent eater loyalty program, after 5 orders you get a free one.
Nom Wah opened in 1920 and claims to be the first dim sum restaurant in New York City. Originally located at 13-15 Doyers Street as a bakery and a tea parlor, Nom Wah moved to 11-13 Doyers Street in 1968. The interior looks like a diner or luncheonette with booths along the left side and back wall and a lunch counter along the right wall. It serves dim sum all day long but rather than ordering from carts pushed around the restaurant, you order by putting an X on an order card next to the items you want. When I was there the patrons were a mix of hipsters and older Chinese customers.
I have been running some google searches to find new dumpling spots to review on future trips (review of my Philly Vegan Dumpling Road Trip coming soon), and found this recent San Fran Examiner review of Kingdom of Dumplings. This looks great, need to find a ‘business’ reason to go to San Fran soon.
I have previously reviewed Amherst Chinese (Am-Chi) the home of my favorite dumpling, the pea shoot and shrimp dumpling. Unfortunately, the pea shoot dumplings are only available seasonally, and some years, depending on the crop, they are not available at all. After previously writing about the pork and leek dumpling I recently went back to review their spinach dumplings.
Spinach Dumpling
Its turning out to be a big day for soup dumplings in the media. The LA Weekly blog has an article online reviewing the Top 10 Soup Dumpling spots in LA. As expected Din Tai Fung comes in first place – I have tried to go to Din Tai Fung in LA and Seoul with no success – (review of my failed attempt). The article also has an interesting piece on the different types of soup dumplings.
SlashFood at Huffington Post just posted an article and video from 626 Night Market on how to eat Soup Dumplings without scalding your face. They also posted a photo album of dumplings from restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley, CA.
The search for the world's best dumplings 