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 | 	- One bite into a pork and dill dumpling was all it took before I was hooked on Mother's Dumplings several years ago. I would dream about the fresh, chewy dough and the flavourful, juicy fillings between each weekly visit. 
The restaurant's interior is so bad it's good. The completely mismatched (in material, height, and colour) tables are crammed together in the crowded front room and along the wall across a barrier that hides the busy chefs at work. Collaged customer comments that range from sincere to bizarre are framed and displayed along the walls. Against the wall of the entrance, stacks of fantasy novels beg to be swapped for or just taken into a good home. The television sets perched overhead in each room are set to a perpetual screen saver of wild plants and flowers. I most recently also discovered a web cam sitting atop a dividing wall in the very back. Very curious.
The food is delicious and cheap. Besides the obvious dumplings, the menu also includes other not traditionally Chinese dishes such as kimchi and seaweed salad. It wasn't until my most recent visit that I finally got to venture off the beaten dumpling path though. On top of three orders of different dumplings, the noodle soup (unfortunately not freshly handmade as usual since they had run out), tofu salad, raw garlic-heavy sweet and sour slaw, fried puffy filled pancakes, and especially the eye-pleasing assorted sweet steamed buns made a way-too-filling, yet well-rounded meal for four happy bellies. 
The service is curt, but it's also a constantly loud, overcrowded, and overwhelmingly steamy work environment. I wonder if things might change in the new, larger space at College and Spadina that's supposed to happen anytime now - the signs say January. I guess we'll find out!
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