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| - I was craving dumplings and my favourite dumpling place Jiayuan Dumpling House is in Lethbridge and living only blocks away from Oriental Dumpling I decided to give it a try. I ordered the DP3 which is a dozen pork, chinese chives and shrimp dumplings and A7 the taiwanese fried chicken. The service was not the best, I was shown to a table, left with the menus and basically ignored as the server went about cleaning and clearing tables. I set my menus down closed and waited for a good 8 minutes until I finally called out to him that I was ready to order. He had walked past me several times during this time. I was given a pair of chopsticks and a saucer (yes the bottom plate of what a teacup usually sits on) as the plate from which I was to eat the dumplings. The dumplings arrived fairly timely and looked boring, which in itself is not surprising, boiled dumplings look like boiled dumplings but I was hungry so I happily bit into one. If you have tried the dumplings in Lethbridge then I would say don't bother with the ones here as they will be a great disappointment. The dough is not quite the right texture, a bit too pasty and the filling bland and ffavourless. There was a bottle of vinegar and a bottle of soya sauce as well as some house made hot oil. I made a concoction of half vinegar half soy sauce and some hot oil. I dipped the dumpling into the sauce and sad to say when it comes to dumplings your sauce can be a saving grace but in this case the vinegar was a cheap dark variety with a harsh flavour which did nothing to improve the taste of the dumplings. Vinegar and dumplings go together so if you're not going to bother in investing in one half of the dish then it's a rough start from the get-go. The taiwanese fried chicken wasn't too bad, nice and crisp on the outside and very tender and moist on the inside, however it too was under-seasoned. The bubble teas that were served around me looked like it is what this place does well, as well as the chicken wings that some of my neighbours were having. I, unfortunately, had neither bubble tea nor wings. Dumplings is part of the name of the restaurant so that's what I went for. Based on the taiwanese chicken the cook obviously has good technique so I might give it another shot to try something else. There were some interestingly named Szechuan dishes on a small menu in one of those small plastic display things that apparently are new additions but I generally try what I think are the mainstay of a place to judge its merit. The other server came around after and he seemed extremely friendly and efficient. Maybe it's growing pains, it is a new restaurant and other people have said service and the fried dumplings are good so maybe it was just an off-night. I generally will give a place a 2nd try unless my first one was a real disaster so we'll see in a few months if I change my tune.
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