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| - If you're walking down Spadina in Chinatown, you can watch them making dumplings from the window. Since I had a huge craving for dumplings, my friend and I decided to stop by.
We started out with the Steamed Shrimp & Pork Dumplings ($6.99 for 15). Unfortunately, like many others have mentioned, I believe these were boiled, rather than steamed. They were served quite wet still and since they were so plump and dense, it was difficult to picking them up with chopsticks. I found the skin to be a little to thick and the filling wasn't anything special.
We wanted to get some pan fried dumplings as well and settled on the Pan Fried Pork & Chive Dumplings ($5.99 for 12). The dumplings were served all connected together with a fried lattice net. I was afraid it'd be really greasy, but they surprisingly weren't. I loved the crispiness and the filling was moist and delicious. Loved this! Maybe we should have ordered the steamed dumplings with this filling instead.
We decided to supplement our dumplings with some Jellyfish - with cucumber and a mild spicy vinegar sauce ($5.99). Honestly, I don't know what we were thinking... this was just a bad idea from the get-go. When it arrived, we knew we had made a big mistake. This brown pile tasted as unappetizing as it looked. I like the crunchy texture of jellyfish, but this one was way too mushy and incredibly sour from the vinegar. It was as if this had been sitting in the marinade for days. Not good at all!
We also ordered some carbs - House Special Noodles - stir-fried noodles with chicken, beef, shrimp in brown sauce ($6.99). I don't know what "brown sauce" means, but it tasted similar to shanghai fried noodles...just not as good. The noodles contained a ton of minced garlic, which normally isn't a bad thing since I love all things garlic, however the amount of garlic was a little excessive as I could taste it in my mouth all through the night.
So lesson learned. If a restaurant name has "dumpling" in it, just stick to the dumplings. Actually, the "steamed" (aka boiled) dumplings weren't even that great. Maybe just stick to the pan fried dumplings...
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