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| - Usually when you see a restaurant that has the word "dumpling", it's usually more traditional, which is what I was thinking.
I'm here in Montreal to meet up with some customer tomorrow morning. Just came in few hours ago, checked in to hotel. Very hungry as it's been a long day. I had researched where Chinatown was, which is about 20min walk, so I was excited to see what they have here. Walking up and down the main alley (forgot the name), there are about 4 blocks of Chinatown with shops, restaurants spilling over on both sides.
Oh Dumplings had a great location as it was in a street corner, well lit, and the best part was that it was one of the few Chinese restaurants here that took credit cards. Since I'm only here for 1 night, I didn't want to hassel with the money exchange. Figured the word Dumplings, it has to be good.
I was traveling by myself. I first wanted some boba tea, but they were all out of bobas? OK, so I start out with the beef noodle soup, which is the basic traditional dish if it's a traditional restaurant. Of course, I had to order an order of dumplings (15 total). Got the beef version and had it pan fried for an extra $1.50.
Food came about 10min later. First off was the dumplings. What I thought was the hot spicy oil was actually the Chinese bbq sauce. Asked the waiter for some hot sauce and he brought back this red plastic catchup bottle where you squeeze the sauce out. As expected, it was this light paste that didn't have much flavor or heat. Quite disappointing given a good dumpling house or any good Chinese restaurant ought to have the traditional hot oil sauce.
Back to the dumplings. I do have to say they were well made and quite tasty and juicy. The bottom were well fried just enough and the top were well done (sometime, the top may not be well cooked at some other restaurants I've been in the past). As you bite into it, it had plenty of flavor on its own and it was very juicy, but I just wanted some extra hot sauce to go with it. Oh well.
Shortly after, waiter brought the beef noodle soup. Now, I was born in Taiwan, and have since been back few times. I've also eaten beef noodle soups all over Asia and US as I do my fair share of travel. This is the first that I've seen where they added shredded cucumbers. Now, there are certain noodle dishes that do taste better with it, but the hot beef noodle soup is not one of them. Also, it had shredded salty turnips, which was also a first. The beef was very tender, but it lacked the traditional taste which should be darker broth as this is very light. The main ingredient should have 5 spices and aniseed, but this has none. Then there is the noodle. They have the yellow egg noodles, which again is the wrong type. Don't get me wrong as the taste was OK, it's just not what I had expected on ordering a beef noodle soup from a restaurant that specialized in dumplings. I would think they would have hand made the noodles or something.
Overall, it was a bit of disappointment as no boba tea, and so so beef noodle soup. If you're there just for the dumplings, it's probably more like a 4 stars, but when you add up everything else, or what I had experienced, 3 stars is very generous.
I will be back in a few months, but will likely try some other restaurants. Perhaps next time, I'll just exchange some CAD so that I'll have some cash to eat at the real hole in the wall for something more authentic.
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