Doesn’t that name just… strike fear in your heart? It kind of makes my stomach turn. Just a little bit though. Not so much I couldn’t eat a few more…
Originally, I was going to split this into three posts, because even in a singular post, I’m pretty damn verbose. But I decided that to properly display the very gross behavior I committed on the actual day of my birthday, I would share everything I had for lunch in one post. (Dinner will still be a separate post. What, you thought I skipped dinner just because I stuffed my fat face for lunch? AS IF!)
As I mentioned in the first Birthday Week post, I took the entire week off. Monday, October 27, was my actual birthday, and I started it off right, by sleeping in and enjoying my morning, lounging in bed with my adorable doggie, just enjoying my vacation, thinking lunch would be a spontaneous affair.
But the seeds of that fateful birthday lunch had been planted a year ago, and then more seeds planted in January.
My brother, who adores his baby sister (that’s me!) way more than he’d care to admit, wrote about this place a year ago. I was intrigued, but not enough that I went immediately. Then he wrote about this place, which again piqued my interest, but not desperately so. See, I have this big thing against Flushing: it’s too damn crowded. I hate having to fight through the crowds of people, I hate people touching me as they push and shove their way to the best groceries… I just hate it. It’s rare you’ll find me in Flushing on weekends, when it’s so crowded you can barely move.
I told my brother a few times, “Take me. Take me. Take me on a weekday when it’s not so crowded. I want dumplings. Stop going without me. TAKE ME I WANT DUMPLINGS NOM NOM NOM.” He agreed but then asked the all important question when are you free to go??? So. It didn’t happen.
Then I read that Robyn had gone and had the same dumplings and my quest was renewed. “Big brudda… I can haz dump-wings???” I whined.
Magically, our schedules found a coinciding spot and latched on. FeistyMom was enlisted to bridge the language barrier (my Chinese is laughable at best; he said he hasn’t gone to these places without someone whose Chinese is superb; plus it’s FeistyMom! Who doesn’t love eating with FeistyMom? SHE PAYS. Just kidding – it’s really because she’s nearly always game to eat more, which is really terrifying.)
Let us begin: The Dumpling Tour. And, like Gilligan before us, it was indeed a three [and a half] hour tour…
We started off at the dumpling booth in the upstairs back of Flushing Mall, near Banzai (which has loads of bento gear, if you’re interested, though the prices aren’t the greatest). I’d actually tried to find this place – despite being pretty full – the last time I’d been in the area, but hadn’t realized it was upstairs, away from the food court downstairs.
I had initially wondered why it was called Chinese-Korean Noodles & Dumpling, but once our order arrived, it was easy to tell:
Well, maybe not so much in this picture, but my impression was that they tasted like mandoo on the outside – Korean dumplings – but the innards were definitely Chinese, with Napa cabbage, pork, etc. – typical Chinese dumpling fillings and seasonings. The dough was thick, like mandoo from Mandoo Bar, and chewy, doughy, heavy, while the insides smacked of that deliciously juicy pork dumplings filling – like the frozen dumplings I buy that are handmade by some lady in Brooklyn who sells to local NYC supermarkets. Yum!
Teh yumz! Funny: my mom sat down and said, in English, “Four kinds,” and pointed at the plate. So I began poking around, trying to get one of each kind but unable to tell the different amongst the 18, but after a few minutes of staring at me, my brother finally told me, “THAT MEANS THE INSIDES HAVE 4 INGREDIENTS NOT THERE ARE 4 KINDS OF DUMPLINGS STOP POKING AT ALL THE DUMPLINGS!!!” Oops! Teehee?
Accompanying each order of dumplings is a plate of crunchy spicy cole slaw. It’s like kimchi before it’s softened or something, I don’t know, I didn’t find it too spicy for me, and ate this happily with the dumplings and alone.
You also get a bowl of dipping sauce for the dumplings, of course; this was slightly spicy but pleasantly so, a good foil to the juicy dumplings. I really liked these dumplings.
After we’d finished our order – not sure how many FeistyMom ate, but she stopped after a few and said “You guys finish,” which meant my brother and I probably each had more than 6, knowing full well we had, um, a few more places to go… hehe. And yes, FeistyMom was totally game, knowing that we wanted to hit more places – we wandered around Banzai for a little bit where I laughed at the prices for all the bento gear. They had a lot of items I already have and purchased at Daiso in California for $1.50 a piece… going for $4 and more. Blegh.
Then we walked out of Flushing Mall, a half block away, to…
White Bear, a Shanghainese dumpling place a mutual friend of my brother’s and I had recommended. I wasn’t sure what to expect; the place is little more than 3 tables inside where people eat quickly and leave.
I think we ordered #23, dumpling with hot sauce. I’m not sure; it all went down in Mandarin and happened so fast, I had trouble keeping up (my Cantonese is near-laughable; my Mandarin is a straight-up JOKE). I’ll have to check with FeistyMom, though during lunch this conversation did take place:
Brother: I never go to these places without Mom because I can’t speak Mandarin.
Me: I make it up. What’s the worst that happens? They laugh at me? It’s not that hard.
Brother: What do you mean you make it up?
Me: I just take the words I want to say in Cantonese, twist my tongue a little, and then say then all snooty and proper-like, and that’s usually what it’s like in Mandarin.
Brother: Shut UP.
Me: Mom?
FeistyMom: *nodding* Well, yeah, kind of.
Me: Like these dumplings. If I want them not spicy, I say BU LA! BU LA!
Brother: WhatEVER yo, I’m not saying that!
Me: I’m serious!
FeistyMom: *cracking up* She’s right! She’s right! They’ll understand, that’s what I do when I speak Mandarin anyway (this is a total lie, her Mandarin isn’t the greatest but it’s way better than my crack-Mandarin…)
Okay, maybe it’s funnier if you were there, or understood the basics of Cantonese or Mandarin… it was pretty funny to me though, I almost spit up my dumplings.
***I checked with my friend’s Mandarin-speaking boyfriend, who told me that what I was saying sounded retarded. I insist that they will still serve me the right way! but requested the proper way to say “not spicy” and I was only missing one word, which, if I’d been thinking more clearly, sure, I’d have thought of it: “Bu yao la” . Oh close enough π
Glorious looking, aren’t they? I thought they might be spicy judging by the redness of the oil splashed on top and across them, but as I picked one up, it just smelled fragrant, not painful or spicy.
Yummy! If your observation skills are particularly astute, you might notice that I don’t even hold chopsticks the “right” way (in fact, I meet a lot of non-Asian people who use chopsticks properly while I simply do not, I’m such a “bad Chinese”-American person…). But these dumplings? Were OUT OF THIS WORLD. I was cramming them into my mouth helterskelter… Not to say that the first place was bad, but where those had been thick skinned and doughy, these had a thin skin that was soft, succulent, yielding easily to your teeth with no chew whatsoever – though not mushy, just cooked exactly right, revealing their wonderfully flavored insides as a juicy nugget of pork well seasoned. YUM. MEE. I was sad to have to leave for our next destination…
**Sorry for the terrible picture of the outside, I was trying not to get hit by any cars while taking this pic.
CHML H.K., Inc. is literally just a few steps away from White Bear, on the corner of the same block. My brother told me these were the best wontons you can get in NYC. I’m not a huge wonton fan, to be honest, though I enjoy them on occasion, it’s not my favorite kind of “dumpling” (using the word dumpling here to mean loosely “stuff (usually ground meat with seasonings) inside a dough of some sort that can be steamed, boiled, pan fried, or some combination of those methods of cooking to create deliciousness”). But my brother said it was good stuff, and there were other items on the menu for great satisfaction, so I trooped onward. That menu, in detail:
I’m not sure why the restaurant chose to dedicate a section to “The Conservatives” but none for The Liberals…
Big brudda said he’d eaten nearly everything on the menu, so he basically ordered for us, though I got final say in my actual dish (yes, I still had room to order a dish, even though I didn’t finish it)…
We started off with the fried fish cake (third menu page, top left item). I was not fan of these, even though I love fish balls, fish paste cakes, all sorts of fish in general. After eating two (to make sure!), I determined that there is a vegetable/herb in there that I really don’t like, it rubs my tongue the wrong way and I can’t stand eating it in anything. I wish I could tell you what it is, since my obvious answers (I used to hate scallions, cilantro, and parsley, but now I eat them all and cook with them frequently) are all null. Maybe my brother will speak up? (I was too busy eating to take good notes.)
Our next “appetizer” was the fried dumplings. In my brother’s initial review of the place, he described these as deep fried Xiao Lung Bao; containing juicy soup within its fried exterior. I was extremely excited to try something like that, but either his description was way off the ball or our dumplings that day did not fall into that realm. Sure, they were good – fried dumplings, did you not read that? – but fried Xiao Lung Bao they were not. Juicy on the inside, and quite yummy, I found these on par with the “wo tip” (whose English name I have never known) that you can get for 4/$1 (it used to be 5/$1, when I was a kid; oh sadness, inflation!) from the hole in the wall diagonally across the street from the lone Starbucks in Flushing, except with slightly thinner skin, which makes these a WIN for me. (Though I’ll be honest, I’ll take the extra money and keep it in my pocket, just buy the ones from the hole in the wall, and you’ll only need 8 for a full meal; the thicker skin will fill you up in no time, especially if, like me, you usually drink water with your meals. Haha)
You only get one shot to photograph FeistyMom’s food before she digs in… hah. FeistyMom opted for the Dumpling Trio (2nd page of the menu, bottom middle section, middle choice). I know she liked it as she ate it quite quickly (and my brother’s taken her there before, so she knew what to expect).
As for my brother, he chose the Wonton Soup, which is just shrimp wontons in broth. I know he was a bit surprised that there were no veggies in it (like my mother’s bowl, above), but he liked it all the same.
As for me? I ordered the Dumpling Trio Lo Mein (HK Style), which is a bowl of egg noodles topped with veggies and 9 dumplings, tossed with ho yau (aka oyster sauce), served with a side of broth. Yes – it’s technically a “dry” dish. I once again proved to my family just how “odd” I am; I began eating and as is my usual practice with this style (HK style) of lo mein, I poured some of the broth over the top. My brother yelled out “What are you doing?! You’re defeating the purpose of ordering it HK Style!!!”
My reasoning is that the noodles, when “dry”, tend to stick together a bit. The addition of a little broth loosens it up, and the ho yau tends to be a little too salty for me, so I add the broth also to temper that out a bit. My mom, sensing my frustration or perhaps agreeing with my casual disregard for how things are “meant” to be eaten, told him, in Cantonese, “So what, let her, if that’s how she enjoys eating it, who cares?”
Which is exactly how I feel about food in general – it’s meant to be enjoyed, and if someone enjoys dousing $300/ounce caviar in baked beans, well, who am I to stop him/her (unless that was my caviar, in which case, I will knock a few heads together)? So I continued to add broth to my lo mein and enjoyed it thoroughly (though I did wind up taking half home, because I was that freakin’ stuffed).
As for the wontons – tasty, but meh, I much preferred the White Bear dumplings to these, or even the Chinese-Korean dumplings to these. It might sound counterintuitive, but I found the innards on these to be not as juicy as the other two places. The overall dish was good, but nothing wow’d me, but that might be due in part to me not being a huge wonton mein fan.
Or because before we started eating, I’d had about 12 dumplings from 2 other places and some fish cakes and… other… food…
Next post… dinner. Yes, dinner – a late dinner, to be sure, eaten around 8 pm, but we still had dinner despite having eaten lunch at 3 restaurants over the course of 3.5 hours… *holds stomach and groans*
To be honest, though, writing this post is making me hungry for dumplings all over again π
Chinese-Korean Noodles & Dumpling
Flushing Mall
133-31 39th Avenue, Unit M38
Flushing, NY 11354
(2nd floor all the way in the back, to the right)
White Bear
135-02 Roosevelt Avenue
Flushing, New York 11354
CHML H.K. Inc.
40-09 Prince Street
Flushing, NY 11354
hnahk says
i *heart* white bear. i hope your post doesn’t bring the crowds π it’s already hard enough tryin to grab a seat in there. my mandarin sucks but i usually order by # hahhahaa. my only real trouble is when it’s time to pay…it takes me a while to convert the numbers in my head. you MUST also try the dumplings in soup…it’s delish with the little shrimps and radishes? in the broth. and the *dam dam mein*…might be too spicy for you but ohhhh soooo good
soopling says
Man, this post was just cruel. Feasting on dumplings while I must get by with frozen, non-Asian supermarket dumplingsβ¦.
Hungry Biatch says
Dear Bi…errrr… Fiesty Foodie.
Your title, Opinionated Food Critic, makes me wonder: Isn’t a critic, by definition, opinionated? Or are you different?
Best Regards,
Cupcake
Gar says
White Bear also sell frozen dumplings. A bit pricey, but like you it, their “stuff” is one of a kind, that’s why they’ve been there fo so long. Glad you had a nice tour.
Draven Sin says
We ordered number 6, wontons in hot sauce at white bear.
I never said CHML was the best wontons in NYC, i said they were the best in FLUSHING.
and yes, you’re comparing three different ethnic foods…well the first is a fusion. white bear is szechuan from my understanding, and chml is cantonese.
the dumplings at CKND in the mall are always consistent.
I’ve been to white bear with mom a couple more times and got the jah jeung mein and the dom dom mein (with 20 wontons in hotsauce each time), and they are really good and i can say that they are consistent.
chml has never really been consistent. if you look at my first review, the wontons pictured are huge, now current pictures are otherwise. Also we didn’t order the right fried dumplings. the ones Mon ordered the first time i went are not on the menu (have never been on the menu).
And i can’t stand it when someone says dumb ass shit and remains anonymous, such a fucking chicken shit.
SkippyMom says
Okay, Okay..I owe you barter.
giggle…I love me some feisty Momma! And your brother is too neat! You guys crack me up.
I have NO idea how you stay so slim with this diet girlie…how do you do?
Oh, and we need to talk about the whole birthday thingy…cause, I missed it [wasn’t back blogging yet] and you will never believe WHO’S birthday [in my lil’ world] you share.
All’s I can say…I was shocked and uh…I love you for a reason π
you are SO gonna laugh.
SkippyMom says
Is it who’s or whose?….wondering.
Oh and it is actually 4:40 am and I DID just make fried rice for the teenager’s bento.
Can I be you? sigh….heehee
John says
You know if you go to that Flushing Mall area on weekends, it is generally not super packed like how Main St. is. You can actually walk with your arms stretched out if you like. lol!
Anonymous says
Wo tip = Pot Stickers
Lisa says
oh man, I will have to come back to this post after dinner! My mouth is drooling!